Belling the Cat is a fable also known under the titles The Bell and the Cat and The Mice in Council. Although often attributed to Aesop

Aesop

Aesop was a Greek writer credited with a number of popular fables. Older spellings of his name have included Esop and Isope. Although his existence remains uncertain and no writings by him survive, numerous tales credited to him were gathered across the centuries and in many languages in a...

, it was not recorded before the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

 and has been confused with the quite different fable of Classical origin titled The Cat and the Mice

The Cat and the Mice

The Cat and the Mice is a fable attributed to Aesop of which there are several variants. Sometimes a weasel is the predator; the prey can also be rats and chickens.-The Fables:...

. In the classificatory system established for the fables by B. E. Perry

Perry Index

The Perry Index is a widely-used index of "Aesop's Fables" or "Aesopica", the fables credited to Aesop, the story-teller who lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BC...

, it is numbered 613, which is reserved for Mediaeval attributions outside the Aesopic canon.

Synopsis and idiomatic use

The Fable concerns a group of mice who debate plans to nullify the threat of a marauding cat. One of them proposes placing a bell around its neck, so that they are warned of its approach. The plan is applauded by the others, until one mouse asks who will volunteer to place the bell on the cat. All then make excuses. The story is used to teach the wisdom of evaluating a plan not only on how desirable the outcome would be, but also on how it can be executed. It provides a moral lesson about the fundamental difference between ideas and their feasibility, and how this affects the value of a given plan.

The story gives rise to the idiom to bell the cat, which means to attempt, or agree to perform, an impossibly difficult task. Historically it was the basis of the nickname

Nickname

A nickname is "a usually familiar or humorous but sometimes pointed or cruel name given to a person or place, as a supposedly appropriate replacement for or addition to the proper name.", or a name similar in origin and pronunciation from the original name....

 given the Scottish nobleman, Archibald Douglas, 5th Earl of Angus

Archibald Douglas, 5th Earl of Angus

Archibald Douglas, 5th Earl of Angus , was a late medieval Scottish magnate. He became known as "Bell the Cat"...

. In 1482, at a meeting of nobles who wanted to depose and hang James III

James III of Scotland

James III was King of Scots from 1460 to 1488. James was an unpopular and ineffective monarch owing to an unwillingness to administer justice fairly, a policy of pursuing alliance with the Kingdom of England, and a disastrous relationship with nearly all his extended family.His reputation as the...

's favourite, Robert Cochrane, Lord Gray remarked, Tis well said, but wha daur bell the cat? The challenge was accepted and successfully accomplished by the Earl of Angus. In recognition of this, he was always known afterwards as Archie Bell-the-cat.

Early versions and later interpretations

One of the earliest versions of the story appears as a parable critical of the clergy in Odo of Cheriton

Odo of Cheriton

Odo of Cheriton was a Roman Catholic preacher and fabulist.He visited Paris, and it was probably there that he gained the degree of Master...

's Parabolae. Written around 1200, it was afterwards translated into Welsh, French and Spanish. Some time later the story is found in the work now referred to as Ysopet-Avionnet, which is largely made up of Latin poems by the 12th century Walter of England, followed by a French version dating from as much as two centuries later. It also includes four poems not found in Walter's Esopus; among them is the tale of "The Council of the Mice" (De muribus consilium facientibus contra catum). The author concludes with the scornful comment that laws are of no effect without the means of adequately enforcing them and that such parliamentry assemblies as he describes are like the proverbial mountain in labour that gives birth to a mouse.

The fable also appeared as a cautionary tale in Nicole Bozon's Anglo-Norman

Anglo-Norman language

Anglo-Norman is the name traditionally given to the kind of Old Norman used in England and to some extent elsewhere in the British Isles during the Anglo-Norman period....

 Contes Moralisés (1320), referring to the difficulty of curbing the outrages of superior lords. It was in this context too that the story of a parliament of rats and mice was retold in William Langland

William Langland

William Langland is the conjectured author of the 14th-century English dream-vision Piers Plowman.- Life :The attribution of Piers to Langland rests principally on the evidence of a manuscript held at Trinity College, Dublin...

's allegorical poem Piers Plowman

Piers Plowman

Piers Plowman or Visio Willelmi de Petro Plowman is the title of a Middle English allegorical narrative poem by William Langland. It is written in unrhymed alliterative verse divided into sections called "passus"...

. The episode is said to refer to the Parliament of 1376 which attempted unsuccessfully to remedy popular dissatisfaction over the exactions made by nobles acting in the royal name.

These works suggest, if not the fable's English origin, then at least its continued popularity in England. It is only later that we find the story independently current in Europe. The Italian author Laurentius Abstemius

Laurentius Abstemius

Laurentius Abstemius was an Italian writer, professor of Belles Lettres at Urbino, and librarian to Duke Guido Ubaldo under Pope Alexander VI. Born at Macerata in Ancona, he distinguished himself, at the time of the revival of letters, as a writer of considerable talents...

 made of it a Latin cautionary tale titled De muribus tintinnabulum feli appendere volentibus (The mice who wanted to bell the cat) in 1499. A more popular version in Latin verse was written by Gabriele Faerno

Gabriele Faerno

Gabriele Faerno, also known by his Latin name of Faernus Cremonensis, was born in Cremona about 1510 and died in Rome on November 17, 1561. He was a scrupulous scholar and an elegant Latin poet who is best known now for his collection of Aesop's Fables in Latin verse.-Life:Gabriele Faerno was born...

 and printed posthumously in his Fabulae centum ex antiquis auctoribus delectae (100 delightful fables from ancient authors, Rome 1564), a work that was to be many times reprinted and translated up to start of the 19th century. Titled simply "The Council of the Mice", it comes to rest on the drily stated moral that 'a risky plan can have no good result'.

The story was evidently known in Flanders

Flanders

Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...

 too, since 'belling the cat' was included among the forty Netherlandish Proverbs

Netherlandish Proverbs

Netherlandish Proverbs is a 1559 oil-on-oak-panel painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder which depicts a land populated with literal renditions of Flemish proverbs of the day...

 in the composite painting of Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1559). In this case a man in armour is performing the task in the lower left foreground. A century later, Jean de la Fontaine

Jean de La Fontaine

Jean de La Fontaine was the most famous French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He is known above all for his Fables, which provided a model for subsequent fabulists across Europe and numerous alternative versions in France, and in French regional...

 made the tale even better known by including it among his Fables (1668) under much the title Conseil tenu par les rats (II.2). The first English collection to attribute the fable to Aesop was Francis Barlow's of 1687; in this there is a fine woodcut, followed by a 10-line verse synopsis by Aphra Behn

Aphra Behn

Aphra Behn was a prolific dramatist of the English Restoration and was one of the first English professional female writers. Her writing contributed to the amatory fiction genre of British literature.-Early life:...

 with the punning conclusion

Good council's easily given, but the effect

Oft renders it uneasy to transact.

It is clear that in mediaeval times the fable was applied to political situations and that commentaries on it were sharply critical of the limited democratic processes of the day and their ability to resolve social conflict when class interests were at stake. This applies equally to the plot against the king's favourite in 15th century Scotland and the direct means that Archibald Douglas chose to resolve the issue. While none of the authors that used the fable actually incited revolution, it will be noted that the 1376 Parliament that Langland satirised was followed by Wat Tyler

Wat Tyler

Walter "Wat" Tyler was a leader of the English Peasants' Revolt of 1381.-Early life:Knowledge of Tyler's early life is very limited, and derives mostly through the records of his enemies. Historians believe he was born in Essex, but are not sure why he crossed the Thames Estuary to Kent...

's revolt five years later and that Archibald Douglas went on to lead a rebellion against King James. In the meantime, the fangs of the fable were being drawn by European authors, who restricted their criticism to pusillanimous conduct in the face of rashly proposed solutions. An exception here was the Russian fabulist Ivan Krylov

Ivan Krylov

Ivan Andreyevich Krylov is Russia's best known fabulist. While many of his earlier fables were loosely based on Aesop and Jean de La Fontaine, later fables were original work, often satirizing the incompetent bureaucracy that was stifling social progress in his time.-Life:Ivan Krylov was born in...

 whose adaptation of the story satirises croneyism. In his account only those with perfect tails are to be allowed into the assembly; nevertheless, a tailless rat is admitted because he was at school with one of the law-makers.

There still remains the perception of a fundamental opposition between consensus and individualism. This is addressed in the lyrics of "Bell the Cat", a performance put out on DVD by the Japanese rock band LM.C

LM.C

LM.C is a Japanese visual kei rock duo playing a mix of electronic rock and pop, which they call "new century electrock".-History:LM.C was founded by Maya, a guitarist for musician Miyavi his support band Ishihara Gundan and a guitarist in his own band The Sinners...

 in 2007. This is the monologue of a house cat that wants to walk alone since "Society is by nature evil". It therefore refuses to conform and is impatient of restriction: “your hands hold on to everything – bell the cat”. While the lyric is sung in Japanese, the final phrase is in English. This is indicative of how influential animal fables of Western origin have become in Oriental societies that still appreciate such story-telling, recognising their ancient purpose of questioning and disrupting traditional social norms.

Illustrations

Several French artists depicted the fable during the 19th century, generally choosing one of two approaches. Gustave Doré

Gustave Doré

Paul Gustave Doré was a French artist, engraver, illustrator and sculptor. Doré worked primarily with wood engraving and steel engraving.-Biography:...

 and the genre painter Aurélie Léontine Malbet (fl.1868-1906) pictured the rats realistically acting out their debate. The illustrator Grandville

Grandville

Grandville may refer to:* The pseudonym of Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard , French caricaturist* Grandville, Aube, a commune in France* Grandville, Michigan, a city in the United States...

, along with the contemporaries Philibert Léon Couturier (1823-1901) and Auguste Delierre (1829-1890), caricature the backward practice and pomposity of provincial legislatures, making much the same point as did the Mediaeval authors who first recorded the tale. At the end of the century a publishing curiosity reverts to the first approach. This was in the woodblock print by Kawanabe Kiyosui that appeared in the collection of La Fontaine's fables that was commissioned and printed in Tokyo

Tokyo

, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

 in 1894 and then exported to France. In the upper left-hand corner a cat is seen through a warehouse window as it approaches across the roofs while inside the rats swarm up the straw-wrapped bales of goods. At its summit the chief rat holds the bell aloft. An earlier and less exclusive Japanese woodblock formed part of Kawanabe Kyosai

Kawanabe Kyosai

was a Japanese artist, in the words of a critic, "an individualist and an independent, perhaps the last virtuoso in traditional Japanese painting"....

's Isoho Monogotari series (1870-80). This shows an assembly of mice in Japanese dress with the proposer in the foreground, brandishing the belled collar.

External links

• 19th-20th century book illustrations online