Cats, from their great powers of resistance, are said to have nine lives;[383] hence Mercutio, in “Romeo and Juliet” (iii. 1), says: “Good king of cats, nothing but one of your nine lives.” Ben Jonson, in “Every Man in His Humour” (iii. 2), makes Edward Knowell say to Bobadil, “’Twas pity you had not ten; a cat’s and your own.” And in Gay’s fable of the “Old Woman and her Cats,” one of these animals is introduced, upbraiding the witch:
“’Tis infamy to serve a hag,
Cats are thought imps, her broom a nag;
And boys against our lives combine,
Because ’tis said, your cats have nine.”
In Marston’s “Dutch Courtezan” we read:
“Why then, thou hast nine lives like a cat.”
And in Dekker’s “Strange Horse-Race” (1613): “When the grand Helcat had gotten these two furies with nine lives.” This notion, it may be noted, is quite the reverse of the well-known saying, “Care will kill a cat,” mentioned in “Much Ado About Nothing” (v. 1), where Claudio says: “What though care killed a cat.”
For some undiscovered reason a cat was formerly called Tybert or Tybalt;[384] hence some of the insulting remarks of Mercutio, in “Romeo and Juliet” (iii. 1), who calls Tybalt “rat-catcher” and “king of cats.” In the old romance of “Hystorye of Reynard the Foxe” (chap. vi.), we are told how “the king called for Sir Tibert, the cat, and said to him, Sir Tibert, you shall go to Reynard, and summon him the second time.”[385] A popular term for a wild cat was “cat-o’-mountain,” an expression[386] borrowed from the Spaniards, who call the wild cat “gato-montes.” In the “Merry Wives of Windsor” (ii. 2), Falstaff says of Pistol, “Your cat-a-mountain looks.”
The word cat was used as a term of contempt, as in “The Tempest” (ii. 1) and “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (iii. 2), where Lysander says, “Hang off, thou cat.” Once more, too, in “Coriolanus” (iv. 2), we find it in the same sense:
“’Twas you incensed the rabble;
Cats, that can judge as fitly of his worth,
As I can of those mysteries which heaven
Will not have earth to know.”
A gib, or a gib cat, is an old male cat[387]—gib being the contraction of Gilbert,[388] and is, says Nares, an expression exactly analogous to that of jackass.[389] Tom-cat is now the usual term. The word was certainly not bestowed upon a cat early in life, as is evident from the melancholy character ascribed to it in Shakespeare’s allusion in “1 Henry IV.” (i. 2): “I am as melancholy as a gib cat.” Ray gives “as melancholy as a gib’d Chameleon. This animal was popularly believed to feed on air, a notion which Sir Thomas Browne[390] has carefully discussed. He has assigned, among other grounds for this vulgar opinion, its power of abstinence, and its faculty of self-inflation. It lives on insects, which it catches by its long, gluey tongue, and crushes between its jaws. It has been ascertained by careful experiment that the chameleon can live without eating for four months. It can inflate not only its lungs, but its whole body, including even the feet and tail. In allusion to this supposed characteristic, Shakespeare makes Hamlet say (iii. 2), “Of the chameleon’s dish: I eat the air, promise-crammed; you cannot feed capons so;” and in the “Two Gentlemen of Verona” (ii. 1) Speed says: “Though the chameleon, Love, can feed on the air, I am one that am nourished by my victuals, and would fain have meat.” There is, too, a popular notion that this animal undergoes frequent changes of color, according to that of the bodies near it. This, however, depends on the volition of the animal, or the state of its feelings, on its good or bad health, and is subordinate to climate, age, and sex.[391] In “3 Henry VI.” (iii. 2) Gloster boasts: