Chapter 3: Into The Forest

As soon as she left the Garden, Alice, still feeling rather hungry and thirsty, made her way to the nearby forest. She entered slowly, as she had heard of the voracious animals that sometimes inhabit dark wooded areas, but she soon found the dappled light pleasant and comforting to the eye.

Hearing voices, Alice walked slowly to the edge of a clearing, and peering around a tree saw two identical figures standing side by side. She remembered an old nursery rhyme ("curious," she thought, "I don't remember ever learning it in my real life, but now that I'm here I seem to know it.") and said it softly to herself:

Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Agreed to have a battle
For Tweedledum said Tweedledee
Had spoiled his nice new rattle.

Just then flew down a monstrous crow,
As black as a tar-barrel;
Which frightened both our heroes so,
They quite forgot their quarrel.

"Aha!" said the one on the left, walking toward her, "therein does not lie the root of our quarrel, no, what has in verity brought us out into the realm of Zephyrus, who with his sweet breath doth kiss the drought of March farewell to welcome in the showers of April, is a lack of agreement on a certain subject. Pray, be seated, and I shall tell you my tale, the Author's Tale, in return for a drink and sweetmeat."

Alice opened her mouth to tell him that she hadn't any drinks or food, for that matter, as she herself was still quite hungry and thirsty. Before she could speak, however, the second man, who had also approached her during the other's speech, started to talk.

Tweedledee, as Alice recognized by the name on his collar, began a speech of his own, with a smile playing about his lips and a snicker escaping from them every so often:

Tweedledum and Tweedledee,
Alike in their attire,
Nonetheless could not agree
On subjects of satire.

Tweedledum, he figured so:
The clergy was for hire;
For summons or indulgences
A man could buy a friar.

Monks and priests were just as bad
Corrupt as church could be,
And other people, moral-less,
Abound from sea to sea.

My own thoughts, quite different
Are roughly here as follows:
The upper class, with pounds and pence
Should all go to the gallows.

They quibble over insults small,
 They waste their time and ours,
Their ignorance to me does call,
And I then write for hours.

During the recitation of his poem, Tweedledee had spent a great deal of time standing on his head, while Tweedledum danced around gleefully, making derisive comments about nearly every group of people that had lived in the Middle Ages in England.

"Excuse me," Alice asked, "but is there anybody you don't make fun of?"

Tweedledum considered a moment, and said, "No, but some men better than others be. Knights, I say, can have good spirits, as with most of the working men who till the dirt in all our fields. But as for many a man, and woman, too, not Becket himself could cleanse their sins."

"You are too worried with sins, say I," said Tweedledee reprovingly. "People need to live life full, to see the world through eye and pen. There is no time for petty things, to err is human—we are but men!"

"If you would then speak of error and sin, my friend," answered Tweedledum, "I propose that we, to make the afternoon short, do tell a tale to this good lady here. As you may wish, we might tell it in verse, that the more enjoyment she from it may take. What say you to that?"

Tweedledee considered and nodded his head. "Agreed. I will tell the story, in meter and rhyme as you suggest. I will borrow as well from authors past and present, and make the tale entertaining."

Alice sat down on a tuffet, eager to hear a nice story, for, as she thought to herself, "People in this place are always so eager to tell you something!"

This is the poem Tweedledee recited:

The sun was shining on the trees,
Shining with all his might
He did his very best to make
The forest green and bright
Which was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.

The moon was shining sulkily,
She found it not a lark
For yellow light, it has no place
Where hearts of men are dark.
So huffily the moon did rise
And went to hunt the Snark.

The Walrus and the Carpenter
Were walking on the land.
They wept like anything to see
So many rocks at hand.
"If these were only cleared away,"
They said, "It would be grand."

"I would propose," the Walrus said,
"A means to fix this place:
These stones we must dress tastefully
With pepper, thyme, and mace
And then we offer all the lot
So men can stuff their face."

The Carpenter looked skeptical,
He had no faith in this.
"But listen close!" the Walrus said,
"And we can get our wish!
For right now we stand hungry,
And we are short on fish.

"But if we put this plan to work,
And make them all eat stones,
We solve not only hunger here,
But also get the bones,
And flesh as well, of animals
We root out from their homes.

"I could quite well convince most men
To feast on wood and rock,
If it looks succulent enough
And I have time to talk.
For in my speech pure eloquence
Along with sense does walk."

The Carpenter said nothing for
A while as he sat
Upon the ground, impatiently,
And fiddled with his hat.
"Come, think with me," he cried aloud,
And gave the ground a pat.

The Walrus and the Carpenter
Sat thinking on the ground,
When suddenly the Carpenter
Jumped up in one swift bound.
"I've got a plan that can't be beat:
It's brilliant, and it's sound.

"We first enslave a school of fish
We catch from in this stream,
Then make them work and till the land,
Grow fruit and lettuce green;
And then we kill and cook them all
And serve them with fresh cream!

"You do the work, I'll organize,
Together we will rule
Over all the land we see,
We shall be firm and cruel."
A thirst for power sparked his eye,
And he began to drool.

They found a raft, and on the stream
The two began to float
"I'll be our General Manager,"
The Carpenter did gloat.
But then he went and hit a snag
And promptly sank the boat.

The Walrus and the Carpenter
Swam swiftly for the shore;
They wondered where the noise was from
That loud, and splashy roar.
The waterfall, it claimed them both,
And they were heard no more.

"I didn't much like the Walrus," commented Alice at the poem's end. "He tried to take advantage of the people so, wanting them to eat the rocks. But then the Carpenter did all he could to gain power over the fish, so I don't know if I can say who was worse."

"I will tell you who is the worst!" came a booming voice from up above. Tweedledum and Tweedledee cowered in fright under a small umbrella, and Alice looked up to see the angry Crow. He was now much bigger and blacker than he had been in the garden, and the sound of his wings beat through her head like a thunderstorm.

"That story offended me deeply! I cannot hear such racism and prejudice without taking action about it! No story should contain any person who may be stupid enough to eat rocks, and any mention of one group taking advantage of another must certainly reflect on the opinions of the storyteller! I accuse you both of discrimination. And you, too," he added, pointing at Alice. "You listened to the story, so you were accessory to the bigotry."

"Don't you think you might be overreacting, just a bit?" asked Alice timidly. "I mean, after all, it is only a story. It's meant to entertain. No one said it was right."

"I'll tell you a story! It is about a black bird who worked hard, harder than anyone around him. He was prosperous and well-liked. Then a white bird came to town. In a totally unrelated occurrence, the black bird had a stroke of bad luck and his life was ruined. Obviously, the white bird had caused all the problems in the black bird's life, and there the story ends with a watertight climax and resolution."

"But there was no cl..." Alice began, but the Crow suddenly cocked his head to the side and flapped hurriedly away. "Perhaps he heard someone saying that illiterate people can not write, and he had to take offense at that obvious insult to the illiterate of the world." said Tweedledee, with a serious face but a twinkling eye.

The three looked around suddenly, as the sound of a freight train rumbled through the clearing. "This way!" said Tweedledee, and they all followed him through the trees to where a man in red lay sleeping, his snores causing his large nightcap to rise and fall in rhythm.

"They've lost it!" he called out suddenly. "'Tis gone! It is now lost!" Alice looked at the man closer, thinking he must have awoken, but he still snored, although more softly now.

"What have they lost?" asked Alice.

"Love's Labour, of course," answered Tweedledee.

"This is the Red King—what else would he have lost?" put in Tweedledum.

Alice began to tell them that she really had no idea, when the Red King began to mutter again:

"Hero, Baptista, Cymbeline, Fleance! Why can not I come up with normal names? Perhaps they will fail to notice that I have used Juliet and Theseus twice each, and Falstaff three times...I wonder, is the bear too improbable? But then so was all of Pericles, Queen won't notice...need more modes of death, suffocation too difficult, keep the envy, lose the Moor next time; poison good, easy to cause confusion; swords excellent, a good stabbing carrion; death by shame—doubtful, shouldn't use again..."

He mumbled incoherently for several minutes as Tweedledum and Tweedledee stood watching, enthralled. Alice stood awkwardly beside them, wondering if she could make some kind of graceful exit, when the King started up anew:

"Mmmmph! Where are my dictionaries of off-rhymes and obtuse insults? What scurvy rogue stole them? I'll have his head...Oh help! I am attacked! Get them away from me! So many boys, dressed as girls, and disguised again as boys...so confusing! So...many...exclamation points!..." He shook his head from side to side and stretched his hands out in front of him. "Where is it? My iambic meterstick, I can't write without my meterstick! Oooooo..." The King trailed off to a low groan, and Alice looked at her companions in bewilderment.

"He is dreaming," explained Tweedledum.

Alice looked at him, still quizzical. "What about?"

"Why, about you!" answered Tweedledee. "And if he left off dreaming right now, where do you supposed you'd be?"

"Well right here, of course."

"Not so," said Tweedledum triumphantly. "You'd be nowhere, that's where you'd be. Why, you're only a sort of thing in his dream."

"He is dreaming about me? No, you've got it switched all around. This is my dream. He is a part of it, and when I wake up, he will be gone." Alice had started to look concerned.

"Nohow!" said Tweedledum. "When the King wakes up, he'll stop dreaming and you'd go out—bang!—just like a candle!"

"I wouldn't," pouted Alice. She said it rather quietly, however, and started moving away from the King. Hearing a muffled scream from a short ways off, she took leave of the strange pair, who had in the meantime gone back to their friendly argument. Alice walked through the woods to find the White Queen in some distress.

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