Gulliver in Lilliput

Author’s Preface

The general preface to the parts expunged from the printed accounts of my travels is at the start of the section entitled ‘Brobdingnag Chapter One’ and I consider it superfluous to reiterate it here.

The reader of my published account of my sojourn in Lilliput may have been puzzled by the vindictiveness of the empress of that realm on the occasion of my extinguishing the conflagration in her apartments.

This hitherto suppressed incident, that is the only part of the relation of my stay in Lilliput that I was advised to withhold, may provide a more balanced view of the empress’s distaste for me. All I can say in my defence is that the offence committed was involuntary and was largely caused by the empress’s own acts. That it was her own fault would of course only inflame her rancour toward me. The incident of the conflagration reminded her, and in her eyes much the worse offence, the general populace, about the events of Ladies’ Day.

Jonathan Swift

Chapter One and Only

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The custom of Ladies’ Day in Lilliput. The empress pays a midnight visit. The toast to the empress. The result of the toast. The preparations for the whores. The actions of the naked women. The displacement of the staging. My sperm try to fulfil their function. The empress is not amused.

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Ladies’ Day in Lilliput seems to me to have similarities to the ancient Romans’ celebration of Saturnalia. The Romans let servants rule their masters and indulge in unrestrained horseplay. The Lilliputians let women rule their men on Ladies’ Day. Common to both festivals was the understanding that any act committed by the unusually privileged group could not be redressed on days after the festival.

Whether the understanding was strictly observed, either by Roman masters or Lilliputian men, was something that gives me considerable misgivings. That there was licence is undisputed. That the licence was wholly unfettered and without consequence in the rest of the year: that I doubt. I think the Roman slaves and the Lilliputian women understood very well that there were things they could do that were beyond normal behaviour; and things they could not and should not do for fear of retaliation when the normal customs were resumed.

A Lilliputian lady could propose matrimony to a gentleman on Ladies’ Day. If he accepted the betrothal would proceed in due form. If he refused he was required to buy the lady a gown. The cost of the gown depended on his status. A poor man might buy the lady a second hand gown. A rich man would be expected to provide the lady with a silken gown designed by a fashionable dressmaker. Some ladies of advancing years were to be avoided on Ladies’ Day as they saw it as an opportunity of replenishing their wardrobe. No lady could make two proposals on Ladies’ Day and retain the title of lady. No lady could propose to a gentleman to whom she had not been introduced. Some eligible bachelors spent the day immured in their wine cellars so that they would not be obliged to buy a gown. Such behaviour was considered prudent if unsportsmanlike.

I was interested to observe the customs of Lilliput and to compare them with those of my own country. The advent of Ladies’ Day seemed to be an occasion to observe the reality of the event as opposed to the fables that I had been related.

However I was startled awake by the sounding of a tocsin adjacent to my ear shortly after midnight. I was informed by a loud voiced lady standing on a dais that the empress was without and wished to pledge my health on this day devoted to Ladies. Hurriedly fastening my points I left my dwelling and moved cautiously outside. This was at a time when I was still secured by chain in the vicinity of the temple.

The empress was standing on a platform erected just beyond my reach. The area before the temple was illuminated with numerous torches, the smoke of which made my eyes smart. The empress signed that she wished me to lie down which command I obeyed. The empress then, through the agency of the loud voiced lady who had delivered her invitation, that I should join her in a toast of mutual health on the start of this auspicious day. A team of twenty horses dragged forward a waggon on which was a container equating to an English half-pint measure.

I sat up, lifted the container from the waggon and pledged the empress desiring the loud voiced lady to convey my salutations and greetings. I then emptied the container at one draught. This prodigious act caused much twittering among the assembled ladies. The empress returned my pledge in a container of minuscule size. As she did so the smoke thinned enough for me to become aware that I was surrounded by a vast crowd of gaily-dressed ladies. It appeared that almost the entire female populace of the capital was assembled to greet me.

The loud voiced lady delivered her majesty’s request that I should resume a recumbent position so that conversation could take place between myself and the empress directly without need for an announcer. I placed myself again on the ground, flat on my back with my head turned to the platform on which the empress stood. It was not conveniently sited because it was placed near my waist. I had to crane my head forward to see Her Majesty.

She began to tell me, in a loud but monotonous voice, various incidents of past Ladies’ Days. Compared with the fables I had previously heard these incidents seemed to be accounts of boring minutiae. I regret that I soon felt sleepy and nodded off while Her Majesty continued to drone.

Had I been aware at that time that I had fallen asleep while Her Majesty was speaking to me I would have been mortified. I now know that the drink prepared for me had been drugged and Her Majesty’s boring address was intended to distract me while the sleeping draught took effect.

I awoke just after dawn to find that I was secured on my back as I had been on the occasion of my first arrival in Lilliput. I seemed uncomfortably chilly below my waist and was astounded to become aware that my private parts were exposed to the air. With prodigious effort of women and horses my head was being inclined forward. I saved them much labour by resting my chin on my chest. Pillows were dragged by their hundreds to prop my head in this position from whence I could observe the preparations below my waist.

Surrounding my recumbent member a net, raised on many poles, had been strung parallel to the ground to a diameter of about two feet and the extremities extended beyond the sides of my body. At each side were ladders for mounting to the net. In the centre of the net an open topped conical structure, incomplete on the side where my member flopped, raised to a height of a foot from my body. Planking was being fitted at two levels inside the cone.

I became aware that the loud voiced lady was speaking to me. Shaking my head slightly and thus incommoding those who were still piling mountains of pillows under my head, I indicated that I needed her to repeat her remarks.

She informed me that since it was Ladies’ Day, the ladies of the capital wished a demonstration of my fertilising power. At first I did not follow her meaning. She explained in more explicit language. The ladies wanted to see my member not only fully erect but to witness the discharge of semen from it. They expected that this would be an occasion to tell to their grandchildren.

I expressed my extreme repugnance and horror at becoming so public a spectacle. The empress reminded me, through her messenger, that a gentleman could not decline a lady’s request on Ladies’ Day no matter how absurd he might find the request. This was not a request. It was a command and she pointed out in strong terminology that I was in no position to refuse.

I accepted that this was true but privately vowed that I would not let myself be aroused, no matter what the ladies of Lilliput could do. Unfortunately where a gentleman’s penis is concerned, what he wills is not always what the penis does. So it was to prove on Ladies’ Day.

Since I was unable to resist the continuation of the preparations I tried to divert my mind away from subjects that could possibly be arousing. I was contemplating the square on the hypotenuse and its application to celestial navigation when I became aware of a number of ladies assembling on my chest. Some musicians struck up a dance tune and the ladies began to pirouette slowly. Their movements became synchronised with the music and they commenced what I can only describe as a skirt dance. Each lady had loose flowing skirts that they manipulated in time with the rhythm. I become uncomfortably aware of flashes of tiny female legs as the skirts revealed and concealed them.

The musicians started another dance, a livelier one akin to the Italian tarantella. The dancers’ movements included several fast turns that flared their skirts almost horizontal to the ground as they span. My eyes opened wide as I realised that the dancers wore neither petticoats nor panties. As the skirts fluttered I saw their private parts clearly.

I tried to remind myself that these ladies were minuscule but failed. The effect was as if I was seeing ladies of normal dimensions at a distance with their size reduced by the effect of perspective. I found myself concentrating on the movements of one particular red-haired dancer. The hair on her head lashed furiously as her head whipped around. Her flying skirt confirmed that she was indeed a natural redhead.

A sudden cheer from the assembled crowd of ladies shocked me. They had observed my member rise from its recumbent position. When I knew the cause of the cheer I was embarrassed and my member became flaccid again to the sound of a groan in unison.

Unfortunately for me, the redheaded dancer and her companions had noticed my particular attention on her activities. The troupe parted to allow her to approach me directly. She danced with passion in my full view. Two of her fellow dancers swung her in the air to reveal the full glory of her lower hair. She ended the dance by running up my face and straddling my nose with her skirt spread over my nostrils. I felt the skirt billow inwards as I breathed and her perfume filled my brain. It was a delicate scent mixed with her own bodily odours. It was intoxicating and she was delighted with the effect that she had induced in me.

Two of the other dancers climbed to my cheeks and displayed their nether regions directly in front of my eyes. While I am slightly short sighted even I could not focus on their attractions at that distance. I flinched as something touched my now erect member. The dancers held their skirts out so that I could not see past them. I groaned as skin was pressed against my erection. I seemed to be sheathed, not in a vagina, for such a vagina could not exist in Lilliput, but certainly in warm naked skin.

The dancers withdrew, with the redheaded one flicking her skirt up at the rear as if to remind me of the delights hitherto revealed, to permit me to observe what was being done to my erection.

I looked down. The structure around my erection had been completed. A dozen naked women standing on the two levels of platform surrounded my penis. They had linked arms and were pressing their bodies directly on me. They started a chant, very similar to the sea shanties used by sailors, to co-ordinate their movements. They bent their knees together dragging their bodies down my erection and pressing harder inwards; then they straightened their knees and relaxed their grip. As this motion was continued I knew that their efforts would achieve their object. Whoever had devised this acrobatic activity had done it well.

Will I, nil I, sooner or later the naked ladies’ exercises would produce the desired result. I would reach a climax. I looked down at the attractive ladies exerting themselves. There was a change. Another lady had climbed to the top of the scaffolding and had placed herself about an inch above the engorged tip of my penis. She was wearing a transparent hooped skirt that surrounded my tip. Underneath the skirt she was wearing heavily padded knickers that were reminiscent of the puffed breeches worn by Elizabethan gentlemen.

Later I was told that the intention had been to see whether my emission would project the lady through the air. The netting surrounding the scaffolding had been placed to catch her at the end of her flight. She had been selected for her daring and she expected to the dominion’s first semen propelled aerialist.

I tried very hard to resist the ministrations of the ladies working in unison to excite me but the image of the redheaded dancer kept obtruding into my thoughts. The dancer herself continued to display her skills on my chest with abandon.

I felt that the result of their efforts would be met with success in a few seconds and all my consciousness was on the massage that I was receiving. Just before the final moment and at a point at which my member was totally beyond my control the scaffolding around my penis partially collapsed. The structure tilted sideways throwing the prospective aerialist wide. She landed safely in the netting, as did the ladies on the lee side of the structure.

My penis had been deflected from its position just at the point when the climax occurred. My emission was sprayed to the side of my body in a large arc. Unfortunately for my future, the Empress and the noblest ladies of her realm occupied the end of the arc.

If you can imagine a large bucket full of warm, strong smelling, fish-glue suddenly dashed into your face then you have some idea of what I had inflicted on the Empress. The other members of her entourage were bespattered by spray from the impact on her highness. She had been knocked off her feet and her legs were waving in the air.

If that had been the only indignity she suffered that would have been offence enough for her to have an antipathy for me. However there were far worse assaults upon the Empress.

To normal eyes spermatozoa are invisible. To Lilliputian eyes my spermatozoa were visible much as large tadpoles would be to us. So to the image of a bucket of warm fish glue you must add a host of wriggling objects like an angler’s maggots.

My spermatozoa compounded their assault on the Empress with further attacks. They followed their natural inclination to seek a warm wet place and many insinuated themselves between the clothing and skin of the Empress and her ladies. She screamed in a high-pitched voice and tore off her clothing. Around her the noble ladies were also screaming and stripping with alacrity.

This nakedness was far different from that of those women who had manipulated me. The manipulators were paid professional whores contracted to perform. I doubt whether anyone except the Empress’s personal maid had ever seen her wholly naked. Now she was revealed to almost the whole female population of the capital of Lilliput. Such a display could foster republican sympathies because it became apparent that underneath her finery the Empress was a woman like any other and not as well formed as some. She was plain of body compared to the whores who had been selected for their attractiveness.

The Empress was writhing convulsively as she attempted to catch and divest herself of the wriggling sperm. One intrepid spermatozoon was only caught a Lilliputian hands-breadth from the Empress’s lower lips. Had he, for a spermatozoon must be a he, succeeded in his object the consequences might have been dire since the Empress was still of childbearing age and had ovulated a couple of days before Ladies’ Day.

The Empress and the ladies of the court withdrew, still naked because their clothing was infested with wriggling spermatozoa, vowing revenge on the inadvertent cause of their distress. Once they were out of earshot the crowd of assembled ladies of lesser status gave me three loud huzzahs.

I was apprehensive of the result of the Empress’s ordeal as was later proven in her animosity recorded in my already published account. Perhaps this additional episode will show that her enmity toward me had a greater cause than the extinguishing of the conflagration at her apartments. I had used the tool that had been the instrument of her previous indignity and reminded many of that earlier occasion.

As an anticlimax the naked whores restored their scaffolding and after a period of some hours I launched the intrepid female aerialist. By the afternoon I had recovered sufficiently for a final feu de joie in an unfettered arc of semen. Both events were appreciated by the waiting assemblage but I feared, rightly, that the occurrences of Ladies’ Day would not be forgotten and that the Empress would not forgive. She did not and her displeasure was the eventual cause of my quitting her realms for Blefuscu.

End of Chapter One and Only.