Friday, February 22, 2013

Must be genetic...

Cheezburger.com has the following photograph
With the following wrtie-up:

Turns Out Cats Have Been Walking on Important Stuff for Basically Forever 
Check out this 15th Century manuscript. Notice anything familiar? In totally-non-shocking-news-of-the-day, it turns out cats have been walking on whatever you're writing since the dawn of time. Emir O. Filipovic of the University of Sarajevo's History Department discovered the medieval kitty prints.

We can only assume that somewhere, beyond the reach of time, in a small ancient monastery in the mountains, the muffled sounds of "SNOWBALL, OFF. OFF. DOWN. GET DOWN, SNOWBALL. BAD KITTY. DAMNIT, SNOWBALL GO SOMEWHERE ELSE," carry across the medieval vales and valleys.
Which, of course, reminded of the little poem from Thomas Cahill's How the Irish Saved Civilization:
 I and Pangur Ban my cat, 
'Tis a like task we are at: 
 Hunting mice is his delight, 
Hunting words I sit all night.

'Tis a merry thing to see 
At our tasks how glad are we, 
When at home we sit and find 
Entertainment to our mind. 

'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. 

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.

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