"The White Cat And The Monk," A 9th Century Poem

Alan: I post this for my friend Chuck who loves his cats, Aldous and Gus.

The White Cat and the Monk: A Lovely 9th-Century Ode to the Joy of Uncompetitive Purposefulness, Newly Illustrated

“If you want to concentrate deeply on some problem, and especially some piece of writing or paper-work,” Muriel Sparkcounseled, “you should acquire a cat.” Long before the cat became a modern literary muse, a monk whose identity remains a mystery immortalized his beloved white cat named Pangur. Sometime in the ninth century, somewhere in present-day southern Germany, this solitary scholar penned a beautiful short poem in Old Irish, titled “Pangur Bán” — an ode to the parallel pleasures of man and feline as one pursues knowledge and the other prey, and to how their quiet companionship amplifies their respective joys.

The poem has been translated and adapted many times over the centuries (perhaps most famously by W.H. Auden), but nowhere more delightfully than in The White Cat and the Monk (public library) by writer Jo Ellen Bogart and illustrator Sydney Smith — one of four wonderful children’s books about the creative life, which I recentlyreviewed for The New York Times.

Smith, who has previously illustrated the immeasurably wonderful Sidewalk Flowers, imbues the ancient text with contemporary visual language through his singular, elegantly minimalist graphic novel aesthetic.

We see the old monk poring over his manuscripts in search of wisdom as Pangur prances around their spartan shared abode, chasing after a mouse and a butterfly. Each is totally absorbed in his task.

In a subtle story-with-a-story, one of the monk’s manuscripts contains an even more ancient depiction of another monk and another cat — a reminder that this creaturely communion is a primal joy of the human experience.

At the end of each day, the two rest into their respective gladnesses in quiet camaraderie.

Written as a playful ode in the ninth century, today the poem lives partway between lamentation and celebration — it stands as counterpoint to our culture of competitive striving and ceaseless self-comparisons, but it also reminds us that the accomplishments of others aren’t to the detriment of our own; that we can remain purposeful about our pursuits while rejoicing in those of others; that we can choose to amplify each other’s felicity because there is, after all, enough to go around even in the austerest of circumstances.

The White Cat and the Monk comes from Canadian indie powerhouse Groundwood Books, who have brought us such treasures as The Menino, A Year Without Mom, and Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress. Complement it with the vintage gem The Story of Mrs. Lovewright and Purrless Her Cat by Lore Segal and Paul O. Zelinsky and the contemporary treasure Lost Cat by Caroline Paul and Wendy MacNaughton — two very different, equally wonderful stories about love and humanity enlarged by a feline friend.

Illustrations © Sydney Smith courtesy of Groundwood Books; photographs by Maria Popova