Cats come to the Shakespeare Club

Burrito the cat. Photo courtesy of Joan Gaughan.

submitted by Joan Gaughan, Shakespeare Club

As Jody Sharrow pointed out in her presentation to the Club on January 13, cats in Shakespeare’s day had an unfortunate reputation. So much so that when an actor performed badly in one of the Bard’s plays, he received a “cat call.” Unlike a faithful dog, cats are notoriously independent and therefore were (and still are) viewed as capricious, sneaky, and generally untrustworthy. (Try teaching one to fetch, roll over, or come when called.) They were often associated with evil forces, the supernatural, the unruly and intractable.

As we see in the first act of The Tragedie of Macbeth when one of the witches summons her cat, Graymulkin, cats, especially black cats, were associated with witches. But they were also linked with women, especially older women who were sharp-tongued or who could not be controlled by men. Some of that association remains. Women, but not men, for instance, can get into a “cat fight,” and women, but not men, can be “catty.”

Nonetheless, there was also some ambivalence about the way Shakespeare’s contemporaries viewed cats. Although useful for catching the mice that carried the flea that carried the plague, precisely because they were associated with the plague they were seen as harbingers of bad luck. Yet, despite Graymulkin, Shakespeare himself did not despise cats. In fact, in his will he left money for his daughter, Judith, and “her fellow the Catte.”

In contrast to the European view of cats, the Japanese view cats as harbingers of good luck. And the ancient Egyptians revered cats as gods — which may be appropriate, after all. Manchester Catholics may remember when Father Charlie Irvin’s gray cat, Shadow, marched up the aisle one day during Mass and parked his substantial bulk upon the altar, obviously assuming that, because he was descended from ancient deities, the entire ritual was in his honor. Neither priest nor congregation had the temerity to remove him.

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by Sara Swanson

Sara Swanson is an editor, writer and a founder of the Manchester Mirror.