Gulliver and the Queen of Brobdingnag

The relationship between Lemuel Gulliver and the Queen of Brobdingnag is the central axis of his life at the Brobdingnag court, transforming him from a purchased commodity into a treasured, though still diminutive, confidant. It is a bond defined by the queen's immediate fascination, her sustained and generous patronage, and her genuine delight in his company, which together provide Gulliver with a measure of safety and comfort he had not known since his arrival in the land of giants. Yet the relationship is also marked by an inescapable asymmetry of power and scale, and by the queen's inability to fully protect him from the physical dangers and humiliations that his littleness invites.

Purchase and First Patronage

The queen first encountered Gulliver when a gentleman-usher from court commanded his master, the farmer, to bring him for her diversion. Upon seeing him, the queen and her attendants were "beyond measure delighted" with his demeanor. Gulliver fell on his knees and begged the honor of kissing her imperial foot; the gracious princess instead held out her little finger, which he embraced in both arms and put the tip to his lip with the utmost respect. She asked if he would be content to live at court, and he humbly answered that he was his master's slave but would be proud to devote his life to her service. The farmer, who believed Gulliver could not live a month, was eager to sell him and demanded a thousand pieces of gold, which were ordered on the spot. Gulliver then begged the queen that Glumdalclitch, who had always attended him with care and kindness, might be admitted into her service to continue as his nurse and instructor. The queen agreed, and the farmer was glad to have his daughter preferred at court. After the farmer withdrew, the queen observed Gulliver's coldness toward him and asked the reason. Gulliver boldly told her that he owed his late master no obligation beyond not dashing out the brains of a poor harmless creature, an obligation amply recompensed by the gain from showing him through half the kingdom and the price he had sold him for. He said the life he had led was laborious enough to kill an animal of ten times his strength, and that his health was much impaired by the continual drudgery of entertaining the rabble. But, he added, he was out of all fear of being ill-treated under the protection of so great and good an empress, and he already found his spirits reviving by the influence of her most august presence. The queen, making allowance for his defective speech, was surprised at so much wit and good sense in so diminutive an animal.

Daily Life and Intimacy at Court

The queen became so fond of Gulliver's company that she could not dine without him. A table was placed on the same board at which her majesty ate, just at her left elbow, with a chair for him to sit on. Glumdalclitch stood on a stool on the floor near his table to assist and take care of him. Gulliver had an entire set of silver dishes and plates, which his little nurse kept in her pocket in a silver box and gave him at meals as he wanted them. The queen's diversion was to see him eat in miniature; she, who had but a weak stomach, would take up at one mouthful as much as a dozen English farmers could eat at a meal, a sight that was for some time very nauseous to him. She would craunch the wing of a lark, bones and all, between her teeth, though it was nine times as large as a full-grown turkey, and put a bit of bread in her mouth as big as two twelve-penny loaves. The queen also ordered the thinnest silks that could be gotten to make Gulliver clothes, which were after the fashion of the kingdom, partly resembling the Persian and partly the Chinese. She commanded her own cabinet-maker to contrive a box that might serve him for a bed-chamber, a wooden chamber of sixteen feet square and twelve high, with sash-windows, a door, and two closets. The room was quilted on all sides, as well as the floor and the ceiling, to prevent any accident from the carelessness of those who carried him. The queen likewise ordered a smaller travelling box to be made, of about twelve feet square and ten high, for the convenience of travel, with a window in the middle of three of the squares, each latticed with iron wire on the outside to prevent accidents.

Protection and Shared Amusements

The queen frequently rallied Gulliver on account of his fearfulness, asking whether the people of his country were as great cowards as himself. The kingdom was much pestered with flies in summer, each as big as a Dunstable lark, and they would sometimes alight upon his victuals or fix upon his nose or forehead, stinging him to the quick. The queen's dwarf, a malicious little cub, would catch a number of these insects in his hand and let them out suddenly under Gulliver's nose on purpose to frighten him and divert the queen. Gulliver's remedy was to cut them in pieces with his knife as they flew in the air, a dexterity that was much admired. When the queen heard Gulliver talk of his sea-voyages, she asked if he understood how to handle a sail or an oar, and whether a little exercise of rowing might not be convenient for his health. She ordered the joiner to make a wooden trough of three hundred feet long, fifty broad, and eight deep, which was placed on the floor along the wall in an outer room of the palace. Here Gulliver often used to row for his own diversion, as well as that of the queen and her ladies, who thought themselves well entertained with his skill and agility. Sometimes he would put up his sail, and his business was only to steer while the ladies gave him a gale with their fans, and when they were weary, some of their pages would blow his sail forward with their breath.

The Queen's Inability to Prevent Harm

Despite the queen's fondness and protection, Gulliver remained exposed to serious dangers. One day at dinner, the queen's dwarf, nettled by something Gulliver had said, raised himself upon the frame of her majesty's chair, took Gulliver up as he was sitting down, and let him drop into a large silver bowl of cream. Gulliver fell over head and ears, and if he had not been a good swimmer it might have gone very hard with him; Glumdalclitch happened to be at the other end of the room, and the queen was in such a fright that she wanted presence of mind to assist him. The dwarf was soundly whipped and, as a further punishment, forced to drink up the bowl of cream into which he had thrown him; he was never restored to favor, and the queen soon bestowed him on a lady of high quality. The greatest danger Gulliver ever underwent in that kingdom was from a monkey belonging to one of the clerks of the kitchen. Glumdalclitch had locked him up in her closet while she went somewhere upon business, and the weather being very warm, the closet window was left open. The monkey came in, seized Gulliver by the lappet of his coat, and dragged him out, holding him like a nurse does a child. The monkey then carried him up to the roof of a building, where he sat holding Gulliver like a baby in one of his fore-paws, while hundreds in the court below could not forbear laughing. Gulliver was eventually rescued by a footman, but he was so weak and bruised in the sides that he was forced to keep his bed a fortnight. The king, queen, and all the court sent every day to inquire after his health, and her majesty made him several visits during his sickness. The monkey was killed, and an order made that no such animal should be kept about the palace.

Significance of the Relationship

The queen's relationship with Gulliver is the primary source of his security and comfort in Brobdingnag, elevating him from a performing animal to a court favorite. Her patronage grants him a degree of dignity and leisure he could not have achieved under the farmer. Yet the relationship also underscores the limits of even the most benevolent power: the queen cannot prevent the dwarf's malice, the monkey's attack, or the fundamental physical dangers of a world where a fly is a predator and a fall from a table is a lethal drop. Gulliver's dependence on her protection is absolute, and his gratitude is genuine, but the relationship remains one of radical inequality, a fact that the queen's kindness can mitigate but never erase.