Cats—WDSS (What Does Shakespeare Say)

My previous blog entry opened a can of worms about a bag of cats. The current blog entry will follow-up that examination of proverbs which refer to cats with a discussion of the burning question, WDSS (What Does Shakespeare Say), about cats. Cats clearly influenced Shakespeare’s choice of character names, as in Fleance from the Scottish play. In addition, Shakespeare uses a variant spelling of Clawdio, Claudio, for characters in Much Ado About Nothing and Measure for Measure.

The Phrase Finder notes that many English proverbs mention cats, providing the following list:  a cat may look at a king (1546); all cats are grey in the dark (1596); curiosity killed the cat (1921); there are more ways of killing a cat than choking it with cream (1855); and when the cat is away, the mice will play (1607). The Phrase Finder explains popularity of cats in the English language as a result of them being widely kept as mousers and pets. However, as Shakespeare created the world—at least in my version of the creation story—and hence the English language, the number of cats in English proverbs comes as no surprise.

As I contemplated how Shakespeare uses cats in his plays, a few examples popped to mind immediately, such as his characterization of Tybalt as the King of Cats, meaning a formidable opponent and capable swordsman, in Romeo and Juliet. I also thought of the line from Hamlet, “The cat will mew, the dog will have his day,” or as Andy Warhol phrased it in modern times, everyone will have his or her fifteen minutes of fame (MEOW).

Next, I took the traditional approach and consulted the entry on “cat” in Alexander Schmidt’s Shakespeare Lexicon and Quotation Dictionary.”  I report here on a few of my favorites from the multitude of usages. 

For the actors among my readers, the next time you get a role in which you “tear a cat,” as Bottom hopes for in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, you will rant and rave, perhaps like a bag of cats. In that same play, Lysander, under the influence of the love-in-idleness potion, thrusts his former lover, Hermia, away with these words, “Hang off, thou cat, thou burr.” (They end up married at the end.)

Lady Macbeth, in questioning Macbeth’s doubts about killing King Duncan in order to take his throne, asks why he got her hopes up “Like the poor cat in the adage?” The adage refers to a cat who would eat fish but dares not wet her feet. (Both Macbeths ultimately end up with much more than wet feet.)

In Much Ado About Nothing, Benedick arrives to challenge Claudio (see above on naming) for unjustly accusing Hero of infidelity. Claudio, surprised by Benedick’s boldness, comments, “What, courage, man. What though care killed a cat, thou hast mettle enough in thee to kill care.” The allusion to cats refers to the belief that cats have nine lives so it had to be a powerful “care” to kill the cat, thus a powerful emotion in Benedick.

The Tempest offers two mentions of cats. In the first, Antonio speaks to Sebastian about corrupting certain servants to achieve evil ends, saying “They’ll take suggestion as a cat laps milk.” My favorite usage of cats, however, is the second, occurring in a comic drunken scene involving Stefano, Trinculo, and the savage Caliban. Stefano has a bottle of liquor, an elixir previously unknown to Caliban. Stefano exhorts the savage to drink, “Open your mouth. Here is that which will give language to you,” alluding to an old proverb that good liquor will make a cat speak. (If you decide you want to try to make your cat speak, I suggest other means than giving your cat liquor, however.)

Finally, I took the post-modern approach, Googled “cats in Shakespeare,” and found this link on PandEcats.com, “The Cats of Shakespeare.”

LAGNIAPPE 1: I believe I told this anecdote in a blog months ago, but it bears repeating here. Many years ago, I lived with a cat named Clawdio, an adult cat whom I adopted from a local shelter. Since I gave him a Shakespearean name, I decided to teach him to mew Shakespearean speeches, with no success. I learned the hard lesson that, indeed, you cannot teach an old cat mew tricks.

LAGNIAPPE 2: This trivia is not relevant to cats but to Shakespeare. I realized recently that Hamlet begins in the middle of a knock-knock joke. The first line of the play, spoken by the guard, Bernardo, is “Who’s there?” Perhaps Hamlet is so conflicted because he missed the set-up of the joke; hence, he puzzles over it for the remainder of the play.

LAGNIAPPE 3: I would like to recommend two cat-related books: (1) The Big New Yorker Book of Cats (2013); and (2) The Guest Cat, copyright 2001 by the author Takashi Hiraide and 2014 by the translator (from the Japanese) Eric Selland.