Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat
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his ode first appeared in Dodsley's _Collection_, vol. ii. p. 274,with some variations noticed below. Walpole, after the death of Gray,placed the china vase on a pedestal at Strawberry Hill, with a fewlines of the ode for an inscription. In a letter to Walpole, dated March 1, 1747, Gray refers to thesubject of the ode in the following jocose strain: "As one ought tobe particularly careful to avoid blunders in a compliment ofcondolence, it would be a sensible satisfaction to me (before Itestify my sorrow, and the sincere part I take in your misfortune) toknow for certain who it is I lament. I knew Zara and Selima (Selima,was it? or Fatima?), or rather I knew them both together; for Icannot justly say which was which. Then as to your handsome Cat, thename you distinguish her by, I am no less at a loss, as well knowingone's handsome cat is always the cat one likes best; or if one bealive and the other dead, it is usually the latter that is thehandsomest. Besides, if the point were never so clear, I hope you donot think me so ill-bred or so imprudent as to forfeit all myinterest in the survivor; oh no! I would rather seem to mistake, andimagine to be sure it must be the tabby one that had met with thissad accident. Till this affair is a little better determined, youwill excuse me if I do not begin to cry, Tempus inane peto, requiem spatiumque doloris. "... Heigh ho! I feel (as you to be sure have done long since) that Ihave very little to say, at least in prose. Somebody will be thebetter for it; I do not mean you, but your Cat, feuë MademoiselleSelime, whom I am about to immortalize for one week or fortnight, asfollows: [the Ode follows, which we need not reprint here]. "There's a poem for you, it is rather too long for an Epitaph." 2. Cf. Lady M. W. Montagu, _Town Eclogues_: "Where the tall jar erects its stately pride, With antic shapes in China's azure dyed." 3. _The azure flowers that blow_. Johnson and Wakefield find faultwith this as redundant, but it is no more so than poetic usageallows. In the _Progress of Poesy_, i. 1, we have again: "Thelaughing flowers that round them blow." Cf. _Comus_, 992: "Iris there with humid bow Waters the odorous banks that blow Flowers of more mingled hue Than her purfled scarf can shew." 4. _Tabby_. For the derivation of this word from the French _tabis_,a kind of silk, see Wb. In the first ed. the 5th line preceded the4th. 6. _The lake_. In the mock-heroic vein that runs through the wholepoem. 11. _Jet_. This word comes, through the French, from Gagai, a town inLycia, where the mineral was first obtained. 14. _Two angel forms_. In the first ed. "two beauteous forms," whichMitford prefers to the present reading, "as the images of _angel_ and_genii_ interfere with each other, and bring different associationsto the mind." 16. _Tyrian hue_. Explained by the "purple" in next line; an allusionto the famous Tyrian dye of the ancients. Cf. Pope, _Windsor Forest_,142: "with fins of Tyrian dye." 17. Cf. Virgil, _Geo._ iv. 274: "_Aureus_ ipse; sed in foliis, quae plurima circum Funduntur, violae _sublucet purpura_ nigrae." See also Pope, _Windsor Forest_, 332: "His shining horns diffus'd agolden glow;" _Temple of Fame_, 253: "And lucid amber casts a goldengleam." 24. In the 1st ed. "What cat's a foe to fish?" and in the next line,"with eyes intent." 31. _Eight times_. Alluding to the proverbial "nine lives" of thecat. 34. _No dolphin came_. An allusion to the story of Arion, who whenthrown overboard by the sailors for the sake of his wealth was bornesafely to land by a dolphin. _No Nereid stirr'd_. Cf. Milton, _Lycidas_, 50: "Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep Closed o'er the head of your lov'd Lycidas?" 35, 36. The reading of 1st ed. is, "Nor cruel Tom nor Harry heard. What favourite has a friend?" 40. The 1st ed. has "Not all that strikes," etc. 42. _Nor all that glisters gold_. A favourite proverb with the oldEnglish poets. Cf. Chaucer, _C. T._ 16430: "But all thing which that shineth as the gold Ne is no gold, as I have herd it told;" Spenser, _F. Q._ ii. 8, 14: "Yet gold all is not, that doth golden seeme;" Shakes. _M. of V._ ii. 7: "All that glisters is not gold; Often have you heard that told;" Dryden, _Hind and Panther_: "All, as they say, that glitters is not gold." Other examples might be given. _Glisten_ is not found in Shakes. orMilton, but both use _glister_ several times. See _W. T._ iii. 2;_Rich. II._ iii. 3; _T. A._ ii. 1, etc.; _Lycidas_, 79; _Comus_, 219;_P. L._ iii. 550; iv. 645, 653, etc.
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