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May 10, 2007
Rhymed version of Pangur Ban
I and Pangur Ban my cat,
'Tis a like task we are at:
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.
Better far than praise of men,
'Tis to sit with book and pen:
Pangur bears me no ill-will,
He too plies his simple skill.
'Gainst the wall he sets his eye,
Full and fierce and sharp and sly:
'Gainst the wall of knowledge I,
All my little wisdom try.
Often times a mouse will stray,
In the hero Pangur's way:
Often times my keen thought set,
Takes a meaning in its net.
Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect at his trade:
I get wisdom day and night,
Turning darkness into light.
This version is available as a rather fun poster from the Trinity College Library Shop, Dublin and at 3.50 Euros plus postage a real snip.
For me the most important aspect of the poem is that it puts me in touch with the people of the early church - real people with real humour and real lives, not the cardboard figures so often presented to us in the written histories. One can only guess at the row when the monk who penned the poem had his work discovered - defacing some important treatise on theology. Yet the little poem survives, giving us the name of the cat, but not the author.
Posted by The Gray Monk at May 10, 2007 10:19 PM
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