Hypertext Exercise from Jonathan Swift, A Tale of a Tub

Swift's Text

Since this text is by the original author, it should be preserved exactly. It's acceptable to change the style of footnotes: Swift uses asterisks (*) and daggers (+). Everything else should be preserved exaclty.

FROM this accurate Deduction it is manifest, that for obtaining Attention in Publick, there is of necessity required a superior Position of Place. But, altho' this Point be generally granted, yet the Cause is little agreed in; and it seems to me, that very few Philosophers have fallen into a true, natural Solution of this Phænomenon. The deepest Account, and the most fairly digested of any I have yet met with, is this, That Air being a heavy Body, and therefore (according to the system of **Epicurus) continually descending, must needs be more so, when loaden and pressed down by Words; which are also Bodies of much Weight and Gravity, as it is manifest from those deep Impressions they make and leave upon us; and therefore must be delivered from a due Altitude, or else they will neither carry a good Aim, nor fall down with a sufficient Force.

++ Corpoream quoque enim vocem constare fatendum est,
Et sonitum, quoniam possunt impellere Sensus.

Lucr. Lib. 4.

Swift's Notes

Like the text above, these notes are by the author, and must be preserved exactly, though again, you can change the numbering system.

+ In the open Air, and in Streets where the greatest Resort is.

** Lucret. Lib. 2. [marginal note]

++ 'Tis certain then, that Voice that thus can wound
Is all Material; Body every Sound.

Additional Notes

These notes are my own: you're free to modify them in any way you see fit. Your job is to provide as much information as may be useful to the reader, without interfering with the reading experience.

• Jonathan Swift: Swift (1667-1745), Irish clergyman, writer, and poet, best known for Gulliver's Travels (1726) and A Modest Proposal (1729). A Tale of a Tub, the great work of Swift's early career, first appeared anonymously in 1704, though it was written around 1696 or 1697.
• Engine: The Oxford English Dictionary offers several senses that may be relevant:
  • 2.a. Skill in contriving, ingenuity; also, in bad sense, artfulness, cunning, trickery. Obs.
  • b. In OF. phrase mal engin evil machination: see MALENGIN. Also in similar sense, false, malicious engin. Obs.
  • 3. An instance or a product of ingenuity; an artifice, contrivance, device, plot; and in bad sense, a snare, wile; ... also, in weaker sense, an appliance, means.
  • 4. A mechanical contrivance, machine, implement, tool.
  • 5. spec. a. A machine or instrument used in warfare.
  • b. An "engine of torture"; esp. the rack.
• Mountebank: A charlatan, trickster, or medical quack who travels from town to town.
• Triviis & quadriviis: The trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric) and the quadrivium (geometry, astronomy, arithemtic, and music) made up the ancient seven liberal arts, the basis of early education.
• Seminary: A place of religious study, here used figuratively or ironically.
• Sometimes: In the first four editions, the first occurrence read "sometimes"; in the fifth edition, "sometime."
• Intercourse: Communication.
• From this accurate Deduction it is manifest: Swift ironically uses the language of science and philosophy here to make an absurd point sound reasonable. Compare the tone of the projector in A Modest Proposal.
• Philosophers: In the eighteenth century, when Swift wrote, a "philosopher" could refer to what we'd call a scientist.
• True, natural Solution: Ironic. Of course Swift's solution is false and unnatural, as in A Modest Proposal.
• Digested: Processed, abbreviated, abridged.
• Air being a heavy body: Ancient philosophers argued over whether air had mass.
• Epicurus: Epicurus (341 B.C.-270 B.C.), Greek ethical philosopher. His Peri physeos (On Nature), which now survives only in fragments. His philosophy became newly fashionable in the seventeenth century and influenced Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655), a French philosopher and scientist.
• Lucret. Lib. 2: From book two of De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things), an ancient Roman philosophical poem by the poet and philosopher Titus Lucretius Carus. The work, based on Epicurus' Peri physeos, argues that everything in existence is material -- like Democritus (c. 460 B.C.-c. 370 B.C.) and Epicurus, Lucretius is known as an "atomist," arguing that every phenomenon in the universe is made up of "atoms" (though of course he long predated the discovery of modern atoms). Dates for Lucretius are uncertain; he was probably born between 99 and 95 B.C., and died between 55 and 51 B.C.
• Corpoream ... Sensus: from Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, 4:526-27: "For we must confess that voice and sound also are bodily, since they can strike upon the sense." Swift slightly misquotes the original: "Corpoream vocem quoque enim constare fatendumst/ et sonitum, quoniam possunt inpellere sensus."
• Weight and Gravity: Principia Mathematica, by Sir Isaac Newton (c. 1642-1727), appeared in 1687, and spelled out the laws of gravitation.
• Impressions: Swift intentionally confuses the literal and metaphorical senses of the word for comic effect, suggesting the "impressions" made on us by words are equivalent to the "impressions" left by one material object on another.
• Conventicle: A meeting of "Dissenters," members of Protestant religions opposed to the Church of England. The Occasional Conformity Act (1711) offers this legal definition: "Present at any Conventicle Assembly or Meeting ... for the Exercise of Religion in other Manner than according to the Liturgy and Practice of the Church of England ... at which Conventicle Assembly or Meeting there shall be Ten Persons or more assembled together over and besides those of the same Houshold" (10 Anne c. 6).
• Wound ... Sound: The words rhymed in Swift's day.
• The translation Swift uses in the note was published by Thomas Creech (1659-1700): T. Lucretius Carus the Epicurean Philospher [sic], His six books De natura rerum done into English verse, with notes (Oxford, L. Lichfield, 1682).

Observations

• The original text.
• Textual variants, where different "original" texts have different readings.
• The author's notes (both footnotes and a marginal note).
• A modern editor's commentary, including:
  • Explanatory notes, both on Swift's text and on Swift's notes. Our edition may also require the notes to refer to one another.
  • Graphics.
  • Definitions, both short ("intercourse") and long ("engine").
  • Biographical information on relevant authors and philosophers.
  • Dates, both of people's lives and of books' publications.
  • Links to related external information.