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med_cat: (Default)

"From the Point of View of a Cat"

med_cat: (Default)


Many thanks to [personal profile] minoanmiss for pointing this out!

Comments

minoanmiss: A detail of the Ladies in Blue fresco (Default)
Dec. 11th, 2017 06:32 am (UTC)
One of these days I should transcribe that, as it doesn't need to be an image.

I love writing from the POV of non-human sentiences, and this is a wonderful example.
med_cat: (Default)
Dec. 13th, 2017 12:54 pm (UTC)
It certainly is a great example :)
~~
and, here you are:
~~~~
From the Point of View of a Cat

This is my Man. I am not afraid of him. He is very strong, for he eats a great deal; he is an Eater of All Things. What are you eating? Give me some!

He is not beautiful, for he has no fur. Not having enough saliva, he has to wash himself with water. He meows in a harsh voice and a great deal more than necessary. Sometimes in his sleep he purrs.

Let me out!

I don't know how he has made himself master; perhaps he has eaten something sublime.

He keeps my rooms clean for me.

In his paws he carries a sharp black claw and he scratches with it on white sheets of paper. That is the only game he plays. He sleeps at night instead of by day, he cannot see in the dark, he has no pleasures. He never thinks of blood, never dreams of hunting or fighting; he never sings songs of love.

Often at night when _I_ can hear mysterious and magic voices, when _I_ can see that the darkness is all alive, _he_ sits at the table with his head bent and goes on and on, scratching with his black claw on the white papers. Don't imagine that I am at all interested in you. I am only listening to the soft whispering of your claw. Sometimes the whispering is silent, the poor dull head does not know how to go on playing, and then I am sorry for him and I meow softly in sweet and sharp discord. Then my Man picks me up and buries his hot face in my fur. At those times he divines for an instant a glimpse of a higher life, and he sighs with happiness and purrs something which can almost be understood.

But don't think that I am at all interested in you. You have warmed me, and now I will go out again and listen to the dark voices.


(Karel Chapek, translated by Dora Round, revised by the editor. Originally published in "Intimate Things", 1935)

~~
minoanmiss: A detail of the Ladies in Blue fresco (Default)
Dec. 13th, 2017 06:49 pm (UTC)

beams and hugs you gratefully

I am saving this to send out to people!

med_cat: (Default)
Dec. 14th, 2017 06:37 am (UTC)

My pleasure! :)

Hugs back

earthspirits: (rainy day cat)
Dec. 12th, 2017 04:38 am (UTC)
Heh - Very cute! : D
med_cat: (Default)
Dec. 13th, 2017 12:54 pm (UTC)
Pleased it amused you ;)
Dec. 11th, 2017 08:21 am (UTC)
I enjoyed this. If only I knew what mine really thought.
med_cat: (Default)
Dec. 13th, 2017 12:43 pm (UTC)
Pleased you enjoyed it! And yes, one wonders, doesn't one? ;)
Dec. 13th, 2017 09:39 pm (UTC)
LOL, I love it; thanks! It reminds me of this poem:

The Cat’s Song

Mine, says the cat, putting out his paw of darkness.
My lover, my friend, my slave, my toy, says
the cat making on your chest his gesture of drawing
milk from his mother’s forgotten breasts.

Let us walk in the woods, says the cat.
I’ll teach you to read the tabloid of scents,
to fade into shadow, wait like a trap, to hunt.
Now I lay this plump warm mouse on your mat.

You feed me, I try to feed you, we are friends,
says the cat, although I am more equal than you.
Can you leap twenty times the height of your body?
Can you run up and down trees? Jump between roofs?

Let us rub our bodies together and talk of touch.
My emotions are pure as salt crystals and as hard.
My lusts glow like my eyes. I sing to you in the mornings
walking round and round your bed and into your face.

Come I will teach you to dance as naturally
as falling asleep and waking and stretching long, long.
I speak greed with my paws and fear with my whiskers.
Envy lashes my tail. Love speaks me entire, a word

of fur. I will teach you to be still as an egg
and to slip like the ghost of wind through the grass.

By Marge Piercy
med_cat: (Default)
Dec. 14th, 2017 06:37 am (UTC)
Oh yes, very similar sentiments!

Thanks for showing me this poem, not come across it before :)