Jellicle Cats come out tonight

THE SONG OF THE JELLICLES

Jellicle Cats come out tonight
Jellicle Cats come one come all:
The Jellicle Moon is shining bright—
Jellicles come to the Jellicle Ball.

Jellicle Cats are black and white,
Jellicle Cats are rather small;
Jellicle Cats are merry and bright,
And pleasant to hear when they caterwaul.
Jellicle Cats have cheerful faces,
Jellicle Cats have bright black eyes;
They like to practise their airs and graces
And wait for the Jellicle Moon to rise.

Jellicle Cats develop slowly,
Jellicle Cats are not too big;
Jellicle Cats are roly-poly,
They know how to dance a gavotte
and a jig.
Until the Jellicle Moon appears
They make their toilette and take their repose:
Jellicles wash behind their ears,
Jellicles dry between their toes.

Jellicle Cats are white and black,
Jellicle Cats are of
moderate size;
Jellicles jump like a jumping-jack,
Jellicle Cats have moonlit eyes.
They're quiet enough in the morning hours,
They're quiet enough
in the afternoon,
Reserving their
terpsichorean powers
To dance by the light of
the Jellicle Moon.

Jellicle Cats are black and white,
Jellicle Cats (as I said) are small;
If it happens to be a stormy night
They will practise a caper or two in the hall.
If it happens the sun is shining bright
You would say they had nothing to do at all:
They are resting and saving themselves to be right
For the Jellicle Moon and the Jellicle Ball.

T. S. (Thomas Stearns) Eliot

dancing from cats

THE CAT'S SONG

Mine, says the cat, putting out his paw of darkness.
My lover, my friend, my slave, my toy, says
the cat making on your chest his gesture
of drawing
milk from his mother’s forgotten breasts.

Let us walk in the woods, says the cat.
I’ll teach you to read the tabloid of scents,
to fade into shadow, wait like a trap, to hunt.
Now I lay this plump warm

........mouse on your mat.

You feed me, I try to feed you, we are friends,
says the cat, although I am more equal than you.
Can you leap twenty times the height of your body?

Can you run.. up and down trees? Jump between roofs?

Let us rub our bodies together and talk of touch.
My emotions are pure as salt crystals and as hard.
My lusts glow like my eyes.

I sing to you in the mornings
walking round and round your bed and into your face.

Come I will teach you to dance as naturally
as falling asleep and waking and stretching long, long.
I speak greed with my paws and fear with my whiskers.
Envy lashes my tail. Love speaks me entire, a word

of fur. I will teach you to be still as an egg
and to slip like the ghost of wind through the grass.

Marge Piercy

The cat’s song from Mars & Her Children (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992). First appeared in Matrix 28 (Spring 1989). Copyright © 1989, 1992 by Marge Piercy and Middlemarsh, Inc.

(this halloween, learn to dance)

good this year too!

(and this also serves to illustrate the fact
that at the same time, the old
victorian stylings were still around)

meow • (halloween suite)

THE GARDEN BY MOONLIGHT

A black cat among roses,
Phlox, lilac-misted under a first-quarter moon,
The sweet smells of heliotrope
and night-scented stock.

The garden is very still,
It is dazed with moonlight,
Contented with perfume,
Dreaming the opium dreams of its folded poppies.

Firefly lights open and vanish
High as the tip buds
of the golden glow
Low as the sweet alyssum
flowers at my feet.
Moon-shimmer on
leaves and trellises,
Moon-spikes shafting
through the snow ball bush.

Only the little faces of the ladies’ delight are alert and staring,
Only the cat, padding between the roses,
Shakes a branch and breaks
the chequered pattern
As water is broken by the falling of a leaf.

Then you come,
And you are quiet like the garden,
And white
like the alyssum flowers,
And beautiful as the silent sparks of the fireflies.

Ah, Beloved, do you see those orange lilies?
They knew my mother,
But who belonging to me will they know
When I am gone.

Amy Lowell

turning mother goose • (halloween suite)

three dames walk into a bar: a witch, a hag, and mother goose. 'aha!' cries the bartender -- 'it's the triplets!' am i the only one it took so long to figure this out?

the elements of cats, brooms, and good old age appear so often in illustrations of all three, that one becomes confused just trying to get it straight.

"The existence of demons and the efficacy of witchcraft were accepted facts throughout the world in 1692. The Puritans of Salem Village were certain of the devil's hand in every incident of evil they suffered, from petty misfortune to apalling tragedy. Witches and agents of 'the ould deluder' Satan delivered to the people of the commonwealth all manner of torments: deadly epidemics of smallpox; murderous raids by Indians; and ignorant children."

The Witches of Salem were hanged. This was less painful than the burning of witches in Europe. They thought the burning of a witch was the only way to release the evil, since the Devil would be forced to exit the melting body through the smoke.

Witchcraft in Massachusetts singled out:

• spinsters
• barren women
• the ugly
• the extremely successful
• the independent
• the reclusive
• the litigious
• the willful. 1

i can assure you, i am every single one of these (well, maybe not litigious), and i suppose i am also, now, old -- or at least to the degree these other women are. and while i have no goose, i do have a cat.

would you need more proof?

let's look at that list once more: every single item challenges authority (usually male). if one is any of these she must be punished or laughed at or belittled: silenced.

to live the quiet, solitary life, free and in constant communication with the birds and spiders and fish, and the cat, to tend the garden, read a book, answer to no one....

There was an old woman
tossed up in a basket
Seventeen times
as high as the moon;
Where she was going
I couldn't but ask it,
For in her hand
she carried a broom.

"Old woman, old woman,
old woman," quoth I,
"O whither, O whither,
O whither, so high?"
"To brush the cobwebs
off the sky!"
"Shall I go with thee?"
"Aye, by and by."
•

Old Mother Goose,
When she wanted to wander,
Would ride through the air
On a very fine gander.

Jack's mother came in,
And caught the goose soon,
And mounting its back,
Flew up to the moon.

•

The words of the original Old Mother Goose Nursery Rhyme can be interpreted to find a darker meaning to the identity of ' Mother Goose'! The title ' Mother Goose ' probably originates from the 1600's -- the time of the great witch hunts. Comparisons can be made between the Mother Goose in the above children's poem and the popular conception of a witch during this era!

• Witches were able to fly (the broomstick has been replaced by a goose).
• A witch was often portrayed as an old crone (with no man to defend her
against accusations of witchcraft).
• Witches are closely associated
with living alone.
• Witches were known to a have 'familiars,' most often cats but also owls. 2

so who am i now? from east or north? good witch, bad witch, in-between? & i know it doesn't matter. i'm a happy old woman, with cat, with garden, of modest means and expectations, will the iris open, will the spider catch the fly?

sawade's tiger

the mills brothers

from ANIMALS ARE MY LIFE

A terrible event was soon to be the subject of another cable. In his big carnivores group Richard Sawade had a young tiger which he had brought up from infancy. It was called Nik and was his great pet. It used to go round with him like a big sheep-dog. But one evening none other than this tiger attacked him and ripped up his shoulder and upper arm.

Fortunately, Sawade was able to grip a bar of the cage with the other hand, and, being a man of athletic strength beyond the ordinary, he succeeded in preventing the animal getting at his neck. His fearless assistant, Rudolf Matthies, came running up and as close as possible fired blank cartridges into the tiger's jaws, and the wooden cap of the cartridge, at that short range, hit the animal.

Indeed, some splinters also wounded Sawade in the back, but the necessary result was achieved the tiger at once began to gnaw at its own wounds, and with his wooden pole Matthies could drive the animal away.

We all held our breath. Slowly, Sawade loosened his hold on the bar. Everybody expected him to fall. But, his face contorted with pain, he now went back into the ring, drove all his animals out of the central cage, bowed rather curtly, and only then, streaming with blood, collapsed in the paddock.

Thank Heaven, medical aid was immediately at hand. The surgeons of the German hospital saved his life. For weeks he lay, terribly hurt, struggling against the blood poisoning which is so frequently a complication of carnivorous animal wounds. A lung inflammation hindered the recovery, which this brave man -- later general manager of our travelling circus -- owed solely to iron will and an iron constitution.

A carnivorous animal always remains a carnivorous animal. Whether caught fully grown or brought up from infancy on the bottle makes no difference whatsoever. Gratitude and faithfulness are virtues in our human ambit of emotions, and not to be imagined unconditionally into animals, which are in the power of other instincts.

After this accident, Rudolf Matthies took over Sawade's animal group, from which of course I removed the attacker. Matthies not only did his outstanding teacher every honour, but himself became a first-class tiger trainer, the only one, indeed, later to be awarded the German Animal Protection Medal.

-- Lorenz Hagenbeck, 1955 *

A CAT A MAN AND TWO WOMEN (an excerpt)

SHOZO VIVIDLY RECALLED that time long ago when Lily had returned from Amagasaki. It was at dawn one day around the middle of autumn that the slumbering Shozo was awakened by a familiar "meow, meow.... " He was single at the time, and slept upstairs while his mother slept on the ground floor. The shutters were still closed at this hour of the morning; but somewhere nearby a cat was mewing, and as Shozo listened, half asleep, it sounded uncannily like Lily. They had sent her off to Amagasaki a whole month ago, so how could she be here now?

Yet the more he listened. the more it sounded like her. He heard the scratch and patter of paws on the tin roof outside his room at the back.... Now it was just outside his window.... He had to know. Leaping up from his quilts, he pushed open the shutters. There on the roof just in front of him, restlessly moving back and forth, was an extremely weary-looking but unquestionably identifiable Lily! Shozo, hardly trusting his own eyes, called hesitantly: "Lily."

"Meow,” she replied, looking up, her large, lovely eyes wide with happiness. She came to a point just below the bay window where he was standing; but when he reached out to lift her up, she slipped away, darting two or three feet in the opposite direction. She didn't go far. though, and at the sound of "Lily!" would give a "meow" and re-approach. Again Shozo would reach for her, and again she would slip from his grasp. It was precisely this aspect of a cat’s character that Shozo loved.

She must care for him, since she went to so much trouble to return. Yet, when she was safely back at her old familiar home and gazing up at the face of the master she hadn't seen for so many weeks, what did she do if he reached out for her? Run away. Perhaps, knowing his love for her, she enjoyed playing upon it like this; or perhaps she felt a bit awkward at their first meeting after such a long separation, and her shyness took this form. In any case, Lily kept on moving back and forth across the roof, replying with a "meow" each time Shozo called her name.

Right away he noticed how thin she’d become, and as he looked more carefully he saw too that her fur had lost its sheen of a month before. Her head and tail were covered with mud. and bits of pampas grass stuck to her here and there. The grocer who had taken her in was known to be a cat lover, so it was unlikely he would have mistreated her in any way. No, Lily’s pitiful state was obviously due to the “hardships of the road" she had suffered on her lonely journey back from Amagasaki.

She must have walked all night to have arrived home at such an early hour — but it was certainly more than one night’s journey. Night after night she must have walked, after fleeing from the strange house some days before. Losing her way, wandering down dark byways without knowing where they led. until at last she reached home....

The tufts of pampas grass proved that she hadn't come straight back along the highway, which was lined with houses and other buildings. How piercing the winds at dawn and dusk would have felt to a cat that, typically, disliked the cold. Besides. showers were common at that time of year, and she must have sometimes crept into thickets to escape the rain, or hidden in fields to evade pursuing dogs. She had been lucky to survive the journey. Imagining all this, Shozo wanted to hold Lily and gently stroke her, and so he kept reaching out to catch hold of her. Gradually Lily, though seeming still a bit shy, began to brush her body against Shozo's outstretched hands, until at last she let her master have his wish.

According to the owner of the butcher shop, the English called this particular type of cat a “tortoiseshell," and indeed the distinct black spots spreading with a lustrous sheen over the brown coat did resemble the polished surface of a turtles shell. Certainly Shozo had never had such a lovely cat before, with such a magnificent coat. European cats are generally free from the stiff, square-shouldered look of japanese cats; they have clean, chic-looking lines, like a beautiful woman with gently sloping shoulders japanese cats also usually have long, narrow heads, with slight hollows beneath the eyes and prominent cheekbones, but Lily’s head was small and compact. Her wonderfully large and beautiful gold-colored eyes and nervously twitching nose were set within the well-defined contours of a face shaped exactly like a clam shell placed upside down.

But it was not her coat or face or body that so attracted Shozo to this kitten. If it were only a matter of outward form, he himself had seen Persian and Siamese cats that were even more beautiful. It was Lily’s personality that was so appealing. When first brought to Ashiya, she was still terribly small, small enough to be held in the palm of one hand, but her wild tomboyish ways were just like those of a seven- or eight-year-old girl, a primary-school student at her most mischievous. She was much lighter than now and could jump to a height of three or four feet when her master held some food above her head during dinner. If he were seated, she could reach it so easily that he often had to stand up in the middle of his meal to make the game interesting. He began training her in such acrobatics from the moment she arrived.

From her kitten days she had a charming, lively expression; her eyes and mouth, the movements of her nostrils, and her breathing all showed the shifts of her emotions, exactly like a human being. Her large, bright eyes in particular, were always roving about; whether she was being affectionate, or mischievous, or acquisitive, there was always something lovable about her. When she got angry, Shozo found her quite funny: small as she was, she would round her back and bristle her fur as cats do; her tail would rise straight up and, prancing and pawing the ground with her little feet, she would glare fiercely at her foe. It was like a child imitating an adult, and no one who saw her could keep from smiling.

Nor could Shozo forget Lily’s gentle, appealing gaze when she first had kittens. One morning about six months after arriving at Ashiya, she started following Shozo around the house, mewing plaintively — she sensed she was about to give birth. He spread an old cushion in the bottom of an empty soft-drink carton and placed it at the back of the closet. Then he picked her up and carried her to her bed. She stayed in the box only briefly, soon opening the closet door and emerging to follow him about again, mewing all the while. Her voice was not the one he was used to hearing. It was still "meow," of course, but this "meow" had another, peculiar meaning to it. It sounded as if she were saying "Oh, what shall I do? I don’t feel well, suddenly.... I'm afraid something very odd is about to happen to me.... I've never felt anything like this before! What do you think it could be? Am I going to be all right?.... Am I?"

When Shozo stroked her head and said, "There's nothing to worry about. You're going to be a mother, that’s all." she placed her forepaws on his knee as if to cling to him, uttered one "meeoww," and looked at him as though trying her best to understand what he was telling her. Shozo carried her back to the closet and placed her in her box. "Now you stay right here, okay? You're not to come out. Okay? You understand?" Having made this little speech, he closed the door and started to stand up, when there was another plaintive "meeeoow." It seemed to be saying "Wait a moment. Don’t go away." Shozo melted at the sound and opened the door just a crack to peek in. There in the farthest corner of the closet, which was filled with a jumble of trunks and cloth-wrapped bundles, was the box with Lily`s head sticking out. "Meeooow," she cried, gazing at him. "She may be just an animal," thought Shozo, "but what a loving look she has in those eyes of hers!"

It was strange, but Lily’s eyes shining in the closet's dim recesses were no longer those of a mischievous little kitten. In that instant they had become truly feminine, full of an inexpressible sadness and seduction. Shozo had never seen a woman in childbirth; but he was sure that if she were young and beautiful, she would call to her husband with just the same pained, reproachful look as this. Any number of times he closed the closet door and began to walk away, only to go back for another look; and each time Lily would poke her head out of the box and peer at him, like a child playing peekaboo.

When Shozo heard people with no knowledge of a cat's character saying that cats were not as loving as dogs, that they were cold and selfish, he always thought to himself how impossible it was to understand the charm and lovableness of a cat if one had not, like him, spent many years living alone with one. The reason was that all cats are to some extent shy creatures: they won't show affection or seek it from their owners in front of a third person but tend rather to be oddly standoffish. Lily too would ignore Shozo or run off when he called her if his mother was present. But when the two of them were alone, she would climb up on his lap without being called and devote the most flattering attention to him. She often put her forehead against Shozo's face and then pushed as hard as she could; at the same time, with the tip of her rough little tongue she licked away at him — cheeks, chin, the tip of his nose, around his mouth — everywhere.

At night she always slept beside him and would wake him up in the morning. This too was done by licking his face all over. In cold weather she would insert herself under the top quilt near Shozo's pillow and then work her way down into the bedding. She nestled against Shozo's chest, or crawled toward his groin, or lay against his back, wherever, until she found a place where she could sleep comfortably. Even after finally settling down in one spot, she often changed her position if it became the least bit uncomfortable. Her favorite posture seemed to be to lie facing Shozo, with her head on his arm and her face against his chest; but if he moved even a fraction her rest was disturbed, and she would burrow off in another direction, looking for a better spot. Accordingly, whenever she got into his bed, Shozo had to extend one arm as a pillow and then try to sleep in an obliging way, moving as little as possible. So positioned, he would use his other hand to stroke that area of the neck which cats most love to have fondled; and Lily would immediately respond with a satisfied purring. She might begin to bite at his finger, or gently claw him, or drool a bit — all were signs that she was excited.

written by Junichiro Tanizaki in 1936.

while our artists seem to consistantly give us images of women with cats, the cat and human relationships i've seen in fiction often favor the man/cat bond. i've never forgotten this novella, and in rereading it i'm again amazed at the beauty and accuracy with which he draws his small friend and their friendship. if i recall correctly, he abandons both women for lily.


for more wonderfully related visuals, see here and here, and cat stories here.