1 And yet the song was irrepressible.
2 I will sing you that song now, comrades.
3 'Beasts of England was the song of the Rebellion.
4 There were more songs, more speeches, more processions.
5 The singing of this song threw the animals into the wildest excitement.
6 He was, he said, teaching them to sing a new song, for which privacy was needed.
7 The human beings could not contain their rage when they heard this song, though they pretended to think it merely ridiculous.
8 Many years ago, when I was a little pig, my mother and the other sows used to sing an old song of which they knew only the tune and the first three words.
9 And what is more, the words of the song also came back-words, I am certain, which were sung by the animals of long ago and have been lost to memory for generations.
10 They were so delighted with the song that they sang it right through five times in succession, and might have continued singing it all night if they had not been interrupted.
11 There were songs, speeches, and more firing of the gun, and a special gift of an apple was bestowed on every animal, with two ounces of corn for each bird and three biscuits for each dog.
12 Even the stupidest of them had already picked up the tune and a few of the words, and as for the clever ones, such as the pigs and dogs, they had the entire song by heart within a few minutes.
13 So that, what with the songs, the processions, Squealer's lists of figures, the thunder of the gun, the crowing of the cockerel, and the fluttering of the flag, they were able to forget that their bellies were empty, at least part of the time.
14 Napoleon, with Squealer and another pig named Minimus, who had a remarkable gift for composing songs and poems, sat on the front of the raised platform, with the nine young dogs forming a semicircle round them, and the other pigs sitting behind.