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August 17, 2004
The Tiger in the house ....
Madam la Paddy Cat has just come in to complain loudly that it has started to rain outside - something I have obviously arranged to vex a Pussy Cat! How dare I allow it to wet her fur! How dare I allow it to rain on her when she wishes to sit outside in the breeze?
It is at times like this that I am reminded of Terry Pratchett's description of First Cat and Early Man. As he puts it - "there you are, brow ridges like balconies, worrying about the length of the ice-age and the environmental impact of this new thing called fire, on the food chain for just about every predator, when in strolls this miniature version of the worst predators - and rubs itself dry against your legs, while making a noise like a growl mixed with a disturbed hornets nest." All of which reminds us that the domestic cat is not a tame animal at all. Certainly not in the same manner that a dog, a goat, sheep, or cow could be called "domesticated". Cats are always half wild and half symbiotic, never domesticated!
It is at times like this that Madam reminds me very strongly of her much bigger cousin, several of whom I once had the pleasure of meeting up close in very controlled (if such can ever be said of meetings with the BIG cats) circumstances. I have always had a soft spot for tigers, and Madam is in many ways just a miniature version. But, this reverie on the character of the Cat is as good an excuse as any I can think of to introduce the poem by William Blake, simply called "Tiger" - one of my favourites as a child and one I can still recite, verbatim. I reproduce it here -
TIGER, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
Terrific imagery, and a terrific description of one of the world's noblest beasts. Pity we are, as Hobbs once said in answer to Calvin's question -
"Why are we humans here?"
Hobbes replies: "Tiger food."
Sometimes I think that in her tiny way, Madam thinks that is all I am really here to do - provide her with her food. But then she surprises me with a display of pure love and a talkative display of affection - quite unlike any of the charactersitics normally attributed to the species!
Posted by The Gray Monk at August 17, 2004 09:44 AM