The scholar and his cat, Pangur Bán
(from the Irish by Robin Flower)
I and Pangur Ban my cat,
'Tis a like task we are at:
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.
'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.
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.
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!
'Tis a merry task to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.
So in peace our task we ply,
Pangur Ban, my cat, and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine and he has his.
Oftentimes a mouse will stray
In the hero Pangur's way;
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.
Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night
Turning darkness into light.
Robin Flower
He was born at Meanwood in Yorkshire, and
educated at Leeds Grammar School and Pembroke College,
Oxford.
He worked from 1929 as Deputy Keeper of Manuscripts
in the British Museum and, completing the work of Standish
Hayes O'Grady, compiled a catalogue of the Irish
manuscripts there.
He wrote several collections of poetry, translations of the
Irish poets for the Cuala Press, and verses on
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Blasket Island. He first visited Blasket in 1910, at the
recommendation of Carl Marstrander, his teacher at the
School of Irish Learning in Dublin; he acquired there the
Irish nickname Bláithín. He suggested a Norse origin for
the name "Blasket"] Under Flower's influence, George
Derwent Thomson and Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson made
scholarly visits to Blasket
After his death his ashes were scattered on the
Blasket Islands.