Beasts ofEngland was the song of the Rebellion
They had just finished singing it for the third time when Squealer,attended by two dogs, approached them with the air of havingsomething important to say. He announced that, by a special decreeof Comrade Napoleon, Beasts of England had been abolishedFrom now onwards it was forbidden to sing itThe animals were taken abackWhy?cried MurielIt's no longer needed, comrade, said Squealer stiffly. "Beasts ofEngland was the song of the Rebellion. But the rebellion is nowcompleted. The execution of the traitors this afternoon was thefinal act. The enemy both external and intermal has been defeatedIn Beasts of England we expressed our longing for a better societyin days to come. But that society has now been established. Clearlythis song has no longer any purpose.Frightened though they were, some of the animals might possiblyhave protested, but at this moment the sheep set up their usualbleating of "Four legs good, two legs bad, which went on forseveral minutes and put an end to the discussioneasts of England was heard no more. In its place Minimus, thehad composed another song which beganAnimal Farm, Animal FarmNever through me shalt thou come to harmand this was sung every Sunday morning after the hoisting of theflag. But somehow neither the words nor the tune ever seemed tothe animals to come up to beasts of England
A FEW days later, when the terror caused by the executions haddied down, some of the animals remembered--or thought theyremembered-that the Sixth Commandment decreed"No animalshall kill any other animal. And though no one cared to mention itin the hearing of the pigs or the dogs, it was felt that the killingswhich had taken place did not square with this. Clover askedBenjamin to read her the Sixth Commandment, and whenBenjamin, as usual, said that he refused to meddle in such mattersshe fetched Muriel. Muriel read the Commandment for her. It ran:No animal shall kill any other animal without cause. Somehowor other, the last two words had slipped out of the animalsmemory. But they saw now that the Commandment had not beenviolated; for clearly there was good reason for killing the traitorswho had leagued themselves with SnowballThroughout the year the animals worked even harder than they hadworked in the previous year To rebuild the windmill, with wallstwice as thick as before, and to finish it by the appointed datetogether with the regular work of the farm, was a tremendouslabour. There were times when it seemed to the animals that theyworked longer hours and fed no better than they had done inJones's day. On Sunday mornings Squealer, holding down a longstrip of paper with his trotter, would read out to them lists offigures proving that the production of every class of foodstuff hadincreased by two hundred per cent, three hundred per cent, or fivehundred per cent, as the case might be. The animals saw no reasonto disbelieve him, especially as they could no longer remembervery clearly what conditions had been like before the RebellionAll the same, there were days when they felt that they wouldsooner have had less figures and more food
All orders were now issued through Squealer or one of the otherpigs. Napoleon himself was not seen in public as often as once in afortnight. When he did appear, he was attended not only by hisretinue of dogs but by a black cockerel who marched in front ofhim and acted as a kind of trumpeter, letting out a loud"cock-a-doodle-doo"before Napoleon spoke. Even in the farmhouse, it wassaid, Napoleon inhabited separate apartments from the others. Hetook his meals alone, with two dogs to wait upon him, and alwaysate from the Crown Derby dinner service which had been in theglass cupboard in the drawing-room. It was also announced thatthe gun would be fired every year on Napoleon s birthday, as wellthe other two anniversariesNapoleon was now never spoken of simply as "Napoleon. "He wasalways referred to in formal style as"our Leader, ComradeNapoleon, and this pigs liked to invent for him such titles asFather of All Animals, Terror of Mankind, Protector of the Sheep-fold, Ducklings Friend, and the like. In his speeches, Squealerwould talk with the tears rolling down his cheeks of Napoleonswisdom the goodness of his heart, and the deep love he bore to allanimals everywhere, even and especially the unhappy animals whostill lived in ignorance and slavery on other farms. It had becomeusual to give Napoleon the credit for every successful achievementand every stroke of good fortune. You would often hear one henremark to another, "Under the guidance of our Leader, ComradeNapoleon, I have laid five eggs in six days" or two cows, enjoyinga drink at the pool, would exclaim,"Thanks to the leadership ofComrade Napoleon, how excellent this water tastes! The generalfeeling on the farm was well expressed in a poem entitled ComradeNapoleon, whiched by Minimus and which rafollows
Friend of fatherless!Fountain of happinessLord of the swill-bucket!Oh, how my soul is on Fire when I gaze at thyCalm and commanding eyeLike the sun in the skyComrade Napoleon!Thou are the giver ofAll that thy creatures loveFull belly twice a dayClean straw to roll uponEvery beast great or smallSleeps at peace in his stallThou watchest over allComrade Napoleon!Had I a sucking-pigEre he had grown as bigComrade Napoleon/"8 oEven as a pint bottle or as a rolling-pinHe should have learned to beFaithful and true to theeYes, his first squeak should beNapoleon approved of this poem and caused it to be inscribed orthe wall of the big barn, at the opposite end from the SevenCommandments. It was surmounted by a portrait of Napoleon, inprofile, executed by Squealer in white paintMeanwhile, through the agency of Whymper, Napoleon wasengaged in complicated negotiations with Frederick and PilkingtonThe pile of timber was still unsold. Of the two, Frederick was themore anxious to get hold of it, but he would not offer a reasonableprice. At the same time there were renewed rumours that Frederickand his men were plotting to attack Animal Farm and to destroythe windmill, the building of which had aroused furious jealousy inhim. Snowball was known to be still skulking on pinchfield FarmIn the middle of the summer the animals were alarmed to hear thatthree hens had come forward and confessed that, inspired bSnowball, they had entered into a plot to murder Napoleon. Theywere executed immediately, and fresh precautions for Napoleonssafety were taken. Four dogs guarded his bed at night, one at eachcorner, and a young pig named Pinkeye was given the task oftasting all his food before he ate it, lest it should be poisoned
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