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Alice lines > Humpty Dumpty Scene 2 > Flashcards

Humpty Dumpty Scene 2 Flashcards

1
Q

Hey you! You at the back!

A

What?

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2
Q

What are you doing there?

A

Me? Nothing. I’m not doing anything.

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3
Q

That’s hardly true, is it? You’re standing, aren’t you? You’re looking. You’re breathing. I’d say you were doing rather a lot.

Don’t answer back! It’s your own time you’re wasting you know. How old did you say you were?

A

I’m twelve.

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4
Q

Wrong! You never said anything of the sort.

A

What?

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5
Q

Try to stay awake.

A

I thought you meant ‘how old are you’?

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6
Q

If I’d meant that, I would have said it, wouldn’t I? Twelve, you say.

A

Twelve and three weeks.

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7
Q

An uncomfortable sort of age. If you’d ask my advice I’d have said ‘leave off at eleven’ but it’s too late now.

A

What d’you mean, ‘leave off’?

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8
Q

Stop. Stop growing.

A

You can’t stop growing.

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9
Q

‘One’ can’t stop growing. Speak properly.

A

OK, one can’t stop growing.

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10
Q

One can’t, but two can. With proper assistance you might have left off at eleven.

It’s all a choice, you know. Young people today- you’re all about feelings- oh dear poor me, I’ve got a terrible life and I’m very upset. Trying being stuck up here talking to reprobates like you, then you’d know what upset is!

A

Get down then.

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11
Q

I beg your pardon?

A

Nothing.

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12
Q

WHAT DID YOU SAY?

A

I said if you don’t like it, why don’t you get down?

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13
Q

If you don’t like it, why don’t you buck your ideas up? Hmmm? What have you got to say to that, Little Miss Backchat?

A

I don’t know what you mean by ‘buck your ideas up’.

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14
Q

Flummery- pure flummery.

What?

A

I don’t know what ‘flummery’ is.

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15
Q

Flummery is that way you have of standing there with your nose in the air as if you thought the world owed you something, as if it was your particular entitlement to live a life free from suffering, and why can’t things just be nice and why doesn’t anyone come and rescue me when they know perfectly well that I’m stuck here and can’t get down!

A

But that’s a huge amount of things for one word to mean, that’s too much.

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16
Q

When I say a word it means exactly what I choose it to mean. I am very good with words. There isn’t a word in the world that I don’t know the meaning of.

A

Oh. You’re a word person!

So maybe you could interpret this-

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17
Q

THE BELL IS FOR ME NOT FOR YOU!

A

What bell?

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18
Q

You- you’re in detention. Stay behind.

A

Um. Right, OK. OK, can I ask you about these words I don’t understand-

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19
Q

Now, what’s going on here, eh? You can talk to me, you know. I’m not an ogre.

A

No, of course. Thank you. I wanted to ask you-

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20
Q

Anything you’d like to tell me about? Someone bullying you? Its OK to tell someone, you know- if you tell someone we can do something about it. Everything alright at home?

A

What?

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21
Q

I’m just wondering what’s making you behave like this. What d’you think the King would say if he knew?

A

The King?

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22
Q

I’m very good friends with the king. Do you know he told me that if I was ever in trouble he’d send all of his horses and all of his men?

A

Oh. Right. I’m supposed to know who you are. I mean gosh, lucky me- to be standing talking to the real Humpty Dumpty.

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23
Q

Oh you knew who I was, did you, when you saw me?

A

You’re famous. I’m sorry, I didn’t like to say at first. I was a bit shy. Not everyone gets to have a poem explained to them by the real-

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24
Q

Yes, I can see it would probably be the most exciting thing that has ever happened to you.

A

The King must be very honoured to know someone as clever as you. I bet he comes and talks to you all the time.

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25
Q

Um, yes, well. He’s a very busy man. But he did give me this.

He gave it to me for an unbirthday present.

A

Um, what’s an unbirthday present?

26
Q

An unbirthday present is a present given to you when it’s not your birthday. Unbirthdays are so much better than birthdays. Do you know why?

A

Um, no.

27
Q

How many days are there in a year?

A

Um. Three hundred and sixty five. And a quarter.

28
Q

And how many birthdays do you have in a year?

A

One.

29
Q

So if you take one from three hundred and sixty five,

A

And a quarter.

30
Q

Don’t get clever. If you can take one from three hundred and sixty five and a quarter, what do you get?

A

Three hundred and sixty four. And a quarter.

Shall I write it down and hand it in?

31
Q

You know, with the amount of paperwork I have to do it’s a wonder I have time to teach anything at all.

A

OK, can you tell me what this poem means?

32
Q

Ah. Poetry. My special pigeon. Read me the first verse.

A

OK. ‘Twas brillig and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe…

33
Q

What words in particular are troubling you?

A

Most of them. I don’t know what brillig means.

34
Q

Brilling is four o’clock in the afternoon- when you begin broiling things for supper.

A

OK. That doesn’t make very much sense, but-

35
Q

Carry on.

A

Slithy?

36
Q

Slithy. That means lithe and slimy. What we call a portmanteau word- two words in one, two meanings packed in the same suitcase.

A

And what are toves?

37
Q

Toves are a little like badgers, something like lizards and quite lot like corkscrews.

A

Ok, gyre and gimble.

38
Q

Gyre is to go round and round like a gyroscope, gimble is to make holes like a gimlet.

A

That doesn’t make sense.

39
Q

It’s not a very good poem.

A

Mimsy?

40
Q

Flimsy and miserable.

A

Borogoves?

41
Q

Thin, shabby looking birds with feathers that stick out all round.

A

Mome raths?

42
Q

Raaths! To rhyme with baaths! Speak properly.

A

Where I come from we say bath.

43
Q

A rath is a sort of pig.

A

Oh, ok, I saw a pig earlier.

44
Q

Mome means from home- as in someone who’s lost their way.

A

Oh, that’s me! I’ve lost my way home.

45
Q

One can only go so far with a conservative structure like that. Most poets of any worth these days have abandoned the rhyme scheme entirely. We like to let our words roam free.

A

Yes, so the next bit says-

46
Q

I said, WE like to let our words roam free.

A

Right. You’re a poet, are you?

47
Q

Oh no, I couldn’t possibly.

A

Sorry?

48
Q

It’s so exposing to read one’s work out loud- it’s a very delicate process.

A

OK, we could just carry on with this then.

49
Q

Well if you insist.

A

No, I don’t insist, really.

50
Q

I can’t bear to disappoint people, you see. But I’m still tinkering with this one, so-

A

OK.

51
Q

It is called ‘Sleeping with the fishes’.

Ahem.

I have slept with the fishes
Oh I Oh I
Down in the murkiest depths
On a dark dark dark dark dark dark dark
Night

Repetition there, I don’t know if you spotted it.

A

Just about.

52
Q

Sing us a story. Oh! Cry the fishes
For we are so scared that the spectre will come
Up on the beach, the beach that is breadcrumbs
The prawns are a-dancing
And laugh with the waves

Anthropomorphism there, of course, since we know waves don’t laugh.

A

Neither do prawns.

53
Q

Then out of the shadows, a-shuffling a-groaning
Shuffling, stumpy
Slow and moaning

Assonance. Slow and moaning.

I’ll sing you a song! Says the terrible spectre
Of earths that have worms in and things that eat eyes
The life underground is not fit to keep rats in
I AM NOT AT PEACE! the spectre cries

The rat, of course, a classic symbol for survival of the human spirit.

Did you catch the reference to Finnegan’s wake back there?

A

Absolutely. Just I’ve really got to-

54
Q

Take thou my hand, and the hands of the fishes
Come with me dancing to infinite death
Oh oh oh oh
Do not let them burn me he cries

A

Thank you, I’ve really got to-

55
Q

I haven’t finished. Nails clawing at the lid of the coffin

A

I think I’ve had enough of poetry now.

56
Q

I AM NOT AT PEACE! he cries
DO NOT BURN ME, I AM NOT AT PEACE!

A

Stop it!

57
Q

Deep. Deep. Deep. Deep.
Sleeping with the fishes
I AM NOT AT PEACE.

A

Stop it now! I mean it.

58
Q

I have never been spoken to like that.

A

Sorry. Sorry, just-

59
Q

You can interpret your own poem, and good luck to you, I say

A

No, I’m sorry. Please can you-

60
Q

THE BELL IS FOR ME NOT FOR YOU! Homework in by Friday please, or there’ll be no jam for anyone. It’s your own life you’re wasting, you know…

A

Yeah, well done, Alice, that’s excellent. He could have explained that whole thing to you, but now you’ve pissed him off and he’s pissed off, gone away. Fat lot of good you turned out to be.

Oh, Ok. Here we go. Hello.

Alice lines (8 decks)

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