The Cat and the Mice
Encyclopedia
The Cat and the Mice is a fable
attributed to Aesop
of which there are several variants. Sometimes a weasel is the predator; the prey can also be rats and chickens.
concerns a cat that pretends to be a sack hanging from a peg in order to deceive the chickens, but his disguise is seen through by a rooster. This is numbered 79 in the Perry Index
. William Caxton
tells a very much amplified story of the rats that are the cat's victims. These hold a council and make the decision to stay off the floor and keep in the rafters. The cat then hangs himself from a hook and pretends to be dead, but the rats are not deceived. Later authors substituted mice for rats. The moral lesson taught by these stories is summed up by the English proverb 'Once bitten, twice shy'. The episode of the rats holding a council is similar to the fable of The Mice in Council who suggested hanging a bell on the cat, but that only developed during the Middle Ages and has a completely different moral.
The Phaedrus version of the fable is separately numbered 511 in the Perry Index and is prefaced by advice on the need to keep one's wits about one. It relates how, in order to catch mice, a weasel that has grown old rolls itself in flour and lies in a corner of the house until its prey approaches. A wily survivor spots its trick and addresses it from a distance. As well as Caxton, Roger L'Estrange
also recorded both variants, but it did not survive much beyond his time.
Jean de la Fontaine
incorporated the incidents of both into a single fable in Le Chat et un Vieux Rat (The cat and an old rat, III.18). The rats have become wary of showing themselves because of the cat, so it hangs itself upside down as if it were dead and waits for the rats to invade the larder. This can only work once, so its next trick is to hide in the bran tub and ambush its victims there. A wary senior saves himself by keeping aloof and taunts it by name. La Fontaine's version was reused by Robert Dodsley in his fable collection of 1764 and again in the 1884 English edition of Aesop's Fables: A New Revised Version from Original Sources. In the woodcut illustrating it, the cautious mouse is peering over a sack at the whitened hind-quarters of the cat on the opposite side of the barn. After Victorian times, the fable of "The Cat and the Mice" was more or less replaced by the better-known "The Mice in Council".
Fable
A fable is a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, mythical creatures, plants, inanimate objects or forces of nature which are anthropomorphized , and that illustrates a moral lesson , which may at the end be expressed explicitly in a pithy maxim.A fable differs from...
attributed to Aesop
Aesop's Fables
Aesop's Fables or the Aesopica are a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and story-teller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BCE. The fables remain a popular choice for moral education of children today...
of which there are several variants. Sometimes a weasel is the predator; the prey can also be rats and chickens.
The Fables
The Greek version of the fable recorded by BabriusBabrius
Babrius was the author of a collection of fables written in Greek. He collected many of the fables that are known to us today simply as Aesop's fables .Practically nothing is known of him...
concerns a cat that pretends to be a sack hanging from a peg in order to deceive the chickens, but his disguise is seen through by a rooster. This is numbered 79 in the Perry Index
Perry Index
The Perry Index is a widely-used index of "Aesop's Fables" or "Aesopica", the fables credited to Aesop, the story-teller who lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BC...
. William Caxton
William Caxton
William Caxton was an English merchant, diplomat, writer and printer. As far as is known, he was the first English person to work as a printer and the first to introduce a printing press into England...
tells a very much amplified story of the rats that are the cat's victims. These hold a council and make the decision to stay off the floor and keep in the rafters. The cat then hangs himself from a hook and pretends to be dead, but the rats are not deceived. Later authors substituted mice for rats. The moral lesson taught by these stories is summed up by the English proverb 'Once bitten, twice shy'. The episode of the rats holding a council is similar to the fable of The Mice in Council who suggested hanging a bell on the cat, but that only developed during the Middle Ages and has a completely different moral.
The Phaedrus version of the fable is separately numbered 511 in the Perry Index and is prefaced by advice on the need to keep one's wits about one. It relates how, in order to catch mice, a weasel that has grown old rolls itself in flour and lies in a corner of the house until its prey approaches. A wily survivor spots its trick and addresses it from a distance. As well as Caxton, Roger L'Estrange
Roger L'Estrange
Sir Roger L'Estrange was an English pamphleteer and author, and staunch defender of royalist claims. L'Estrange was involved in political controversy throughout his life...
also recorded both variants, but it did not survive much beyond his time.
Jean de la Fontaine
Jean de La Fontaine
Jean de La Fontaine was the most famous French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He is known above all for his Fables, which provided a model for subsequent fabulists across Europe and numerous alternative versions in France, and in French regional...
incorporated the incidents of both into a single fable in Le Chat et un Vieux Rat (The cat and an old rat, III.18). The rats have become wary of showing themselves because of the cat, so it hangs itself upside down as if it were dead and waits for the rats to invade the larder. This can only work once, so its next trick is to hide in the bran tub and ambush its victims there. A wary senior saves himself by keeping aloof and taunts it by name. La Fontaine's version was reused by Robert Dodsley in his fable collection of 1764 and again in the 1884 English edition of Aesop's Fables: A New Revised Version from Original Sources. In the woodcut illustrating it, the cautious mouse is peering over a sack at the whitened hind-quarters of the cat on the opposite side of the barn. After Victorian times, the fable of "The Cat and the Mice" was more or less replaced by the better-known "The Mice in Council".