Pangur Ban
So in peace our task we ply,
Pangur Ban, my cat, and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine and he has his.
Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night
Turning darkness into light.
— Anon., (Irish, 8th century)
I lived this poem today in an odd sort of way. I have known about Pangur Ban for a long time. In fact I wrote a post many years ago about the cat and the poem and OK a bit of knitting too. Well another version of the same poem came across my FB feed today with lots of interesting comments. In fact there is a version of the poem by W. H. Auden that has been set to music by American composer Samuel Barber titled “The Monk and His Cat.” from an album entitled Hermit songs (1953).
Some things just never die. They may go underground for a while and then resurfaced from time in the most peculiar discussions or references. How has this cat from the middle ages survived? Well, OK, nine lives. This might explain why it also appears in an animated film of the Book of Kells. Cats live a charmed life. I have had many over the years – cats that is – not charmed lives. In fact my last six cats were all black, not necessary by choice, mostly by happenstance.
Here are a few other versions of the poem.
Pangur Bán
I and Pangur Bán, my cat,
‘Tis a like task we are at;
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.
Better far than praise of men
‘Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill-will,
He too plies his simple skill.
‘Tis a merry thing to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.
Oftentimes a mouse will stray
In the hero Pangur’s way;
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.
‘Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
‘Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.
When a mouse darts from its den,
O how glad is Pangur then!
O what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love!
So in peace our tasks we ply,
Pangur Ban, my cat, and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine and he has his.
Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night
Turning darkness into light.
And again from Seamus Heaney
Pangur Bán
BY ANONYMOUS
TRANSLATED BY SEAMUS HEANEY
From the ninth-century Irish poem
Pangur Bán and I at work,
Adepts, equals, cat and clerk:
His whole instinct is to hunt,
Mine to free the meaning pent.
More than loud acclaim, I love
Books, silence, thought, my alcove.
Happy for me, Pangur Bán
Child-plays round some mouse’s den.
Truth to tell, just being here,
Housed alone, housed together,
Adds up to its own reward:
Concentration, stealthy art.
Next thing an unwary mouse
Bares his flank: Pangur pounces.
Next thing lines that held and held
Meaning back begin to yield.
All the while, his round bright eye
Fixes on the wall, while I
Focus my less piercing gaze
On the challenge of the page.
With his unsheathed, perfect nails
Pangur springs, exults and kills.
When the longed-for, difficult
Answers come, I too exult.
So it goes. To each his own.
No vying. No vexation.
Taking pleasure, taking pains,
Kindred spirits, veterans.
Day and night, soft purr, soft pad,
Pangur Bán has learned his trade.
Day and night, my own hard work
Solves the cruxes, makes a mark.
And from W. H. Auden
Pangur, white Pangur,
How happy we are
Alone together, Scholar and cat.
Each has his own work to do daily;
For you it is hunting, for me, study.
Your shining eye watches the wall;
My feeble eye is fixed on a book.
You rejoice when your claws entrap a mouse;
I rejoice when my mind fathoms a problem.
Pleased with his own art
Neither hinders the other;
Thus we live ever
Without tedium and envy.
Pangur, white Pangur,
How happy we are,
Alone together, Scholar and cat.
I know I could find more and somehow I wish T. S. Eliot (Old Possum) had left us a poem or two about Pangur Ban. I have his Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. It’s a treasure. Well maybe I didn’t have too many other cats to name. I have just offered the one with many poems in his honour.