Classics: The Owl and the Pussy-cat (In Honor of Marian)

(This post is in honor of my mother Marian, one of the wisest–and kindest–women I have ever known.)

The Owl and the Pussy-cat is a famous nonsense poem written by the English poet, author, and illustrator Edward Lear.  A contemporary of Lewis Carroll, Lear first published the poem in 1871, and it has been illustrated and re-illustrated ever since.  The edition to the left was illustrated by Paul Galdone (Clarion, 1987).   Jan Brett also illustrated a Caribbean-style version in 1989 (Philomel).

The Owl and the Pussy-cat  is charming and silly, lilting and eminently memorizable.  When I was a girl, my mother recited this poem and had us children memorize it (the other great nonsense poem we learned being “The Purple Cow” by Gelett Burgess).  I believe all of my six siblings can still recite ”The Owl and the Pussycat” to this day (and shame on them if they can’t). 

After the owl and the pussy-cat sailed away in “a beautiful pea-green boat,” Owl serenaded his lovely Puss by the light of the stars.  Being a liberated female,

Not to worry.   After “sail[ing] away for a year and a day,” the couple finds an enterprising Piggy who is delighted to sell them his nose ring.  They are married the very next day by a turkey and celebrate with a magnificent feast using runcible spoons (a term coined by Lear and now in the dictionary).  They end the perfect wedding with dancing on the beach “by the light of the moon, the moon, the moon.”

Really, could there be anything more romantic?

So here’s to my mother, Marian.  Intelligent, compassionate, wise, and abundantly unselfish.   How we miss her.