Cats made their mark upon men’s hearts, whether for better or for worse, throughout the poetry and literature of the Early Modern Period. John Skelton (1460-1529), a poet laureate under Henry VII and Henry VIII’s Jester, wrote a poem much like Agathias did in 550 AD entitled, Philip Sparrow.
Philip Sparrow
“When I remember again
How my Philip was slain,
Never half the pain
Was between you twain,
Pyramust this be, (tragic lovers in the tale by Ovid)
As then befell me.
I wept and I wailed,
But nothing it availed
To call Philip again,
Whom Gib† our cat had slain.
Oh Cat of churlish kind,
The fiend was in your mind
When thou my bird untwin’d!
I would thou hadst been blind!
The leopards savage,
The lions in their rage
Might catch thee in their paws,
And gnaw thee in their jaws!
The serpents of Libany
Might sting thee venomously!
The dragons with their tongues
Might poison thy liver and thy lungs!
The manticors of the mountains
Might feed upon thy brains!
An it were a Jew,
It would make one rue,
To see my sorrow new.
These villainous false cats
were made for mice and rats.
From me was taken away
By Gib, our cat savage,
That in furious rage
Caught Philip by the head
And slew him there stark dead!
(Payne & Hunter, 2003, pp. 3-11)
In addition, there were other poets, Joachim du Bellay (1525-60), for example, who greatly loved and grieved the loss of his cat if only just because it offered him some respite from the gnawing rats and mice that plagued his mattress at night.
Eptiah on a Pet Cat
My life seems dull and flat,
And, as you’ll wonder what,
Magney, has made this so,
I want you first to know
It’s not for rings or purse
But something so much worse:
Three days ago I lost
All that I value most,
My treasure, my delight,
I cannot speak, or write,
Or even think of what
Belaud, my small grey cat
Meant to me, tiny creature,
Masterpiece of nature
In the whole world of cats,–
And certain death to rats!—
Whose beauty was worthy
Of immortality.
Then a detailed description of Belaud….
My only memory
Of him annoying me
Is that, sometimes at night
When rats began to gnaw
And rustle in my straw
Mattress, he’d waken me
Seizing most dexterously
Upon them in their flight.
Now that the cruel right hand
Of death comes to demand
My bodyguard from me,
My sweet security
Gives way to hideous fears;
Rats come and gnaw my ears,
And mice and rats at night
Chew up the lines I write!”
(Ayer, n.d. pp.26-31)
† Gib is a reference to an old tom cat, derived from a contraction of the name Gilbert.
REFERENCES
NA (n.d.). The poet’s cat. Ayer Publishing.
Payne, M. and Hunter, J. (2003). Renaissance literature: an anthology. Wiley-Blackwell.
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