Who is hop frog

To prepare them for this jest, Hop-Frog gets the men tarred and coated with flax to suggest the fur of the orangutan, and then chains them up. They then make their way into the main chamber, chained together, much to the shock and amusement of the guests present at court. Hop-Frog then has them chained to the ceiling, and proceeds to clamber up and pretend to examine them with his torch.

He then announces that this has been his revenge on the king for striking his friend Trippetta, a defenceless girl, before setting the king and his seven councillors alight with the torch. Thanks to the tar and flax, they burn quickly, with the assorted guests unable to come to their aid, able only to look on in horror as the king and his men burn to death.

Hop-Frog announces that this was his last jest, and then escapes through the sky-light. Everyone assumes that Trippetta had been his accomplice, and that the two of them fled to their native land, for they were never seen again. How should we analyse it? But the story would have limited appeal if this is where its meaning began and ended.

Although these occurred in Europe rather than America, such ideas spread across the Atlantic. Although the king takes great pleasue both from Hop-Frog's comical appearance and from his wit, the jester is mistreated and is unpopular at court. Hop-Frog was brought to the king's court as a captive from a distant land. Another dwarf, a dancing girl called Trippetta, was also brought to the court from the same land together with Hop-Frog. The jester and the dancing girl soon become very close friends.

Although Trippetta is very short, she is considered beautiful and is popular at court. She uses her position of greater popularity to ask for favors for Hop-Frog. A masquerade ball is soon to take place. On the day on which it is to be held, the king summons Hop-Frog and Trippetta to appear before him and his seven ministers, wanting to pick their brains for ideas for costumes which he and the ministers can wear.

The king knows that Hop-Frog cannot stand to drink alcohol but forces the jester to drink a goblet of wine anyway. When the king tells Hop-Frog to drink a second goblet, Trippetta steps forward to plead for him to have mercy on the fool. The king hits the young woman, making her fall over, and throws a goblet of wine at her. A strange sound is heard. The king thinks that it was the sound of Hop-Frog grinding his teeth but one of his ministers suggests that it was a parrot outside the room which was scraping its beak on its cage, a suggestion with which Hop-Frog agrees.

Soon afterwards, Hop-Frog announces that he has remembered an amusing entertainment from his own country called "The Eight Chained Ourang-Outangs", in which eight people pretend to be orangutans [1] which have escaped from their captor. Hop-Frog says that it frightens people, especially women, because they believe at first that the eight men are real wild animals.

The king thinks that it will make an excellent costume choice for himself and his seven ministers. Following Hop-Frog's instructions, the eight men put on tight underwear, they are covered in tar on top of which flax is placed to imitate orangutan's hair. All eight men are then chained together in a circle. Many of the women swooned with affright; and had not the king taken the precaution to exclude all weapons from the saloon, his party might soon have expiated their frolic in their blood.

As it was, a general rush was made for the doors; but the king had ordered them to be locked immediately upon his entrance; and, at the dwarf's suggestion, the keys had been deposited with him. While the tumult was at its height, and each masquerader attentive only to his own safety for, in fact, there was much real danger from the pressure of the excited crowd , the chain by which the chandelier ordinarily hung, and which had been drawn up on its removal, might have been seen very gradually to descend, until its hooked extremity came within three feet of the floor.

Soon after this, the king and his seven friends having reeled about the hall in all directions, found themselves, at length, in its centre, and, of course, in immediate contact with the chain. While they were thus situated, the dwarf, who had followed noiselessly at their heels, inciting them to keep up the commotion, took hold of their own chain at the intersection of the two portions which crossed the circle diametrically and at right angles.

Here, with the rapidity of thought, he inserted the hook from which the chandelier had been wont to depend; and, in an instant, by some unseen agency, the chandelier-chain was drawn so far upward as to take the hook out of reach, and, as an inevitable consequence, to drag the ourang-outangs together in close connection, and face to face.

The masqueraders, by this time, had recovered, in some measure, from their alarm; and, beginning to regard the whole matter as a well-contrived pleasantry, set up a loud shout of laughter at the predicament of the apes. I fancy I know them. If I can only get a good look at them, I can soon tell who they are.

Hop-Frog, clinging to the chain as it rose, still maintained his relative position in respect to the eight maskers, and still as if nothing were the matter continued to thrust his torch down toward them, as though endeavoring to discover who they were. So thoroughly astonished was the whole company at this ascent, that a dead silence, of about a minute's duration, ensued.

It was broken by just such a low, harsh, grating sound, as had before attracted the attention of the king and his councillors when the former threw the wine in the face of Trippetta. But, on the present occasion, there could be no question as to whence the sound issued. It came from the fang-like teeth of the dwarf, who ground them and gnashed them as he foamed at the mouth, and glared, with an expression of maniacal rage, into the upturned countenances of the king and his seven companions.

I begin to see who these people are now! In less than half a minute the whole eight ourang-outangs were blazing fiercely, amid the shrieks of the multitude who gazed at them from below, horror-stricken, and without the power to render them the slightest assistance.

At length the flames, suddenly increasing in virulence, forced the jester to climb higher up the chain, to be out of their reach; and, as he made this movement, the crowd again sank, for a brief instant, into silence. The dwarf seized his opportunity, and once more spoke: "I now see distinctly.

They are a great king and his seven privy-councillors, -- a king who does not scruple to strike a defenceless girl and his seven councillors who abet him in the outrage.

As for myself, I am simply Hop-Frog, the jester -- and this is my last jest. The eight corpses swung in their chains, a fetid , blackened, hideous, and indistinguishable mass. The cripple hurled his torch at them, clambered leisurely to the ceiling, and disappeared through the sky-light. It is supposed that Trippetta, stationed on the roof of the saloon, had been the accomplice of her friend in his fiery revenge, and that, together, they effected their escape to their own country: for neither was seen again.

Copyright Design Inc. Site Built by. An angle less than 90 degrees, like the angles of a triangle. Characterized by sharpness or severity, such as acute pain. Sensitive physical or intellectual perception, like an acute sense of smell or an acute thinker.

Borneo: Borneo including the Kalimantan provinces of Indonesia, Sabah and Sarawak of Malaysia, and Brunei is the third largest island in the world. It has an area of , sq km ,00 sq mi , and is located at the center of the Malay archipelago and Indonesia. Borneo is considered part of the geographic region of Southeast Asia.

Caryatid: A sculpted female figure serving as an architectural element such as a column or a pillar. The male counterpart of a caryatid is referred to as a telemon or Atlas plural, atlantes. A caryatid supporting a basket on her head is called a canephora.

Dazzling effect. The use of flax fibre to make cloth dates back to pre-Roman times. Coarser grades are used for the manufacturing of twine and rope.

Ourang-Outang: The modern spelling is orangutan. A largely herbivorous arboreal ape of Borneo and Sumatra that is about two thirds as large as the gorilla and has brown skin, long sparse reddish brown hair, and very long arms.

In his first book of the "Gargantua" series, Rabelais sang the praises of the wines from his hometown through vivid descriptions of the "eat, drink and be merry" lifestyle. Despite the great popularity of his books, they were condemned by academics and the Roman Catholic Church. One of Voltaire's stories is about a character named Zadig. Pronounced like "want". This was a multi-colored outfit and funny hat with bells hanging from it. On most decks of playing cards, the Joker is pictured in this outfit.