Seems my memory [
of whc fallibility prev] told a fibby-whopper about my reading matter 50 years ago. In 2022, I maintained
that I had been reading an Elizabethan translation of Isidore of Seville's De Natura Rerum. I wrote it up in CGN Carnivore Genetics Newsletter for which
I was crimper-in-chief for several years in the early 80s. About ten years later, I left a complete archive of this niche publication in care of the library of the Genetics Department of TCD, my alma mater, when I was back there as an adult. About 10 years after
that a new generation of geneticists threw the whole thing in a dumpster when they were "streamlining" their inventory. Some scientists are so fixated on the Future that they see no value in the past.
In March, I was on a unexpectedly deep dive looking for something to read and checked the TCD Library catalogue for that book. While I was 'down in the archives' I thought I'd check my Isidore reference. There I discovered that what I had actually spent an afternoon with in 1977 was:
"Batman vppon Bartholome his booke De
proprietatibus rerum, newly corrected, enlarged and amended: with
such additions as are requisite, vnto euery seuerall booke: taken
foorth of the most approued authors, the like heretofore not
translated in English. Profitable for all estates, as well for the
benefite of the mind as the bodie. 1582. Bartholomaeus,
Anglicus, 13th cent" TCD Catalogue Reference.
And it is possible to track down [at the rather wonderful bestiary.ca site run by David Badke in BC Canada] the passage which so interested me back when I was obsessing about coat-colour in cats in the 20thC. The whole booke is searchable at the Wellcome Collection.
The
Cat is called Murilegus, & Musio, and also Cattus, & hath
that name Murilegus, for he is enemie to mice
& to rats,
and is commonly called Cattus, & hath that name of ravening, for
he ravisheth mice and rats. Or els he hath that name Cattus of Cata,
that is to sée, for he séeth so sharply, that he overcommeth
darknesse of the night by shining of the lyght of his eyen, and the
name Cattus commeth of Gréek, and is to understand slye and wittie,
as Isi[dore] saith li. 12. And is a beast of uncertaine haire &
colour: for some Cat is white, some red, some black, some skewed and
speckled in the féete, and in the face, and in the eares, and is
most like to the Leopard,
& hath a great mouth, and sawie teeth & sharp, and long
tongue & pliant, thin & subtill, . . .
There; I'm glad we set the record straight.
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