Posted by beardedlady on April 24, 2002, at 15:26:02
I found this on the internet a bazillion years ago. The author is unknown, but it's pretty terrific. I don't know why the author wouldn't have signed it. Anyway, it's an excellent imitation of Shakespeare's style/Hamlet's voice. It's on the net a couple of different ways, but this is the first way I saw it, and I like it better than the ones that begin slightly differently. Anyway, enjoy.
Hamlet’s Cat’s Soliloquy
Author Unknown (Shakespaw)To leave, or not to leave—that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler for a cat to suffer
The cuffs and buffets of outrageous weather
That Nature pours on those who roam abroad,
Or take a nap upon a scrap of carpet
And so by dozing melt the pond'rous hours
That clog the clock's bright gears with sullen time
And stall the dinner bell. To sit, to stare
Outdoors, and by a stare to seem to state
A wish to venture forth without delay,
Then when the portal's widely ope'd, to stand
As tho' transfixed by doubt. To prowl; to sleep;
To choose, not knowing when the fickle humans
our readmittance once again may deign.
To leave, perchance to stay. Aye- there's the hairball;
For were a paw so formed to turn a doorknob
Or work a lock, or slip a window catch,
And going out and coming in were only
As simple as the breaking of a bowl,
What cat would bear the household's petty plagues
The cook's well-practiced kicks, the butler's broom
The infant's careless pokes, the collar rude
The trampled tail, and all the daily shocks
That fur is heir to, when, of's own free will,
He might his exodus or entry make
With a mere paw? Who'd spaniels bear
Or strays, trespassing from a neighbor's yard
But that the dread of our unheeded howling
And scratching at a barricaded door
No claw can open up, dispels our nerve,
And makes us rather bear with humans' faults
Than run abroad to unguessed miseries?
Thus caution doth make house cats of us all;
And thus the bristling hair of resolution
Is softened with the pallid stroke of thought,
And since our choices hinge on weighty matters,
We pause upon the threshold of the act.
poster:beardedlady
thread:22559
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020422/msgs/22559.html