All the convent pets who are famed in literature came by a coincidence to a bad end. Our anthologist would seize on two other hapless creatures, both of them birds, Philip Sparrow and the never-to-be-forgotten Vert-Vert. Philip Sparrow needs no introduction to English readers; Skelton was never in happier vein than when he sang the dirge of that pet of Joanna Scrope, boarder at Carrow Priory, dead at the claws of a “vylanous false cat.” Space allows only a few lines of the long poem to be quoted here. It begins with the office for the dead, sung by the mourning mistress over her bird:

Pla ce bo,
Who is there, who?
Di le xi,
Dame Margery;
Fa, re, my, my,
Wherefore and why, why?
For the sowle of Philip Sparowe,
That was late slayn at Carowe,
Among the Nones Blake,
For that swete soules sake,
And for all sparowes soules,
Set in our bederolles
Pater noster qui,
With an Ave Mari,
And with the corner of a Crede
The more shalbe your mede.
Whan I remembre agayn
How mi Philyp was slayn,
Neuer halfe the payne
Was betwene you twayne,
Pyramus and Thesbe,
As than befell to me:
I wept and I wayled,
The tearys doune hayled;
But nothynge it auayled
To call Phylyp agayne,
Whom Gyb our cat hath slayne.
·····
It was so prety a fole,
It wold syt on a stole,
And lerned after my scole
For to kepe his cut,
With, Phyllyp, kepe your cut!
It had a veluet cap,
And wold syt upon my lap,
And seke after small wormes,
And somtyme white bred crommes;
And many tymes and ofte
Betwene my brestes softe
It wolde lye and rest;
It was propre and prest.
Somtyme he wolde gaspe
Whan he sawe a waspe;
A fly or a gnat,
He wolde flye at that;
And prytely he wold pant
Whan he saw an ant;
Lord, how he wolde pry
After the butterfly!
Lorde, how he wolde hop
After the grassop!
And whan I sayd, Phyp, Phyp,
Than he wold lepe and skyp,
And take me by the lyp.
Alas, it wyll me slo,
That Phillyp is gone me fro!
Si in i qui ta tes,
Alas, I was euyll at ease!
De pro fun dis cla ma vi,
Whan I sawe my sparowe dye!
·····
That vengeaunce I aske and crye,
By way of exclamacyon,
On all the hole nacyon
Of cattes wyld and tame;
God send them sorowe and shame!
That cat specyally
That slew so cruelly
My lytell prety sparowe
That I brought vp at Carowe ...[1704].

It is impossible for a cat-lover to leave the whole nation of cats under this terrific curse. Yet literature will supply no nunnery cat beside the unhappy Gyb and the uncharacterised cat of the Ancren Riwle. We must needs turn to the monks, and borrow the truer estimate of feline qualities made in the eighth century by an exiled Irish student, who sat over his books in a distant monastery of Carinthia, and wrote upon the margin of his copy of St Paul’s Epistles this little poem on his white cat:

I and Pangur Bán, my cat,
’Tis a like task we are at;
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.
Better far than praise of men
’Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill-will,
He, too, plies his simple skill.
’Tis a merry thing to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.
Oftentimes a mouse will stray
In the hero Pangur’s way;
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.
’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.
When a mouse darts from its den,
O! how glad is Pangur then;
O! what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love.
So in peace our task we ply,
Pangur Bán, my cat, and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine and he has his.
Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night,
Turning darkness into light[1705].

O cat! even at the cost of relevancy we have done thee honour.

Two little tragedies of the cloister are concerned with parrots—yet with what different birds and what different mistresses! In the twelfth century Nigel Wireker tells of an ill-bred and ill-fated parrot, kept in a nunnery, who told tales about the nuns and was poisoned by them for his pains:

Saepe mala
Psittacus in thalamum domina redeunte puellas
Prodit et illorum verba tacenda refert;
Nescius ille loqui; sed nescius immo tacere
Profert plus aequo Psittacus oris habens.
Hinc avibus crebro miscente aconita puella
Discat ut ante mori quam didicisse loqui;
Sunt et aves aliae quae toto tempore vitae
Religiosorum claustra beata colunt[1706].

Quite other was the fate of Vert-Vert, whose tragedy told with exquisite irony by Gresset in the eighteenth century deserves a place on every shelf and in every heart which holds The Rape of the Lock. Vert-Vert was a parrot who belonged to the nuns of Nevers, the most beautiful, most amiable, the most devout parrot in the world. The convent of Nevers spoiled Vert-Vert as no bird has ever been spoiled:

Pas n’est besoin, je pense, de décrire
Les soins des sœurs, des nonnes, c’est tout dire;
Et chaque mère, après son directeur,
N’aimait rien tant. Même dans plus d’un cœur,
Ainsi l’écrit un chroniqueur sincère,
Souvent l’oiseau l’emporta sur le père.
Il partageait, dans ce paisible lieu,
Tous les sirops dont le cher père en Dieu,
Grâce aux bienfaits des nonnettes sucrées,
Réconfortait ses entrailles sacrées.
Objet permis à leur oisif amour,
Vert-Vert était l’âme de ce séjour....
Des bonnes sœurs égayant les travaux,
Il béquetait et guimpes et bandeaux;
Il n’était point d’agréable partie
S’il n’y venait briller, caracoler,
Papillonner, siffler, rossignoler;
Il badinait, mais avec modestie;
Avec cet air timide et tout prudent
Qu’une novice a même en badinant.

He fed in the frater, and between meals the nuns’ pockets were always full of bon-bons for his delectation. He slept in the dorter, and happy the nun whose cell he honoured with his presence; Vert-Vert always chose the young and pretty novices. Above all he was learned; he talked like a book, and all the nuns had taught him their chants and their prayers: