All
Hail!
Who hath not heard it said that a cat hath nine lives? We hear it oft and ylome but we take no heed of it, as if it meaneth no more than a cat will beat death somehow nine times. But its first marking telleth another tale. This is found in a work of one William Baldwin (G. B. for Gulielmus Baldwin) called Beware the Cat,
London, 1584:
“It dooth appéere
that there is in Cats as in all other kindes of beasts, a certaine
reason and language wherby they vnderstand one another. But as
touching this Grimmalkin: I take rather to be an Hagat or a Witch
then a Cat. For witches haue gone often in that likenes, And
therof hath come the prouerb as trew as common, that a Cat hath nine
liues, that is to say, a witch may take on her a Cats body nine
times.
... this is not doon by putting their owne bodies therinto but either by bringing their soules for the time out of their bodies, and putting them in the other, or by deluding the sight and fantasies of the séers. ...”
And
what he writeth a little later of witches is worth marking here also:
“...Then quoth he
that had béen in Ireland, I cannot tel sir by what means witches doo
change their one likenes and the shapes of other things. But I haue
heard of so many, and séen so much my self, that I am sure they
doo it. for in Ireland (as they haue béen in England) witches are
for feare had in high reuerence, and they be so cunning: that they
can chaunge the shapes of things as they list at their pleasure,
& so deceue the people therby that an act was made in Ireland,
that no man should buy any red swine. The cause wherof was this.
Witches vsed to send to ye markets many red swine fair & fat to
sée vnto as any mought be, & would in that forme continew long,
but it chanced the buiers of them to bring them to any water :
immediatly they found them returned either into wisps of Haye, Straw,
olde rotten boords or some other such like trumpery, by meanes
wherof they haue lost their money or such other cattel as they gaue
in exchange for them. ...”.
The cat hath long been hallowed to the “elf-queen”. Thus the Northerners' evenworth gyden Freyja is linked to cats (see Edda Gylfaginning 49 and Skáldskaparmál 28. Freyjukenningar) and Ovid writeth of Diana in his Metamorphoses book 5 line 325 “Fele soror phoebi...” “the cat [was the shape taken by] the sister of Phoebus”.
In an odd work called Round About Our Coal Fire, 1734, (but I brook the 1796 outlaying, chapitle iv, lf. 36), we find the earliest telling of the tale of “Jack and the
Beanstalk”. But eathe to overlook is that Jack hath more than a little help in the tale to “Empress of the Mountains of the Moon” who was somewhile as a “Black Cat” thus:
“But just as he fell in with this starving Prospect, off goes the
Top of the House, the Host was turned into a beautiful Lady, and in
pops a dozen pretty Youths, dressed like Pages in green Satin, laced
with Silver and white Feathers in their Caps, each of them mounted
upon an Hobby-Horse finely bedecked with Ribbons, Tinsel and
Feathers; and in full chorus most harmoniously addressed themselves
to Jack, saluting him with the Titles of Sovereign Lord of the Manor,
and invincible Champion; ‘Tis this Instant that your supposed
Grandmother the Queen of Pomonkey has taken her Passage to the
Shades, her Enchantment is broke, and we bring you the full Power of
possessing all the Pleasures you desire: The fair Lady that stands
before you is Empress of the Mountains of the Moon; young as she
seems to be, was your Grandmother’s Black Cat, and by Enchantment
has worn that Shape four hundred Years: It was she that put it in
your Mind to plant this wonderful Bean by scratching in the Ashes,
...”
The Moon underlieth all, thus Plutarch Isis and Osiris 63:
“ἐμφαίνει καὶ 1 τὸ σεῖστρον, ὅτι σείεσθαι δεῖ τὰ ὄντα καὶ μηδέποτε παύεσθαι φορᾶς, ἀλλ᾽ οἷον ἐξεγείρεσθαι καὶ κλονεῖσθαι καταδαρθάνοντα καὶ μαραινόμενα. τὸν γὰρ Τυφῶνά φασι τοῖς σείστροις ἀποτρέπειν καὶ ἀποκρούεσθαι, δηλοῦντες: ὅτι τῆς φθορᾶς συνδεούσης καὶ ἱστάσης, αὖθις ἀναλύει τὴν φύσιν καὶ ἀνίστησι διὰ τῆς κινήσεως ἡ γένεσις. τοῦ δὲ σείστρου περιφεροῦς ἄνωθεν ὄντος, ἡ ἁψὶς 2 περιέχει τὰ σειόμενα τέτταρα. καὶ γὰρ ἡ γεννωμένη καὶ φθειρομένη μοῖρα τοῦ κόσμου περιέχεται μὲν ὑπὸ τῆς σεληνιακῆς σφαίρας, κινεῖται δ᾽ ἐν αὐτῇ πάντα καὶ μεταβάλλεται διὰ τῶν τεττάρων στοιχείων, πυρὸς καὶ γῆς καὶ ὕδατος καὶ ἀέρος. τῇ δ᾽ ἁψῖδι. τοῦ σείστρου κατὰ κορυφὴν ἐντορεύουσιν αἴλουρον ἀνθρώπου πρόσωπον ἔχοντα, κάτω δ᾽ ὑπὸ τὰ σειόμενα πῆ μὲν Ἴσιδος πῆ δὲ Νέφθυος πρόσωπον, αἰνιττόμενοι τοῖς μὲν προσώποις γένεσιν καὶ τελευτὴν αὗται γάρ εἰσι τῶν στοιχείων μεταβολαὶ καὶ κινήσεις, τῷ δ᾽ αἰλούρῳ τὴν σελήνην διὰ τὸ ποικίλον καὶ νυκτουργὸν καὶ γόνιμον τοῦ θηρίου. λέγεται γὰρ ἓν τίκτειν, εἶτα δύο καὶ τρία καὶ τέσσαρα καὶ πέντε: καὶ καθ᾽ ἓν οὕτως ἄχρι τῶν ἑπτὰ προστίθησιν, ὥστ᾽ ὀκτὼ καὶ εἴκοσι τὰ πάντα τίκτειν, ὅσα καὶ τῆς σελήνης φῶτ᾽ ἔστιν. τοῦτο μὲν οὖν ἴσως μυθωδέστερον αἱ δ᾽ ἐν τοῖς ὄμμασιν αὐτοῦ κόραι πληροῦσθαι μὲν καὶ πλατύνεσθαι δοκοῦσιν ἐν πανσελήνῳ, λεπτύνεσθαι δὲ καὶ μαραυγεῖν ἐν ταῖς μειώσεσι τοῦ ἄστρου. τῷ δ᾽ ἀνθρωπομόρφῳ τοῦ αἰλούρου τὸ νοερὸν καὶ λογικὸν ἐμφαίνεται τῶν περὶ τὴν σελήνην μεταβολῶν.”
“The sistrum (rattle) also makes it clear that all things in
existence need to be shaken, or rattled about, and never to cease
from motion but, as it were, to be waked up and agitated when they
grow drowsy and torpid.
They say that they avert and repel Typhon by means of the sistrums,
indicating thereby that when destruction constricts and checks
Nature, generation releases and arouses it by means of motion.
The upper part of the sistrum is circular and its circumference
contains the four things that are shaken; for that part of the world
which undergoes reproduction and destruction is contained underneath
the orb of the moon, and all things in it are subjected to motion and
to change through the four elements: fire, earth, water, and air. At
the top of the circumference of the sistrum they construct the figure
of a cat with a human face, and at the bottom, below the things that
are shaken, the face of Isis on one side, and on the other the face of
Nephthys. By these faces they symbolize birth and death, for these
are the changes and movements of the elements; and by the cat they
symbolize the moon because of the varied colouring, nocturnal
activity, and fecundity of the animal. For the cat is said to bring
forth first one, then two and three and four and five, thus
increasing the number by one until she reaches seven, so that she
brings forth in all twenty-eight, the number also of the moon's
illuminations. Perhaps, however, this may seem somewhat mythical.
But the pupils in the eye of the cat appear to grow large and
round at the time of the full moon, and to become thin and narrow at
the time of the wanings of that heavenly body. By the human features
of the cat is indicated the intelligence and the reason that guides
the changes of the moon.”
[Plutarch. Moralia. with an English Awending by Frank Cole Babbitt. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1936. Deal 5. ]
Nine (as thrice three) is also, needless to say, a tale of the moon.
Farewell.
