Encounter with the giant monkey
The encounter with the giant monkey stands as the most physically perilous and psychologically degrading ordeal Gulliver endures in Brobdingnag. While Glumdalclitch was away on business, the weather being warm, she had locked Gulliver in her closet and left the window open. A monkey belonging to one of the kitchen clerks bounced in through the window and began frisking and leaping about the room. The creature soon discovered Gulliver's larger travelling box, which he usually lived in because of its size and convenience, and peered in at the door and every window with great pleasure and curiosity.
The Monkey's Capture and Gulliver's Helplessness
Gulliver retreated to the farthest corner of his box, but the monkey, after peeping, grinning, and chattering, reached one of his paws in at the door, as a cat does when playing with a mouse. Though Gulliver shifted his position repeatedly to avoid capture, the monkey at length seized the lappet of his coat—made of thick, strong Brobdingnag silk—and dragged him out. The monkey took Gulliver in his right fore-foot and held him as a nurse holds a child, exactly as Gulliver had seen the same sort of creature do with a kitten in Europe. When Gulliver struggled, the monkey squeezed him so hard that he thought it more prudent to submit. He had good reason to believe the monkey took him for a young one of its own species, for it often stroked his face very gently with its other paw.
The Court in Uproar
The monkey's diversions were interrupted by a noise at the closet door, as if someone were opening it. The creature suddenly leaped up to the window by which it had entered, then onto the leads and gutters, walking on three legs and holding Gulliver in the fourth, until it clambered up to a roof next to the palace. Glumdalclitch gave a shriek the moment the monkey carried him out; the poor girl was almost distracted. That quarter of the palace fell into an uproar: servants ran for ladders, and hundreds of people in the court saw the monkey sitting on the ridge of a building, holding Gulliver like a baby in one of its fore-paws. Many of the rabble below could not forbear laughing, and Gulliver himself admitted the sight was ridiculous enough to everyone but himself. Some people threw up stones, hoping to drive the monkey down, but this was strictly forbidden, or else Gulliver's brains would very probably have been dashed out.
Rescue and Aftermath
Ladders were applied and mounted by several men. The monkey, observing itself almost encompassed and unable to make speed enough on three legs, let Gulliver drop onto a ridge tile and escaped. Gulliver sat there for some time, five hundred yards from the ground, expecting every moment to be blown down by the wind or to fall by his own giddiness and tumble from the ridge to the eaves. An honest lad, one of his nurse's footmen, climbed up, put Gulliver into his breeches-pocket, and brought him down safe. Gulliver was so weak and bruised in the sides from the squeezes given him by the odious animal that he was forced to keep his bed for a fortnight. The king, queen, and all the court sent every day to inquire after his health, and the queen made him several visits during his sickness. The monkey was killed, and an order was made that no such animal should be kept about the palace.
The King's Mockery and Gulliver's Vain Boast
When Gulliver attended the king after his recovery to return thanks for his favors, the king rallied him a good deal upon this adventure. He asked what Gulliver's thoughts and speculations were while he lay in the monkey's paw, and what he would have done upon such an occasion in his own country. Gulliver told his majesty that in Europe they had no monkeys except such as were brought for curiosities from other places, and those were so small that he could deal with a dozen of them together if they presumed to attack him. As for the monstrous animal with which he had been engaged—it was, indeed, as large as an elephant—Gulliver declared, looking fiercely and clapping his hand upon the hilt of his hanger, that if his fears had suffered him to think so far as to make use of his weapon when the monkey poked its paw into his chamber, perhaps he would have given it such a wound as would have made it glad to withdraw its paw with more haste than it put it in. This speech, delivered in a firm tone like a person jealous lest his courage be called in question, produced nothing but loud laughter, which all the respect due to his majesty from those about him could not make them contain. The incident forced Gulliver to reflect how vain an attempt it is for a man to endeavor to do himself honor among those who are out of all degree of equality or comparison with him.
