Skull and Book Library: 2018

The original text is available at: http://www.presscom.co.uk/halliwell/baldwin/baldwin_1584.html

G. B. (William Baldwin, or Gulielmus Baldwin), Beware the Cat, 1584, London: long shop adjoining Saint Mildred’s Church in the Pultrie by Edward Allde.

T . K. to the Reader.

   This little book Beware the Cat
       most pleasantly compiled,
   In time was obscured and so
   since that has been exiled.
   Exiled, because, perchance at first,
       it showed the toys and drifts,
   Of such as then by wiles and wills
       maintained Popish shifts.
   Shifts, such as those in such a time,
       delighted for to use,
   Whereby full many simple souls,
       they did full sore abuse.
   Abuse? Yea, sure and that with spite
       when as the cat began to tell,
   Of many pranks of Popish priests,
       both foolish, mad and fell.
   Fell sure and vain, if judgement right
       appear to be in place,
   And so as fell in pleasant wise,
       this fiction shows their grace.
   Grace? Nay, sure ungraciousness,
       of such and many more,
   which may be told in these our days
       to make us laugh also.
   Also to laugh? Nay, rather weep,
       to see such shifts now used,
   And that in every sort of men,
       true virtue is abused.
   Abused? Yea, and quite downcast,
       let us be sure of that.
   And therefore now, as has been said,
       I say Beware the Cat.
   The cat full pleasantly will show,
   some slegihts that now are wrought
   And make some laugh, which unto mirth
       to be constrained are loath.
   Loath? Yea, for over passing grief,
       that much bereaves their mind,
   For such disorder as in states,
       of every sort they find.
   Find? Yea, who can now boast but that
       the cat will him disclose?
   Therefore in midst of mirth (I say)
       Beware the Cat to those.
   Vale.

TO THE RIGHT Worshipful Esquire John Young, grace and health.

   I have penned, for your master’s pleasure, one of the stories which Master Streamer told last Christmas, and which you so fain would have heard reported by Master Ferrers himself, and although I am unable to pen or speak the same so pleasantly as he could, yet have I so nearly used both the order and words of him that spoke them, which is not the least virtue of a reporter, that I doubt not but that he and Master Willot shall in the reading think they hear Master Streamer speak, and he himself in the like action, shall doubt whether he speaks or reads.

I have divided his oration into three parts, and set the argument before them, and an instruction after them, with such notes as might be gathered thereof, so making it book-like and entitled Beware the Cat. But because I doubt whether Master Streamer will be contented that other men plow with his oxen (I mean pen such things as he speaks) which perhaps he would rather do himself, to have, as he deserves the glory of both, therefore I beseech you to learn his mind herein. And if he agree it pass in such sort, yet that he peruse it before the printing, and amend it if in any point I have mistaken him.

I pray you likewise to ask Master Ferrers his judgement herein, and show him that the cure of the great plague of Master Streamer’s translation out of the Arabic, which he sent me from Marget’s, shall be imprinted as soon as I may conveniently. And if I shall perceive by your trial that Master Streamer allow my endeavors in this kind, I will hereafter (as Plato did by Socrates) pen out such things of the rest of our Christmas communications as shall be to his great glory, and no less pleasure to all them that desire such kinds of knowledge. In the meanwhile I beseech you to accept my good will and learn to Beware the Cat. So shall you not only perform what I speak, but also please the almighty who always preserves you.

   Amen.
   Yours to his power,
   G. B.


   The Argument

   It happened, last Christmas, that I was at court with Master Ferrers, then master of the King’s pastimes, about setting forth certain interludes, which for the King’s recreation we had devised and were learning. In which time, among many other exercises among ourselves, we nightly at our lodging used to talk of sundry things for the furtherance of such offices, wherein each men as then served, for which purpose it pleased Master Ferrers to make me his bedfellow, and upon a pallet cast upon the rushes in his own chamber to lodge Master Willot and Master Streamer, the one his Astronomer, the other his Divine. And among many other things too long to rehearse, it happened on a night (which I think was December 28th), after Master Ferrers came from the court, and was in bed, there fell a controversy between Master Streamer (who with Master Willot had already slept their first sleep) and me, that was newly come into bed, the effect of which was whether birds and beast had reason.
   The occasion thereof was this. I had heard that the King’s Players were learning a play of Aesop’s Crow, in which most of the actors were birds. I discommended the device, saying it was not comical to make either speechless things to speak, or brutish things to common reasonably. And although in a tale it is sufferable to imagine and tell of something spoken by them, or reasonably done (of the kind which Aesop laudably used), yet it was uncomely (said I), and without the example for any author, to bring them in lively personages to speak, do, reason, and allege authorities out of authors.
   Master Streamer, my Lord’s Divine, being more divine on this point than I was aware of, held the contrary position, affirming that beasts and birds have reason, as much as men, and in some points more. Master Ferrers himself and his Astronomer woke up with our talk, and hearkened to us, but would take part on neither side. And when Master Streamer had for proof of his assertion declared many things: of elephants that walked upon cords, and hedgehogs that knew always when weather would come. Foxes and dogs that, after they had been all night abroad killing geese and sheep, would come home in the morning and put their necks into their collars. Parrots that mourned their keeper’s death. Swallows that with celandine open their young one’s eyes, and a hundred things more which I denied to come of reason, but to be but natural kindly actions, alleging for my proof the authority of most grave and learned philosophers.
   “Well,” Master Streamer said, “I know what I know, and I speak not only what I know by hearsay of some philosophers, but what I myself have proved.”
   “Why?” I said then. “Have you proof of beasts’ and birds’ reason?”
   “Yes,” he said. “I have heard them and understood them both speak and reason as well as I heard and understand you.”
   At this, Master Ferrers laughed, but remembering what I had read in Albertus’ works, I thought there might be somewhat more than I knew. So I asked him what beasts or birds he had heard, and where and when?
   At this he paused awhile, and at last said. “If I thought you could be content to hear me, without any interruption until I have done, to mark what I say, I would tell you such a story of one piece of my own experimenting, as should both make you wonder, and put you out of doubt concerning this matter. But this I promise you, before I tell it, that as soon as any curiously interrupts me, I will leave off and not speak one word more.”
   When we had promised quietly to hear, he turning himself in his bed so we might best hear him, said as follows:

   The First Part of Master Streamer’s Oration

       Being lodged, as I thank him I have often been, at a friend’s house, which, more Romish within than garish without, standing at the end of St. Martin’s Lane, and hanging partly upon the town wall that is called Aldersgate, either of one Aldrich or else of Elders, that is to say, ancient men of the city which among them built it, as bishops did Bishops’ Gate, or else of elder trees, which perchance they do in the gardens now there about. So while the common there was vacant, grew abundantly in the same place where the gate was later built, and therefore called Eldergate, as Mooregate took the name of the field outside it, which had been a moor. Or else because it is the most ancient gate of the city, was therefore in respect of the the other, as Newgate called the Eldergate. Or else as Ludgate took the name of Lud who built it, though most of the heralds (I know) assert that Aluredus built it, but they are deceived. For he and his wife Algay built Algate, which took the name from that, as Cripplegate does that of a cripple, who begged so much in his life (as put to the silver weathercock which he stole from Powell’s Steeple) after his death built it.
   But wherever this gate Aldergate took the name (which it belongs chiefly to historians to know), at my friend’s house which, as I said, stands so near that it is over it, I lay oftentimes, and that for sundry causes. Sometimes for lack of other lodging, and sometimes while my Greek Alphabets were in printing, to see that it might be corrected truly. And sure it is a shame for all young men that they are no more studious in the languages, but the world is now come to that pass, that if he can prate a little Latin, and handle a racket and a pair of six square bowls, he shall sooner obtain any living than the best learned in a whole city, which is the reason that learning is so dissipated, and bagagical things so much advanced.
   While I lay at the aforesaid house for the causes aforesaid, I was lodged in a chamber near the printing house, which had a fair bay window opening in the garden, the earth or which is almost as high as St. Anne’s church top, which stands thereby. At the other end of the printing house, as you enter in, is a side door and three or four steps which go up to the leads of the gate, where sometime quarters of men (which is a loathsome and abominable sight) stand up on poles.
    I call it abominable because it not only against nature, but against scripture. For God commanded by Moses, that after the sun went down, all such as were hanged or otherwise put to death should be buried, lest if the sun saw them the next day, his wrath should come upon them and plague them, as he has done in this and many other realms for similar transgressions. And I marvel where men have learned it, or for what cause they do it, except to feed and please the devils.
   For certainly I believe that some spirits Misanthropy or Molochitus, who lived by the favor of man’s blood, did, after their sacrifices failed, in which men were slain and offered unto them, put into that butcherly heathen tyrant’s head to mangle and boil Christian transgressors, and to set up their quarters for them to feed upon. And therefore, I would counsel all men to bury or burn all executed bodies and refrain from making such abominable sacrifices, as I have seen with ravens or other devils feeding upon them in this aforesaid leads, in the which every night many Cats assembled, and there made such a noise that I could not sleep for them.
   Wherefore one time I was sitting by the fire with certain of the house. I told them what a noise and what a wailing the cats had made there the night before, from ten o’clock til one, so that neither I could sleep nor study for them. And by means of this introduction, we fell in communication of cats. And some affirming as I do now, (but I was against it then) that they had understanding, for confirmation whereof one of the servants told this story.
   “There was in my country,” said he, “a man (the fellow was borne in Staffordshire) that had a young cat which he had brought up from a kitten, and would nightly dally and play with it. And one time as he rode through Cankwood, about certain business, a cat (as he thought) leaped out of a bush before him, and called him twice or three times by his name. But because he made no answer, nor spake (for he was so afraid that he could not), she spoke to him plainly, twice or three times, the following words.
   “‘Commend me unto Titton Tatton, and to Puss the cat, and tell her that Grimmalkin is dead.’
   “This done, she went her way, and the man went forward about his business. And after he had returned home, in an evening, sitting by the fire with his wife and his household, he told of his adventure in the wood, and when he told them all the cat’s message, his cat, which had hearkened unto the tale, looked upon him sadly, and at the last said, ‘And is Grimmalkin dead? Then farewell, Dame.’ And then went her way, and was never seen again.”
   When this tale was done, another of the company, who had been in Ireland, asked this fellow when this thing which he had told happened, he answered that he could not tell well, but he conjectured not past forty years, for his mother knew both the man and the woman who had the cat that the message was sent to.
   “Sure,” said the other, “then it may well be, for about the same time, I heard a similar thing happened in Ireland, where, if I conjecture not amiss, Grimmalkin of whom you spoke was slain.”
   “Yea, sir,” I said, “I pray you, how so?”
   “I will tell you, Master Streamer, what was told to me in Ireland, and which I have until now so little credited that I was ashamed to report it, but hearing what I hear now, and calling to mind my own experience when it was, I do so little misdoubt it that I think I never told, nor you ever heard, a more likely tale.
   “While I was in Ireland in the time that Mackmorro and all the rest of the wild lords were the king’s enemies, the time also with mortal war between the Fitzharrises and the Prior and Convent of the abbey of Tintern, who counted them among the King’s friends and subjects, whose neighbor was Cayr Macart, a wild Irish man, then the king’s enemy, and one who daily made inroads into the county of Washford, and burned such towns and carried away all such cattle as he could come by, by means of which, all the country from Climine to Rosse became a vast wilderness, and it is scarcely recovered to this day. In this time I say, as I was on a night as Coshery with one of Fitzberry’s churls, we fell in talk as we have done now, of strange adventures and of cats, and there among other things, the churl (for so they call all farmers and husbandmen), told me as you shall hear.
   “There was, not seven years ago, a kern of John Butler’s dwelling in the Fassock of Bantry called Patrick Apore, who minding to make prey in the night upon Cayr Macart, his master’s enemy, went with his boy (for so they call their horse-keepers, be they ever so old knaves) to his country, and in the nighttime entered into a town of two houses, and broke in and slew the people, and then took such cattle as they found, which was a cow and a sheep, and departed homeward with them.
   “But doubting they should be pursued, the cur dogs made such a shrill barking, he went into a church, thinking to lurk there until midnight was past, for there he was sure that no man would respect or seek him, for the wild Irish men held churches in such reverence, until our men taught them the contrary, that they neither would nor dare either rob anyone there, or hurt any man that took the churchyard for sanctuary, even if had killed his father. And while this kern was in the church, he thought it best to dine, for he had eaten little that day.
   “Therefore he made his boy go gather sticks, and strike fire with his iron, and made a fire in the church and killed the sheep, and after the Irish fashion laid it there on the fire and roasted it. But when it was ready and he thought to eat it, there came in a cat and sat by him, and said in Irish, “Shane foel,” which is, “give me some meat.”
   “Amazed at this, he gave her the quarter that was in his hand, which she immediately ate up, and asked more until she had consumed all the sheep, and like a cormorant, not satisfied with that, asked still for more. Therefore they supposed it was the devil, and thinking it was wisdom to please him, killed the cow which they had stolen, and when they had flayed it, gave the cat a quarter which she immediately devoured. Then they gave her two other quarters, and in the meanwhile, after the country fashion, they cut a piece of the hide and pricked it upon four stakes, which they set about the fire, and therein they set a piece of the cow for themselves, and with the rest of the hide, they made of them laps to wear about their feet like brogues, both to keep their feet from hurt all the next day, and also to serve for meat the next night if they could get no other, by broiling them upon coals.
   “By this time, the cat had eaten three quarters and called for more, so they gave her that which was seething, and doubting lest when she had eaten that, she would eat them too because they had no more for her, they got them out of the church, and the kern took his horse and away he rode as fast he could go. When he was a mile or two from the church, the moon began to shine, and his boy spied the cat upon his master’s horse behind him, and told him, whereupon the kern took his dart and, turning his face toward her, flung it, and stroke her through with it.
   “But immediately there came to her such a sight of Cats, that after a long fight with them, his boy was killed and eaten up, and he himself, as good and as swift as his horse was, had much to do to escape.
   “When he came home and had put off his harness (which was a corselet of mail made like a Shirt, and his seul covered over with gilt leather and crested with ottersain, all weary and hungry, sat him down by his wife and told her his adventure, when a kitten, which his wife kept scarcely half a year had heard: up he started and said, “Have you killed Grimmalkin?”
   “And she plunged in his face, and with her teeth took him by the throat, and before she could be taken away, she had strangled him. This the Churl told me, now about thirty-three winters ago, and it was done, as he and diverse other credible men informed me not seven years before. Whereupon I gather that this Grimmalkin it was, which the Cat in Cankwood sent news of to the cat which we heard of even now.”
   “Tush,” said another that sat by, “your conjecture is unreasonable, for to admit that cats have reason, and that they do in their own language understand one another, yet how should a cat in Cankwood know what is done in Ireland?”
   “How,” said he, “even as we know what is done in the realms of France, Flanders, and Spain, yea, and almost in all the world besides. There are few ships that don’t have cats on them, which bring news to their fellows from all quarters.”
   “Yea,” said the other, “but why should all cats love to hear of Grimmalkin? Or how should Grimmalkin eat so much meat as you speak of? Or why should all cats so labor to revenge her death?”
   “No, that passes my cunning,” he said, “to show in full. How it is in part, conjectures may be made, like this. It may be that Grimmalkin and her line are as much esteemed and have the same dignity among cats, as either the humble or master bee has among the whole hive, at whose commandment all bees are obedient, whose succor and safeguard they seek, whose wrongs they all revenge, or as the Pope has had before this over all Christendom, in whose cause all his clergy would not only scratch and bite, but kill and burn to powder (though they know not why) whomsoever they thought to think but once against him. Which Pope, all things considered, devours more at every meal than Grimmalkin did at her last supper.”
   “Nay,” I said then, “although the Pope by exactions and other bagagical trumpery has spoiled all people of mighty spoils, yet as touching his own person, he eats and wears as little as any other man, though paradventure more sumptuous and costly, and greater abundance provided. And I heard very proper saying, in this behalf, of King Henry the Seventh. When a servant of his told him what abundance of meat he had seen at an abbot’s table, he reported him to be a great glutton. He asked if the abbot ate up all, and when he answered no, but his guests did eat the largest part.
   “‘Ahh,’ the king said. ‘You called him glutton for his liberality to feed you and such other unthankful churls.’ Like this fellow, all are ruffians, for let honest worshipful men of the city, make them of good cheer, or lend them money as they commonly do, what do they get for their labor? Either foul reproachful names as dunghill churls, cuckold knaves, or else spiteful and slanderous reports, as to be usurers, and deceivers of the common weal. And although some of them be such indeed, yet I abhor to hear other of whom they deserve well so lewdly to report them. But now to return to your communication. I marvel Grimmalkin, as you term her, if she were no bigger, could eat so much meat at once.”
   “I do not think,” said he that told the tale, “that she did eat all, although she asked all, but took her choice and left the rest by, as we see in the feeding of many things. For a wolf, although a cow is more than he can eat, will still kill a cow or two for his breakfast, likewise all the other ravenous beasts. Now, that love and fellowship and a desire to save their kind is among cats, I know by experience. For there was one that hired a friend of mine in pastime to roast a cat alive, and promised him twenty shillings for his labor. My friend, to be be sure, caused a cooper to fasten him into a hogshead, in which he turned a spit, upon which was a live cat. But before he turned a while, whether it was the smell of the cat, fur that singed, or else her cry that called them, I cannot tell, but there came such a sortie of cats, that if I and other hardy men (who were well scratched for our labor) had not behaved better, the hogshead as fast as it was hooped could not have kept my coffin from them.”
   “Indeed,” said a well-learned man, and one of excellent judgment that was then in the company, “it does appear that there is in cats, as in all other kinds of beasts, a certain reason and language through which they understand one another. But, as touching this Grimmalkin, I take rather it to be a hag or a witch than a cat, for witches have often gone in that likeness. And therefore the proverb has become as true as common, that a cat has nine lives; that is to say, a witch may take a cat’s body on her nine times.”
   “By my faith, sir, this is strange,” I said. “That a witch should take on her a cat’s body. I have read that the Pythonesses could cause their spirits to take upon them dead men’s bodies, and the airy spirits which we call demons, of which kind are incubus and succubus, Robin Goodfellow the fairy, and goblins, which the miners call Telchines, could at their pleasure take upon them any other sorts. But that a woman, being so large a body, should strain herself into the body of a cat or into that form either, I have not much heard of, nor can well perceive how it may be, which makes me, I promise you, believe it the less.”
   “Well, Master Streamer,” he said, “I know you are not as ignorant herein as you make yourself, but this is your accustomed fashion always to make men believe that you are no so well learned as you are. Sapiens enim celat scienciam, which appeared well by Socrates. For I know being skilled as you are in those tongues, chiefly those called Arabic and Egyptian, and having read so many authors therein, you must be skillful in these matters, but where you spoke of the intrusion of a woman’s body into a cat, you either play Nicodemus, or the stubborn Popish conjuror, whereof the one would creep into his mother’s belly again, and that other would bring Christ out of Heaven to thrust him into a piece of bread. But as the one of them is gross and the other perverse, so in this point I must place you with one of those.
   “For although witches may take upon them cats’ bodies, or alter the shape of their or other bodies, yet this is not done by putting their own bodies into them, but either by bringing their souls for the time out of their bodies, and putting them in the other, or by deluding the sight and fantasies of the seers. As when I make a candle with the brain of a horse and brimstone, the light of the candle makes all kinds of heads appear horse heads, but yet it alters the form of no head, but deceives the right conception of the eye, which through the false light receives a like form.”
   “Then,” he said, that had been in Ireland, “I cannot tell, sir, by what means witches change their one likeness and the shapes of other things. But I have heard of so many, and seen so much myself, that I am sure they do it. For in Ireland (as they have been in England) witches are for fear had in high reverence, and they are so cunning, that they can change the shapes of things as they will, at their pleasure, and so deceive the people. Thereby an act was made in Ireland, that no man should buy any red swine.
   “The cause of that was this. Witches used to send to the markets many red swine, fair and fat, to see unto as any might be, and would in that form continue long, but it chanced the buyers of them to bring them to any water, immediately they found them returned either into wisps of hay, straw, old rotten boards or some other suchlike trumpery, by means of which they have lost their money or such other cattle as they gave in exchange for them.
   “There is also in Ireland one nation, where some one man and woman are every seven years turned into wolves, and so continue in the woods the space of seven years, and if they happen to live out that time, they return to their own form again, and another two are turned the like time into the same shape, which is a penance (as they say) enjoined that stock by Saint Patrick for some wickedness of their ancestors, and this is true: witnessed a man whom I left alive in Ireland, who had performed this seven years’ penance, whose wife was slain while she was a wolf, in her last year.
   “This man told to many men whose cattle he had worried, and whose bodies he had assailed, while he was a wolf, so plain and evident tokens and showed such scars of wounds which other men had given him, both in his man’s shape before he was a wolf, and in wolf’s shape since, which all appeared upon his skin, that it was evident to all men. Yes, and to the Bishop too (upon whose grant it was recorded and registered), that the matter was undoubtedly past peradventure.
   “And I am sure you are not ignorant of the Hermit, who as St. Augustine writes, a witch would in an ass’s form ride upon to market. But now how these Witches made their swine, and how these folk were turned from shape to shape, whether by some ointment whose clearness deceived men’s sights ‘til either the water washed away the ointment, or that the clearness of the water excelled the clearness of the ointment, and so betrayed the operation of it, I am as uncertain, as I am sure that it were the spirits called demons, forced by enchantment who moved those bodies, ‘til the shame of their shape discovered, caused them to leave them.
   “But as for the transformation of the wolves, is either miraculous as Naaman’s leprosy in the flock of Gehazi, or else to shameful, crafty, malicious sorcery. And as the one way is unsearchable, so I think there might means be found to guess how it is done the other way. For witches are by nature exceedingly malicious, and it may chance that some witches for displeasure take with this wolfish nation, gave her daughter charge in her deathbed, when she taught her the science (for until that time witches never teach it nor then but to their eldest and best beloved daughter) that she should at every seven years’ end, confect some ointment which for seven years’ space might be in force against all other clearness to represent to men’s eyes the shape of a wolf, and in the night season to go herself in the likeness either of a mare or some other night form, and anoint therewith the bodies of some couple of that kindred which she hated, & that after her time she should charge her daughter to observer the same, and to charge her daughter after her to do the like forever so this charge is given always by tradition with the science, and so is continued and observed by this witch’s offspring by whom two of this kindred, as it may be supposed, are from every seven for every seven years’ space turned into wolves.”
   When I had heard these tales, and the reason of the doing showed by the teller, “Ah, Thomas,” I said, for that was his name, he died afterward of a disease which he d took in Newgate, where he lay long for suspicion of magic, because he had desired a prisoner to promise him his soul after he was hanged, “I perceive now the old proverb is true, the still sow eats up all the dregs. You go and behave yourself so simply that a man would think you were but a fool, but you have uttered such a proof of natural knowledge in this your brief talk as I think, except myself and few more the best learned alive, none could have done the like.”
   “You say your pleasure, Master Streamer,” quoth he, “as for me, I have said nothing except what I have seen, and from what any man might conjecture as I do. You have spoken full well,” he said, “that gave occasion of this tale, and your conjectures are right reasonable. For like as by ointments, as you supposed the Irish witches do make the form of swine and wolves appear to all men’s sight, so I think that by the like power English witches, and Irish witches, may and do turn themselves into cats, for I heard it told while I was in the University, by a credible Clerk of Oxford, how that in the days while he was a child, an old woman was brought before the official and accused for a witch, which in the likeness of a Cat would go into her neighbors’ houses and steal thence what she listed. Which complaint was proved true, by a place of the woman’s skin which her accusers, when a fire brand that they hurled at her had singed, while she went thieving in her cat’s likeness.
   “So to conclude as I began, I think that the cat which you call Grimmalkin whose name carries in it matter to confirm my Conjecture. For Malkin is a woman’s name, as witnesses the proverb, there be more maids than Malkin. I think (I say) that it was a witch in a cat’s likeness and that for the wit and craft of her, other natural cats, that were not so wise, have had her and her race in reverence among them, thinking her to be but a mere cat as they themselves were, like as we fools a long time, for his sly & crafty juggling, reverenced the Pope, thinking him to have been but a man (though much holier than we ourselves were), whereas indeed he was a very incarnated devil, like as this Grimmalkin was an incarnate witch.”
   “Why then, sir,” I said, “do you think that natural cats have wit and that they understand one another?”
   “What else, Master Streamer?” he said. “There is no kind of sensible creatures, but have reason and understanding, whereby (in their kind) each understands the other, and do therein some points so excel, that the consideration thereof, moved Pythagoras (as you know) to believe and affirm that after death, men’s souls went into beasts, and beasts’ souls into men, and every one according to his desert in his former body.”
   “And although his opinion be fond and false, yet that which drew him to it is evident and true, & that is the wit and reason of diverse beasts, and again, the dull beastly brutish ignorance of diverse men. But that beasts understand one another, and birds likewise, beside this we see by daily experience in marking them, the story of the Bishop of Alexandria by record proves. For he found the means either through diligence to mark them, or else through natural magic, so to subtillitate his sensible power either by purging his brain by dry drinks and fumes, or else to augment the brains of his power perceptible, by other natural medicines, yet he understood all kind of creatures by their voices.
   “For being on a time sitting at dinner in a house among his friends, he hearkened diligently to a sparrow that came fleeing and chirping to others that were about the house, and smiled to himself to hear her, and when one of the company desired to know why he smiled, he said, at the sparrow’s tale. ‘For she tells them,’ said he, “that in the highway not a quarter of a mile hence a sack of wheat is even now fallen off a horse’s back and broken, & all the wheat run out, and therefore bids them come thither to dinner.’ And when the guests mused at it, and sent to prove the truth, they found it even as he had told them.”
    When this tale was ended the clock stuck nine, whereupon old Thomas, because he had far to his lodging, took his leave and departed, the rest of the company got them also either to their business or to their beds.
    And I went straight to my chamber before remembered, and took a book in my hand to have studied, but the remembrance of this former talk so troubled me that I could think of nothing else, but mused still, and as it were examined more narrowly what every man had spoken.

The Second Part of Master Streamer’s Oration

   Before I had been long in this contemplation, the cats, whose crying the night before had been the occasion of all that which I have told you, were assembled again in the leads which I spoke of, where the dead men’s quarters were set up. And after the same sort as they did the night before, one sung in one tune, another in another even such another service, as my Lord’s chapel upon the scaffold song before the King, they observed no known musical chords, and yet I believe I lie, for one Cat groaning as a bear does, when dogs be let slip to him, throwled out so low and loud a bass, that in comparison of another cat which, crying like a young child, squealed out the shrieking treble, it might be well counted a double octave.
   Wherefore to the intent I might better perceive the cause of their assembly, and by their gestures perceive part of their meaning, I went softly and fair into a chamber which had a window into the same leads, and in the dark standing closely, I viewed through the trellis, as well as I could, all their gestures and behavior. And I promise you it was a thing worth the marking to see what countenances, what commands, yes, and what order was among them.
   For one cat which was a mighty big one, gray haired, bristle bearded, and having broad eyes which shone and sparkled like two stars, sat in the middle, and on either side of her sat another, and before her stood three more, whereof one mewed continually, save when the great cat groaned, and ever when the great Cat had done. This mewing cat began again, first stretching out her neck and, as it were, making bows to them which sat. And oftentimes in the midst of this cat’s mewing, all the rest suddenly, each one in his tune, brayed forth, and incontinently hushed again, as it were laughing at something which they heard the other cat declare.
   After this sortie I beheld them from ten ‘til it was twelve o’clock, at which time, whether it were a vessel in the kitchen under, or some board in the printing house hard by, I cannot tell, but something fell with such a noise that all the cats got them up upon that house, and I, fearing lest any arose to see what was fallen, they would charge me with the hurling down of it if they found me there, I whipped into my chamber quickly, and finding my lamp burning, I set me down upon my bed, and devised upon the doings of these cats, casting all manner of way, what might be conjectured thereof to know what they meant.
   And by and by I deemed that the gray cat which sat in the midst was the chief, and sat as a judge among the rest, and that the cat which continually mewed: declared some matter or made account to her of something.
    By means whereof I was straight caught with such a desire to know what she had said, that I could not sleep of all that night, but lay devising by what means I might learn to understand them. And calling to mind that I had read in Albertus Magnus’ works a way to be able to understand bird’s voices: I made no more to do but sought in my library for that little book entitled De Virtutibus = Animalium, etc., and greedily read it over, and when I came to :Si vis voces auium intelligere, etc.," Lord, how glad I was.
   And when I had thoroughly marked the description of the medicine, and confided with myself the nature and power of everything therein, and how and upon what it wrought, I devised thereby how what part of those things, and addition of other like virtue & operation, to make a philtre to serve for my purpose. And as soon as restless Phoebus was come up out of the smoking Sea, & with shaking his golden colored beams which were all the night long in Thetis’ moist bosom had dropped of his silver sweat into Herdaes’ dry lap, and kissing fair Aurora with glowing mouth, had driven from there the intercessor Lucifer, and was mounted so high to look upon Europa that for at that height of Mile End steeple he spied me through the glass window lying on my bed, up I rose and got me abroad to seek for such things as might serve for my earnest business which I went about, and because you be all my friends that are here, I will hide nothing from you, but declare from point to point how I behaved myself both in making & taking of my philtre.
   If you will understand (says Albertus) the voices of birds or beasts, take two in you company, and upon Simon and Jude’s Day early in the morning, get with Hounds into a certain wood, and the first beast that you meet, take and prepare with the heart of a fox, and you shall have your purpose, and whosoever you kiss shall understand them as well as yourself.
    His writing here is doubtful because he says “Quoddam nemus” a certain wood, and because I knew three men (not many years past) who, while they went about this hunting were so afraid, whether with an evil Spirit or with their own imagination I cannot tell, but home they came with their hair standing on end, and some of them have been the worse ever since and the hounds likewise, and seeing it was so long to St. Jude’ Day, therefore I determined not to hunt at all. But conjecturing that the best that they should take was a hedgehog, which at that time of the year goes most abroad, and knowing by reason that the flesh thereof was by nature full of natural heat, and therefore, the principal parts being eaten, must needs expulse gross matters and subtle the brain, as by the like power it engenders fine blood, so helped it much both against the Gout and the Cramp, I got me forth toward St. John’s Wood.
   And whereas not two days before I had seen one, and see the lucky and unlucky chance, by the way as I went I met with hunters, who had that morning killed a fox and three hares, who (I thank them) gave me a hare, and the fox’s whole body except the case, and six smart lashes with a slip, because (wherein I did mean no harm) I asked them if they had seen anywhere any hedgehog that morning. And here, save that my tale is otherwise long, I would show you my mind of these wicked superstitious observation of foolish hunters, for they are like, as seemed me, to the papists, which, for speaking of good and true words, punish good and honest men.
   Are not apes, owls, cuckoos, bears and hedgehogs God’s good creatures? Why then is it not lawful to name them? If they say it brings evil luck in the game, then they are unlucky idolatrous miscreant infidels and have no true belief in God’s providence. I beshrew their superstitious hearts, for my buttocks bear the burden of their misbelief, and yet I thank them again for the fox & the hare which they gave me, for with those two hounds at my girdle I went hunting, ‘til indeed under a hedge in a hole of the earth by the root of an hollow tree, I found a hedgehog with a bushel of crabs about him, whom I killed straight with my knife, saying. “Shavol swashmeth, gorgona liscud,” and with the other beasts hung him at my girdle, and came homeward as fast as I could hie.
   But when I came in the close besides Islington commonly called St. John’s field, a kite likely very hungry spied at my back the skinless fox, and thinking to have had a morsel: struck at it, and that so eagerly that one of his claws was entered so deep, that before he could leave it, I drew out my knife and killed him, saying “Iavolsheleg hutotheca liscud” and to make up the mess, brought him home with the rest, and before I had laid them out of my hand came Thomas, whom you heard of before, and brought me a cat, which, for doing evil turns, they had that morning caught in a snare set for her two days before, which for the skin’s sake was being flayed, was so exceedingly fat, that after I had taken some of the grease of the innards and the head, to make (as I made him believe) a medicine for the gout, they parboiled the rest and at night, roasted and stuffed with good herbs, did eat it up every morsel, and was as good meat as was or could be eaten.
   But now mark, for when Thomas was departed with his cat, I shut my chamber doors to men, and flayed my hedgehog, wishing often for Doctor Nicholas or some other expert physician to make the dissection, for the better knowledge of the anatomy. The flesh I washed clean, and put it in a pot, and with white wine, mead, or Melissa, commonly called balm, rosemary, beef’s tongue, four pats of the first and two of the second, I made a broth, and set it on the fire and boiled it, setting on an alembic with a glass at the end over the mouth of the pot, to receive the water that distilled from it, in the seething whereof I had a pint, of a bottle of wine which I put in the pot.
   Then, because it was about the Solstice festival, and that in confections the hours of the planets, must for the better operation be observed, I tarried ‘til ten o’clock before dinner, at what time Mercury began his lucky reign, and then I took a piece of the cat’s liver, and a piece of the kidney, a piece of the milt and the whole heart, the fox’s heart and lights, the hare’s brain, the kite’s maw, and the hedgehog’s kidneys, all these I beat in a mortar together ‘til it were small, and then made a cake of it, and baked it upon a hot stone ‘til it was dry like bread. And while this was baking, I took seven parts of the cat’s fat, as much of her brain with five hairs of her beard, three black and two gray, three parts of the fox’s fat, as much of her brain, with the hooves of his left feet, the like portion of the hedgehog’s fat and brain with his stones, all the kite’s brain, all the marrow of her bones, the juice of her heart, her upper beak and the middle claw of her left foot, the fat of the hare’s kidneys, and the juice of his right shoulder bone.
   All these things I pounded together in a mortar by the space of an hour, and then I put it in a cloth, and hung it over a basin in the sun, out of which dropped within three hours after, about half a pint of oil very fair and clear. Then took I the galls of all these beasts, and the kites too, and served them likewise, keeping the liquor that dropped from them. At twelve o’clock, what time the Sun began its planetical dominion, I went to dinner, and meat I at none except the boiled hedgehog. My bread was the cake mentioned before, my drink was the distillation of the hedgehog’s broth, which was exceedingly strong and pleasant both in taste and savor.
   After that I had dined well, my head waxed so heavy, that I could not choose but sleep, and after that I waked again, which was within an hour. My mouth and my nose purged exceedingly, such yellow, white and tawny matters as I never saw before, nor thought that any such had been in man’s body. When a pint of this stuff was come forth, my rheum ceased, and my head and all my body was in exceedingly good temper, and a thousand things which I had not thought of in twenty years before came so freshly to my mind, as if they had been then presently done, heard or seen.
   Whereby I perceived that my brain, chiefly my memory was marvelously well purged, my imagination also was so fresh, that by and by I could show probable reason, what and in what sort, and upon what matter everything which I had taken, wrought, and the cause why. Then to be occupied after my sleep, I cast away the carcass of the fox, and of the kite, with all the garbage, both of them and the rest, saving the tongues and the ears, which were very necessary for my purpose. And thus I prepared them. I took all the ears and fibers of the hair, then I stamped them in a mortar, and when they all were like a dry jelly, I put to them rue, fennel Lowach, and leek blades, of each a handful, and pounded them afresh.
   Then I divided all the matter in two equal parts, and made two little pillows, and stuffed them therewith. And when Saturn’s dry hour of dominion approached, I fried these pillows in good olive oil, and laid them hot to my ears, to each one, and kept them there ‘til nine o’clock at night, which helped exceedingly to comfort my understanding power. But because as I perceived the cell perceptible of my brain intelligible, was yet too gross, by means that the filmy clusters coming from dure matter, made to strait opilations, by ingrossing the pores and conduits imaginative, I devised to help that with this gargaristical fume, whose subtle ascension is wonderful.
   I took the cat’s, the fox’s, and the kite’s tongues, and sod them in wine well near to jelly, then I took them out of the wine, and put them in a mortar, and added to them of new cat’s dung, an ounce of mustard seed, garlic, and pepper as much, and when they were with beating incorpored, I made lozenges and pills thereof. And at six o’clock at night, what time the sun’s dominion began again, I supped with the rest of the meat which I left at dinner, and when Mercury’s reign approached, which was within two hours after, I drank a great draught of my distilled water and anointed all my head over with the wine and oil before described, and with the water which came out of the galls I washed my eyes, and because no humors should ascend into my head by evaporation of my reins through the chin bone, I took an ounce of Alkekengi in powder, which I had for a like purpose not two days before bought at the apothecary’s, and therewith rubbed and chafed my back from the neck down to the middle, and heating in a frying pan my pillows afresh and laid them to my ears, and tied a kerchef about my head.
   With my lozenges and pills in a box, I went out among the servants, among whom was a shrewd boy, a very crackrope, that needs would know what was in my box, and I to sauce him after his sauciness, called them Prescientcal pills, affirming that who so might eat one of them should not only understand wonders, but also prophecy after them. Whereupon the boy was exceedingly earnest in entreating me to give him one, and when at last very loathe (as it seemed) I granted his request, he took a lozenge, put it in his mouth, and chewed it apace, by means whereof, when the fume ascended, he began to spattle and spit, saying, “By God’s bones, it is a cat’s turd.”
   At this the company laughed apace, and so did I too, verifying it to be as he said, and that he was a prophet. But that he might not spew too much by imagination, I took a lozenge in my mouth, and kept in under my tongue, showing thereby that it was not evil. While this pastime endured, I thought I heard one cry with a loud voice, “What, Isegrim?” and therefore I asked whose name was Isegrim, saying that one did call him, but they said that they knew none of that name, nor heard any that did call.
   “No,” said I (for it called still). “Hear you nobody? Who is it that called so loud?”
   “We hear nothing but a cat,” quoth they, “which mews above in the leads.”
   When I saw it was so indeed, and that I understood what the cat said, glad was I as any man alive, and taking my leave of them as though I would to bed straight, I went into my chamber, for it was past nine o’clock, and because the hour of Saturn’s cold dominion approached, I put on my gown, and got me privately to the place in the which I had viewed the cats the night before. And when I had settled myself where I might conveniently hear and see all things done in the leads, where this cat cried still for Isegrim, I put in to my two nostrils two trosisques, and into my mouth two lozenges, one above my tongue, the other under, and put off my left shoe because of Jupiter’s appropinquation, and laid the fox tail under my foot.
   And to hear the better, I took off my pillows which stopped my ears, and then listened and viewed as attentively as I could, but I warrant you that pelicle or filmy rime that lay within the bottom of my ear hole, from whence little veins carry the sounds to the senses, was with this medicine in my pillows so purged and parched, or at least dried, that the least moving of the air, whether stroke with breath of issuing creatures which we call voices, or with the moving of dead, as winds, waters, trees, carts, falling of stones, etc., which are named noises, sounded so shrill in my head by reverberation of my fine films, that the sound of them altogether was so disordered and monstrous, that I could discern no one from another, save only the harmony of the moving of the spheres, which noise excelled all other as much both in pleasantness and shrill highness of sound, as the Zodiac itself surmounts all other creatures in altitude of place.
   For in comparison of the bassest of this noise, which is the moving of Saturn by means of his large compass, the highest voices of birds, and the sraitest whistling of the wind, or any other organ pipes (whose sounds I heard confused together) appeared but a low bass, and yet were those a high treble to the voice of beasts, to which as a mean, the running of rivers was a tenor: and the boiling of the Sea and the cataracts or gulfs thereof a goodly bass, and the crashing, rising and falling of the clouds, a deep diapason..
   While I hearkened to this broil, laboring to discern both voices and noises asunder, I heard such a mixture as I think was never in Chaucer’s house of fame, for there was nothing within a hundred miles of me on any side, for from so far but no farther the air may come because of obligation, but I heard it as well as if I had been by it, and could discern all voices, but by means of noises understood none.
   Lord, what a do women made in their beds, some scolding, some laughing, some weeping, some singing to their suckling children, which made a woeful noise with their continual crying. And one shrewd wife a great way off (I think at St. Albon’s) called her husband “Cuckold” so loud and shrilly, that I heard that plain, and would fain have I heard the rest, but could not by means of barking of dogs, grunting of hogs, wauling of cats, rumbling of rats, gaggling of geese, humming of bees, rousing of bucks, gaggling of ducks, singing of swans, ringing of pans, crowing of cocks, sewing of socks, cackling of hens, scrabbling of pens, peeping of mice, trulling of dice, corling of frogs and toads in the bogs, chirping of crickets, shutting of wickets, skriking of owls, flittering of fowls, routing of knaves, snorting of slaves, farting of churls, fisling of girls, with many things else, as ringing of bells, counting of coins, .mounting of groins, whispering of lovers, springling of plovers, groaning and spewing, baking and brewing, scratching and rubbing, watching and shrugging, with such a sort of commixed noises as would deafen anybody to have heard, much more me, seeing that the pannicles of my ears were with my medicine made so fine and stiff, and that by the temperate heat of the things therein, that like a taber dried before the fire, or else a lute string by heat shrunk nearer, they were incomparably amended in receiving and yielding the shrillness of any touching sounds.
   While I was earnestly hearkening, as I said, to hear the woman (minding nothing else) the greatest bell in Saint Botulph’s steeple, which is hard by, was tolled for some rich body that then lay in passing, the sound whereof came with such a rumble into my ear, that I thought all the devils in hell had broken loose, and were come about me, and was so afraid therewith that when I felt the fox tail under my foot (which through fear I had forgotten), I deemed it had been the devil indeed.
   And therefore I cried out as loud as ever I could, “The devil, the devil, the devil.”
   But when some of the folk raised with my noise had sought me in my chamber and found me not there, they went seeking about calling one to another, “Where is he? Where is he? I cannot find Master Streamer,” which noise and stir of them was so great in my ear, and passing man’s common sound, that I thought they had been devils indeed which sought and asked for me. Wherefore I crept close in to a corner in the chimney and hid me, saying many good prayers, to save me from them. And because their noise was so terrible that I could not abide it, I thought best to stop my ears, thinking thereby I should be the less afraid.
   And as I was there about, a crow, which belike was by nodding asleep on the chimney top, fell down into the chimney over my head, whose flittering in the fall made such a noise, that when I felt his feet upon my head, I thought that the devil had been come indeed and seized upon me. And when I cast up my hand to save me and therewith touched him, he called me knave in his language after such a sort that I swooned for fear. And by that I was come to myself again, he was flown from me into the chamber roof and there he sat all night.
   Then I took my pillows and stopped my ears, for the rumble that the servants made I took for the devils, it was so great and shrill, and I had no sooner put them on, but by and by I heard it was the servants which sought for me, and that I was deceived through my clearness in hearing. For the bell which put me in all this fear (for which I never loved bells since) tolled still, and I perceived well enough what it was. And seeing that the servants would not leave calling and seeking ‘til they had found me: I went down unto them, and feigned that a cat had been in my chamber, and frayed me, whereupon they went to bed again, and I to my old place.

The third part of Master Streamer’s Oration

   By this time waning Cynthia, which the day before had filled her growing horns, was come up on our Hemisphere, and freshly yielded forth her brother’s light which the reverberation of Thetis’s trembling face, now full by means of spring, had fully cast upon her, whereof she must needs love every day more and more, by means that the nepe abasing Thetis’s swollen face, would make her to cast beyond her those rades which before the full. The spring had caused her to throw short, like as with a Crystal glass, a man may by the placing of it either high or low, so cast the Sun or a candlelight upon any round glass of water that it shall make the light thereof both in waxing and waning to counterfeit the Moon.
   For you shall understand, chiefly you, Master Willot, that are my Lord’s Astronomer, that all our ancestors have failed in knowledge of natural causes, for it is not the Moon that causes the sea to ebb and flow, neither to nepe and spring, but the neping and springing of the sea is the cause of the moon’s both waxing and waning. For the moonlight is nothing save the shining of the sun, cast into the element by opposition of the sea, as also the stars are nothing else but the sunlight reflected upon the face of rivers, and cast upon the crystalline heaven, which because rivers always keep a like course, therefore are the stars always of one bigness. As for the course of the stars from east to west is natural by means of the sun’s like moving, but in that they ascend and descend, that is, sometime come northward and sometime go southward, that is caused also by the sun’s being either on this side or on the other side his line likenightical. The like reason follows for the poles not moving, and that is the situation of those rivers or dead seas which cast them, and the roundness and egg form of the firmament. But let this pass, which in my book of Heaven and Hell, shall be plainly not only declared, but both by reason and experience proved, I will come again to my matter.
   When Cinthea (I say), following her brother’s steps, had looked in at my chamber window, and saw me neither in my bed nor at my book, she hied her apace into the south, and at a little hole in the house’s roof, peeped in and saw me where I was set to hearken to the cats. And by this time all the cats which were there the night before: were assembled with many others, only the great gray one excepted. Unto whom, as soon as he was come, all the rest did their business as they did the night before.
   And when he was set: thus he began in his language, which I understood as well as if he had spoken English,
   “Ah, my dear friends and fellows, you may say I have been a lingerer this night, and that I have tarried long ,but you must pardon me, for I could come no sooner. For when this evening I went into an ambry where was much good meat, to steal my supper, there came a wench not thinking I had been there, and clapped the lid down, by means whereof I have had much to do to get forth. Also in the way as I came hither over the house tops, in a gutter were thieves breaking in at the window, who frightened me so that I lost my way and fell down into the street, and had much to do to escape the dogs. But seeing that by the grace of Hagat and Heg, I am now come, although as I perceive by the tail of the great Bear, and by Alhabor which are now somewhat southward that the fifth hour of our night approaches, yet seeing this is the last night of my charge, and that tomorrow I must again to my Lord Cammoloch (at this all the cats spread along their tails and cried “Hagat and Heg save him”). Go to now, good Mouse Slayer,” said he, “and that in time which my misfortune has lost, recover again by briefness of your talk.”
   “I will my Lord,” said Mouse Slayer, which is the cat which as I told you stood before the great cat the night before, continually mewing, who in her language after that with her tail she had made courtesy, shrunk in her neck and said. “Whereas by virtue of your commission from my Lord Cammoloch (whose life Hagat and Heg defend), who by inheritance and our free election enjoys the empire of his traitorously murdered mother, the goddess Grimmalkin, you his clerk and chief counselor, my Lord Grisard, with Isegrim and Poilnoer your assistants, upon a complaint put up in your high dees, by that false accuser Catchrat (who bears me malice because I refused his lecherously offered delights) have caused me in purging myself before this honorable company, to declare my whole life since the blind days of my kittenhood. You remember, I trust, how in the two nights passed, I have declared my life for four years’ space, wherein you perceive how I behaved me all that time.
   “Wherefore to begin where I left last, you shall understand that my lord and lady, whose lives I declared to you last yesternight, left the city and went to dwell in the country, and carried me with them. And being there a stranger, I lost their house, and with Bird Hunt my mate, the gentlest in honest venary that ever I met with, when to a town where he dwelt called Stratford either Stony, upon Tyne, or upon Avon, I do not well remember which, where I dwelt half a year, and this was in the time when preachers had leave to speak against the Mass, but it was not forbidden ‘til half a year after.
   “In this time I saw nothing worthy to certify my lord of, save this. My dame with whom I dwelt and her husband were both old, and therefore hard to be turned from their rooted belief which they had in the Mass, which caused diverse young folk, chiefly their sons, and a learned kinsman of theirs to be the more earnest to teach and persuade them. And when they had almost brought the matter to a good point, I cannot tell how it chanced, but my dame’s sight failed her, and she was so sick, that she kept her bed two days. Wherefore she sent for the parish priest, her old ghostly father, and when all were voided the chamber save I and they two, she told him how sick she was and how blind, so that she could see nothing, and desired him to pray for her and give her good counsel.
   “To whom he said thus, ‘It is no marvel, though you be sick and blind in body, which suffer your souls willingly to be blinded, you send for me now, but why send you not for me when these new heretics taught you to leave the Catholic belief of Christ’s flesh in the Sacrament?’
   “‘Why, sir,’ said she, ‘I did send for you once, and when you came they posed you so with Holy Writ, and Saint’s writing, that you could say nothing but call them heretics, and that they had made the New Testament themselves.’
   “‘Yea,’ quoth he, ‘but did not I bid you take heed then, and told you how God would plague you?’
   “‘Yes, good sir,’ quoth she, ‘you did, and now to my pain I find you too true a prophet, but I beseech you forgive me, and pray to God for me, and whatsoever you will teach me, then will I believe unto the death.’
   “‘Well,’ said he, ‘God refuses no sinners that will repent, and therefore in any case believe that Christ’s flesh, body, soul, and bone is as it was born of our blessed Lady, in the consecrated host, and see that therefore you worship it, pray and offer to it. For by it any of your friend’s souls may be brought out of purgatory, which these new heretics say is no place at all, but when their souls fry in it, they shall tell me another tale. And that you may know all that I say is true and that the Mass can deliver such as trust in it, from all manner of sins, I will by and by say you a Mass that shall restore your sight and health.’
   “Then took he out of his bosom a wafer cake, and called for wine, and then shutting the door unto him, revised himself in a surplice, and upon a table set before the bed, he laid his prayer book, and thereout he said Mass.
    “And when he came to the elevation, he lifted up the cake and said to my dame (which in two days before saw nothing), ‘Wipe your eyes you sinful woman and look upon your maker.’
   “With that, she lifted up herself and saw the cake, and had her sight and her health as well as ever she had before. When Mass was done, he thanked God and him exceedingly, and he gave her charge that she should tell to no young folks how she was helped, for his bishop had throughout the diocese forbidden them to say or sing any Mass, but commanded her that secretly to old honest men and women, she should at all times most devoutly rehearse it. And by reason of this miracle many are so confirmed in the belief, that although by a common law, all Masses upon penalty were since forbidden, diverse have them privily and nightly said in their chambers until this day.”
   “Mary, sir,” quoth Poilnoer. “This was either a mighty miracle, or else a mischievous subtlety of a majestical minister. But sure if the priest by magical art blinded her not before, and so by like magical sorcery cured her again. It were good for us to hire him or another priest at our delivery to sing a Mass before our kittens, that they might in their birth be delivered of their blindness, and sure if I knew that priest, it should scape me hard, but I would have one litter of kittens in some chamber where he used now to say his private night Masses.”
   “What need that?” said Mouse Slayer. “It would do them no good. For I myself upon like consideration kittened since in another mistress’s chamber of mine, where a priest every day said Mass, but my kitten saw nought the better, but rather the worse. But when I heard that the Lord with whom I went into the country, would to London to dwell again, I kept the house so well for a month before, that when my lady when she went carried me with her. And when I was come to London again, I went in visitation to my old acquaintance, and when I was great with kittens because I would not be unpurveyed of a place to kitten in, I got in favor and household with an old gentlewoman, a widow, with whom I passed out this whole year.
   “This woman got her living by boarding young gentlemen, for whom she kept always fair wenches in store for whose sake she had the more resort, and to tell you the truth of her trade, it was fine and crafty, and not so dangerous, as deceitful. For when she had soaked from young gentlemen all that they had, then would she cast them off except they fell to cheating. Wherefore many of them in the nighttime would go abroad, and bring the next morning home with them sometimes moneys, sometimes jewels, as rings or chains, sometimes apparel, and sometimes they would come again cursing their ill fortune, with nothing save peradventure dry blows or wet wounds, but whatsoever they brought my dame would take it, and find the means either so to gauge it that she would never fetch it again, or else melt it and sell it to the goldsmith’s.
   “And not withstanding that she used these wicked practices, yet was she very holy and religious, and therefore, although that all images were forbidden, yet kept she one of our Lady in her coffer, and every night when everybody was gone to bed, and none in her chamber but she and I, then would she fetch her out, and set her upon her cupboard, and light up two or three wax candles before her, and then kneel down to her, sometimes a whole hour saying over her beads, and praying her to be good unto her, and to save her and all her guests both from danger and shame, and promising that then she would honor and serve her during all her life.
   “While I was with this woman, I was always much cherished and made of, for on nights while she was praying, I would be playing with her beads, and always catch them as she let them fall, and would sometime put my head in the compass of them, and run away with them about my neck, whereat many times she took great pleasure, yea, and so did our Lady too. For my dame would say sometimes to her, ‘Yea blessed Lady, I know you hear me by your smiling at my Cat.’ And never did my dame do me any hurt save once, and that I was even with her for, and that was thus.
   “There was a gentleman, one of her boarders, much enamored in the beauty of a merchantman’s wife in the city, whom he could by no means persuade to satisfy his lust. Yea, when he made her great banquets, offered her rich apparel, and all kind of precious jewels which commonly women delight in, yea, and large sums of money which corrupt, even the gods themselves, yet could he by no means alter her mind, so much she esteemed her good name and honesty.
   “Wherefore forced through desire of that which he could not but long for, and so much the more, because it was most earnestly denied him, he broke his mind to my dame, and entreated her to aid him to win this young woman’s favor, and promised her for her labor whatsoever she would require. Whereupon my dame which was taken for as honest a woman as any in the city, found the means to desire this young woman to a dinner, and against she should come, my dame gave me a piece of a pudding which she had filled full of mustard, which as soon as I had eaten, wrought so in my head that it made my eyes run all day after, and to mend this, she blew pepper in my nose to make me sneeze.
   “And when the young wife was come, after that my dame had showed her all the commodities of her house (for women delight much to show forth what they have), they set them down together at the table, none save only they two, and while they were in gossip’s talk about the behaviors of this woman, I came as I was accustomed and sat by my dame. And when the young woman, hearing me cough and seeing me weep continually, asked what I ailed, my dame, who had tears at her command, sighed, and fallen as it were in a sudden dump, burst forth in weeping and said, ‘In faith, Mistress, I think I am the most unfortunate woman alive, upon whom God had at once powered forth all his plagues, for my husband the most honest man that lived, he has taken from me, and with him mine heir and only son, the most pleasant young man that was alive, and yet not satisfied herewith. Lo, here my only daughter, which. though I say it, was as fair a woman and as fortunately married as any in this city, he has (for her honesty or cruelty I cannot tell whether) turned into this likeness wherein she has been above these two months, continually weeping as you see, and lamenting her miserable wretchedness.”
   “The young woman, astonished at this tale and crediting it, by means of my dame’s lachrimable protestations and deep dissimulation, asked her the more earnestly how and by what chance, and for what cause, as she thought. she was so altered.
   “‘Ah,’ said my dame, ‘as I said before, I cannot tell what I should think, whether excuse my daughter and accuse God, or else blame her and acquit him. For this my daughter being, as I said, fortunately married, and so beloved of her husband, and loving again to him (as now we both too late do, and ever I think shall rue), was loved exceedingly of another young man, who made great suit and labor unto her. But she, as I think all women should, esteeming her honesty and promise made unto her husband the day of their marriage, refused still his desire, but because he was importunate, she came at the last and told me it. And I, thinking that I had done well, charged her in any case, which full often since I have repented, that she should not consent to him, but to shake him off with shrewd words and threatening answers. She did so, alas, alas the while, and the young man, seeing none other about, went home and fell sick, and loving so honestly and secretly, that he would make none other of his counsel, pined and languished upon his bed the space of three days, receiving neither meat nor drink, and then perceiving his death to approach, he wrote a letter which I have in my purse, and sent it by his boy to my daughter. If you can read, you shall see it. I cannot, but my daughter here could very well, and write too.’
   “Herewith my dame wept apace, and took the letter and gave it this young woman, who read it in form following:

   Cursed be the woeful time wherein mutual love first mixed the mass of my miserable carcass. Cursed be the hour that ever the fatal destinies have ought for me purveyed. Yea, cursed be the unhappy hour, may I say, in which I first saw those piercing eyes, which by insensible and unquenchable power inflaming my heart to desire, are so blind of all mercy, as will rather with rigor consume my life, than rue my grief with one drop of pity. Sue not to you, my dear unloving love, for any kind of grace, the doubtful hope whereof despair has long since (with your powering showers of cruel words) utterly quenched. But this much I desire, which also by right I think my faithful love has well deserved, that since your fidelity in wedlock (which I can and must needs praise as would to God I could not) will suffer my pined corpse no longer to retain the breath through cold cares wholly consumed, yet at the last, which is also an office of friendship before the gods meritorious. Come visit him who, if ought might quench love, should not love, whose mouth these three days has taken no food, whose eyes the like time have taken no rest, whose heart these three weeks was never merry, whose mind these three months was never quiet, whose bed these seven nights was never made, and who (to be brief) is in all parts so enfeebled, that living he dies, and dead awhile he lives.
   And when this silly ghost shall leave this cruel and miserable prison, in recompense of his love, life, and death, let those white and tender hands of yours close up those open windows, through which the uncomfortable light of your beauty shone first into his heart. If you refuse to do this, I beseech the gods immortal, to whom immediately I go, that as without any kind of either love or kindness, you have caused me to die, so that none other caught with your beauty, do likewise perish, I beseech (I say) the just gods, that either they change that honest stony heart or else disfigure that fair merciless favor. Thus for want of force either to indite or write any more,
   I take my leave, desiring you either to come and see me die, or if I be dead before, to see me honestly buried.
   Yours unregarded alive,
   G.S.

   “When the young woman had read this letter, she took it again to my dame, and with much to-do to withhold her swelling tears, she said, ‘I am sorry for your heaviness much more for this man’s, but most for your daughter’s. But what did she after she saw this letter?’
   “‘Ah, said my dame, ‘she esteemed it as she did his suits before. She sent him a rough answer in writing. But ere ever the boy came home with it, his master was dead. Within two days after, my son-in-law, her husband, died suddenly, and within two days after, as she sat here with me lamenting his death, a voice cried aloud, ‘Ah, flinty heart, repent thy cruelty, and immediately (oh extreme rigor) she was changed as you now see her. Whereupon I gather that though God would have us keep our faith to our husbands, yet rather than any other should die for our sakes, we should not make any conscience to save their lives. For it fares in this point as it does in all others, for as all extremities are vices, so it is a vice as appears plainly, by the punishment of my daughter, to be to extreme in honesty, chastity or any other kind of virtue.’
   “This, with the talk of my dame in the dinnertime, so sank it to the young woman’s mind, that the same afternoon she sent for the gentleman whom she had erst so consistently refused, and promised him that if he would appoint her any unsuspected place, she would be glad to meet him to fulfill all his lust, which he appointed to be the next day at my dame’s house, where, when they were all assembled, I minding to acquit my dame for giving me mustard, caught a quick mouse, whereof my dame always was exceedingly afraid, and came with it under her clothes, and there let it go, which immediately crept up upon her leg.
   “But Lord, how she bestirred her then, how she cried out, and how pale she looked, and I to amend the matter, making as though I leaped at the mouse, all to bescratch her thighs and her belly, so that I dare say she was not whole again in two months after, and when the young woman, to whom she showed her pierced thighs, said I was an unnatural daughter to deal so with my mother.
   “‘Nay,’ quoth she, ‘I cannot blame her, for it was through my counsel that she suffered this sorrow, and yet I dare say she did it against her will, thinking to have caught the mouse, which else I dare say would have crept onto my belly.’
   “By this means was this innocent woman, otherwise invincible, brought to commit whoredom. Shortly after, this young woman begged me of my dame, and to her I went and dwelled with her all that year. In which year, as all the cats in the parish can tell, I never disobeyed or transgressed our holy law refusing the concupisciential company of any cat nor the act of generation, although sometimes, it were more painful to me than pleasant, if it were offered in due and convenient time.
   “Indeed, I confess I refused Catchrat, and bit him and scratched him, which our law forbids. For on a time this year when I was great with kittens, which he of a proud stomach refused to help to get, although I earnestly wooed him thereto what time beloved so much his own daughter Slickskin that all other seemed vile in his sight, which also esteemed him as much as he did the rest, that is never a whit.
   “In this time (I say) when I was great with kittens, I found him in a gutter eating of a bat, which he had caught that evening and as you know, not only we but also women in our case do often long for many things. So I then longed for a piece of that bat, and desired him for saving of my kitten, to give me a morsel, although it were but of the leather-like wing. But he, like an unnatural ravenous churl, ate it all up, and would give me none. And as men do now-a-days to their wives, he gave me bitter words, saying we longed for wantonness and not for any need.
   “This grieved me so sore, chiefly for the lack of that I longed for, that I was sick two days after, and had it not been for good dame Isegrim, who brought me a piece of a mouse, and made me believe it was of a back, I had lost my burden, by kittening ten days before my time. When I was recovered and went abroad again about three days, this cruel churl met me, and needs would be doing with me to whom, when I had made answer according to his dessert, and told him withal which he might see to, by my belly, what case I was in.
   “Tush, there was no remedy. I think he had eaten savory, but for all that I could say, he would have his will. I seeing that, and that he would ravish me perforce, I cried out for help as loud as ever I could squeal, and to defend myself ‘til succor came, I scratched and bit as hard as ever I could, and this notwithstanding had not Isegrim and her son Lightfoot come the sooner, who both are here and can witness he would have marred me quite.
   “Now whether I might in this case refuse him and do as I did without breach of our holy law, which forbids us females to refuse any males, not exceeding the number of ten in a night, judge you, my Lords, to whom the interpretation of the laws belongs.”
   “Yes, surely,” said Grisard, “for in the third year of the reign of Glascaion, at a court held in Catwood, as appears in the records, they decreed upon that exception, forbidding any male in this case, to force any female and that upon great penalties. But to let this pass, whereof we were satisfied in your purgation the first night, tell us how you behaved you with your new mistress, and that as briefly as you can, for lo, where Corleonis is almost plain west, whereby you know the Goblin’s hour approaches.”
   “After I was come to my young mistress,” said Mouse Slayer, “she made much of me, thinking I had been my old dame’s daughter, and many tales she told thereof to her gossips. My master also made much of me, because I would take meat in my foot, and therewith put it to my mouth and feed.
   “In this house dwelt an ungracious fellow, who, delighting much in unhappy turns, one time took four walnut shells, and filled them full of soft pitch, and put them upon my feet, and then put my feet into cold water until the pitch was hardened, and then he let me go. But Lord, how strange it was to me to go in shoes, and how they vexed me. For when I ran upon any steep thing they made me slide and fall down.
   “Wherefore all that afternoon, for anger that I could not get off my shoes, I hid me in a corner of the garret which was boarded, under which my master and Mistress lay. And at night when they were all in bed, I spied a mouse playing on the floor, and when I ran at her to catch her, my shoes made such a noise upon the boards, that it waked my master, who was a man very fearful of sprites. And when he with his servants hearkened well to the noise, which went pit pat, pit pat, as it had been the trampling of a horse, they waxed all afraid, and said surely it was the devil.
   “And as one of them, a hardy fellow, even he that had shoed me, came upstairs to see what it was, I went downward to meet him and made such a rattling, that when he saw my glistening eyes, he fell down backward and broke his head crying out ‘The devil, the devil, the devil,’ which his master and all the rest hearing, ran naked as they were into the street, and cried the same cry. Whereupon the neighbors arose and called up among another an old priest, who lamented much the lack of holy water, which they were forbidden to make, howbeit he went to church and took out of the font some of the Christening water, and took his chalice and a wafer unconsecrated, and put on a surplice and his stole about his neck, and set out of his chamber a piece of holy candle which he had kept two years, and herewith he came to the house and with his candlelight in the one hand and a holy water sprinkler in the other hand, and his chalice and wafer in sight in his bosom, and a pot of font water at his girdle, up he came praying toward the garret, and all the people after him.
   “And when I saw this, and thinking I should have seen some Mass that night as many nights before in other places I had, I ran towards them thinking to meet them. But when the priest heard me come, and by a glimpsing had seen me, down he fell upon them that were behind him, with his chalice hurt one, with his water pot another, and his holy candle fell into another priest’s breeches beneath, who (while the rest were hawsoning me) was conjuring our maid at the stair foot, and all to besinged him, for he was so afraid with the noise of the rest which fell, that he had not the power to put it out.
   “When I saw all this business, down I ran among them where they lay in heaps but such a fear as they were all in them, I think was never seen before. For the old priest which was so tumbled among them that his face lay upon a boy’s bare arse, which belike was fallen headlong under him, was so astonished, then when the boy (which for fear beshit himself) had all to arrayed his face, he neither felt nor smelt it nor removed from him.
   “Then went I to my dame, which lay among the rest, God knows very madly, and so mewed and curled about her, that at last she said ‘I ween it be my Cat.’ That hearing, the knave that had shoed me, and calling to mind that erst he had forgot, said it was so indeed, and nothing else.
   “That hearing, the priest, in whose holy breeches the holy candle all this while lay burning, he took heart a grace, and before he was spied rose up and took the candle in his hand, and looked upon me and all the rest of the company, and fell laughing at the handsome lying of his fellow’s face. The rest, hearing him, came every man to himself, and arose and looked upon me and cursed the knave which had shoed me, who would in no case be known of it.
   “This done, they got hot water and dissolved the pitch, and plucked off my shoes, and then every man after they desired each other not to be known of this night’s work, for shame, departed to their lodgings, and all our household went to bed again.”
    When all the Cats and I too for company, had laughed at this apace: Mouse Slayer proceeded and said, “After this about three quarters of a year, which was at Whitsuntide last, I played another prank and that was this. The gentleman who (by my old dame’s lying and my weeping) was accepted and retained of my mistress, came often home to our house, and always in my master’s absence was doing with my dame.
   “Wherefore, desirous that my master might know it, for they spent his goods so lavishly between them, that not withstanding his great trade of merchandise, they had unwitting to him almost undone him already. I sought how I might bewray them which as hap would (at the time remembered) before, came to pass thus. While this Gentleman was doing with my dame, my master came in so suddenly, that he had no leisure to pluck up his hose, but with them about his legs ran into a corner behind the painted cloth, and there stood, I warrant you, as still as a mouse. As soon as my master came in, his wife according to her old wont, caught him about the neck and kissed him and devised many means to have got him forth again, but he being wary sat down and called for his dinner, and when she saw there was no other remedy, she brought it to him, which was a mess of pottage and a piece of beef, whereas she and her friend had broken their fast with capons, hot venison, marrow bones, and all other kind of dainties.
   “I seeing this, and minding to show my Master how he was ordered, got behind the cloth, and to make the man speak I all to pawed him with my claws upon his bare legs and buttocks, and for all this he stood still and never moved. But my master heard me, and thinking I was catching a mouse, bade my dame go help me, who knowing what beast was there, came to the cloth and called me away saying, ‘Come, Puss, come, Puss,’ and cast me meat onto the floor.
   “But I minding another thing, and seeing that scratching could not move him, suddenly I lept up and caught him by the genitals with my teeth, and bit so hard, that when he had restrained more than I thought any man could, at last he cried out and caught me by the neck, and thinking to have strangled me. My Master not smelling but hearing such a rat as was not wont to be about such walls: came to the cloth and lifted it up, and there he found this bare-arsed gentleman strangling me, who had his stones in my mouth.
   “When I saw my master I let go my hold, and the gentleman his, and away I ran immediately to the place where I now dwell, and never came there since, so that how they agreed among them I cannot tell, nor never durst go see, for fear of my life.
   “Thus have I told you, my good Lords. all things that have been done and happened through me, wherein you perceive my loyalty and obedience to all good laws, and how shamelessly and falsely I am accused for a transgressor, and I pray you as you have perceived, so certify my liege, great Camoloch (whose life both Hagat & Heg preserve) of my behavior.”
   When Grisard, Isegrim and Poilnoer the commissioners had heard this declaration and request of Mouse Slayer, they praised her much. And after that they had commanded her with all the cats there to be on Saint Katherine’s Day next ensuing at Cathenes, whereas they say Camoloch would hold his court, they departed, and I, glad to have heard what I heard, and sorry that I had not understood what was said the other two nights before, got me to my bed and slept good.
   And the next morning when I went out into the garden, I heard a strange cat ask of our cat what Mouse Slayer had done before the commissioners those three nights. To whom our cat answered, that she had purged herself of a crime that was laid to her charge by Catchrat, and declared her whole life for six years’ space, “wherefore in the first two years as we said,” said she, “she had five masters, a priest, a baker, a lawyer, a broker and a butcher, all whose private deceits which she had seen, she declared the first night.
   “In the next two years she had seven masters, a bishop, a knight, an apothecary, a goldsmith, a usurer, an alchemist, and a lord, whose cruelty, study, craft, cunning, niggardliness, folly, waste, and oppression she declared the second night, wherein this doing was notable. Because the knight having a fair lady to his wife, gave his mind so much to his books that he seldom lay with her. This cat pitying her mistress, and minding to fray him from lying alone, on a night when her master lay from her got to his mouth, and drew so his breath, that she almost stifled him.
   “A like part she played with the usurer, who being rich and yet living miserably and feigning himself poor, she got one day while his treasure chest stood open, and hid her therein, whereof he not knowing, locked her in it. And when at night he came thither again and heard one stirring there, and thinking it had been the Devil, he called the priest and many other persons to come and help him to conjure, and when (in their sight) he opened his chest, out lept she, and they saw what riches he had, and ceased him thereafter.
   “As for what was done and said yesterrnight, both of my Lord Grisard’s hard adventure, and of Mouse Slayer bestowing her other two last years, which is nothing in comparison of any of the other two years; before, I need not tell you, for you were present and heard it yourself.”
    This talk, lo, I heard between these two cats, and then I got me in, and broke my fast with bread and butter, and dined at noon with common meat, which so repleted my head again, and my other powers in the first digestion, that by nighttime: they were as gross as ever they were before. For when I hearkened at night to another two cats which, as I perceived by their gestures, spoke of the same matter, I understood never a word.
   Lo, here have I told you all, chiefly you, my Lord, a wonderful matter, and yet as incredible as it is wonderful, notwithstanding when I may have convenient time, I will tell you other things which these eyes of mine have seen, and these ears of mine have heard, and that of mysteries so far passing this, that all which I have said now shall in comparison thereof, be nothing at all to be believed.
   In the meanwhile I wil pray you to help to get me some money to convey me on my journey to Cathenes, for I have been going thither these five years, and never was able to perform my journey. When Master Ferries had promised that he would: every man shut up his shop windows,
which the foresaid talk kept open two hours longer then they should have been.

   Fin.

An Exhortation

   I know these things will seem marvelous to many men, that cats should understand and speak, have a governor among themselves, and be obedient to their Laws, and were it not for the approved authority of the ecstatical author of whom I heard it, I should myself be as doubtful as they. But seeing I know the place and the persons with whom he talked of these matters, before he experimented his wonderful and strange confections, I am the less doubtful of any truth therein. Wherefore seeing he has in his oration proved that cats do understand us and mark our secret doings, and so declare them among themselves, that through help of the medicine by him described, any man may, as he did, understand them, I would counsel all men to take heed of wickedness, and eschew secret sins and private mischievous counsels, lest (to their shame) all the world at length do know thereof. But if any man, for doubt hereof, do put away his cat, then shall his so doing testify his secret naughty living, which he is more ashamed his cat should see, then God and his angels, will see, mark and behold all men’s closest doings.
   And that we may take profit by this declaration of Master Streamer, let us so live both openly and privately that neither our own cat, admitted to all secrets, be able to declare ought of us to the world save what is laudable and honest. Nor the Devil’s cat, which will we or nil we, see and write all our ill doings, have ought to lay against us before the face of God, who not only with shame but with everlasting torment, will punish all sin and wickedness. And ever when you go about any thing, call to mind this proverb, “Beware the Cat,” not to tie up your cat ‘til you have done, but to see that neither your own nor the devil’s cat (which cannot be tied up) find anything therein whereof to accuse you to your shame.
       Thus doing you cannot do amiss, but shall have such good report through your cat’s declaration, that you shall in recompense of Master Streamer’s labor, who gave you this warning, sing unto God this hymn of his making.

   The Hymn

   Who gives wit to whales, to apes, to owls,
   And kindly speech, to fish, to flesh, to fowls.
   And spirit to men in soul and body clean,
   To mark and know what other creatures mean
   Which have given grace to Gregory no Pope,
   No king, no lord, whose treasures are their hope
   But silly priest, which like a Streamer waves,
   In ghostly good, despite of foolish knaves.
   Which has (I say) given grace to him to know,
   The course of things above and here below.
   With skill so great in languages and tongues,
   As never breathed from Mithridates’ lungs.
   To whom the hunter of birds, of mice and rats,
   Did speak as plain as Kate who trims hats.
   By means of whom is openly betrayed,
   Such things as closely were both done and said.
   To him grant Lord with healthy wealth and rest,
   Long life to unload to us his learned breast.
   With fame so great to outlive his grave,
   As none had before, nor any after have.
   F I N I S

   Imprinted at London, at the long shop adjoining unto St. Mildred’s Church in the Pultry, by Edward Allde, 1584.

Skull and Book Library

Friday, December 28, 2018

Classics Club Overview

Beware the Cat, by William Baldwin

Beware the Cat in Modern(ish) English