Peplom selan

Peplom selan is a Lilliputian phrase that functions as a collective shout of acclamation, wonder, and approval, first recorded during the earliest hours of Gulliver's captivity in Lilliput. It appears as a recurring vocal marker of the Lilliputians' astonishment at Gulliver's prodigious size and actions, and its use across different contexts reveals the emotional and social dynamics of the Lilliputian response to the Man-mountain.

First Occurrence and Context

The phrase Peplom selan is first heard immediately after Gulliver, having been bound by the Lilliputians, consumes two hogsheads of their wine in a single draught. The Lilliputians, who had been supplying him with baskets of meat and barrels of drink, respond to this feat with a universal shout of Peplom selan, repeating the words several times as they had earlier done with Hekinah degul. This initial utterance occurs in a moment of collective relief and celebration: the Lilliputians had just witnessed Gulliver's immense appetite and his ability to drain their largest hogsheads, and their shout signifies both wonder at his capacity and a kind of communal acknowledgment that their provision of food and drink has been successful. The phrase thus enters the narrative as a vocal expression of the Lilliputians' astonishment at the physical scale and needs of the Man-mountain.

Subsequent Use and Meaning

After the initial shout, Peplom selan is repeated in a different but related context. When the Lilliputians have relaxed the cords binding Gulliver's left side, allowing him to turn onto his right for relief, they daub his face and hands with a pleasant-smelling ointment that removes the smart of their arrows, and then administer a sleepy potion in the wine. At this point, a general shout of Peplom selan is heard again, accompanied by frequent repetitions of the words. Here the phrase marks a transition from tension to accommodation: the Lilliputians have moved from treating Gulliver as a dangerous captive to providing him with comfort and nourishment, and their shout signals a collective approval of this new phase of their relationship with him. The phrase thus becomes associated with moments when the Lilliputians express satisfaction with the course of events, whether it be Gulliver's compliance, their own successful management of him, or the resolution of a potentially dangerous situation.

Thematic Significance

Peplom selan, like other Lilliputian phrases such as Hekinah degul and Tolgo phonac, belongs to a small vocabulary of exclamations that Swift uses to create a sense of a foreign language while simultaneously conveying the emotional tenor of the Lilliputian response to Gulliver. The phrase is never explicitly translated in the text, but its context makes its meaning clear: it is a shout of acclamation, wonder, and approval. Its recurrence at key moments—after Gulliver's feeding, after his sedation, and presumably in other contexts of collective Lilliputian response—establishes it as a ritualized expression of communal sentiment. The phrase thus serves as a linguistic marker of the Lilliputians' collective psychology, revealing how they process the extraordinary presence of the Man-mountain through shared vocal rituals. In the broader structure of Gulliver's Travels, Peplom selan contributes to the verisimilitude of the Lilliputian world, giving it a distinct linguistic texture that reinforces the illusion of a fully realized miniature civilization with its own customs, including those of public acclamation.