Catius' Cat And The Whole Mouse
Glad is the mind that counts its whole store,
and finds that pleasure, not calmness, is what it lives for.
1. Catius’ Cat, high on her sun-warmed old wall,
Heard tell of a quarrel that’s no small thing at all:
Some say that our goal is not Pleasure, entire,
But one of its parts — cool Tranquility — higher.
2. “Not so,” says the Cat, with her tail held up proud,
“That claim is a trick, however it’s dressed, however loud —
One drop cannot swallow the cup, whole and true —
And that is the quarrel this song will pursue.”
3. Ask any cat what she means by “well-fed”:
Not one bite of tail, and the rest left unsaid —
She wants the whole mouse — every whisker, each paw —
Not one part alone, set as pleasure’s whole law.
4. And here is the trap of the argument brought
To crown “tranquil calmness” as pleasure’s own thought’s
True master and king, ranked high and apart —
On nothing but words, with no proof and no heart.
5. Here’s how the trick’s played, and I’ll lay it out plain,
So even a kitten could follow the chain:
“A cup that is full cannot take one drop more —
So the full cup’s a different thing than what filled it before.”
6. “Call that fullness ‘the calm,’ set it high on a shelf,
Above the mere water that filled it itself,
And say THAT is the peak, that alone is the good,
And the water’s a lesser thing, merely the food.”
7. But hold on one moment — what fills up the cup?
Only water, dear reader, and nothing to sup
But water again, at whatever the height —
The brim isn’t a rival. The brim’s water, filled right.
8. When your cup can’t rise higher, we give it a name —
We call the full water by “tranquil,” the same
Way we’d call a full moon by the name of “complete,“
Not a thing new or different, not a rival to beat.
9. So when pain’s fully gone, and the mind’s at its brim,
We may call that state tranquil — and rightly, for him
Whose cup has been filled — but it’s pleasure entire,
Not a throne raised above it, not pleasure’s own sire.
10. Two names for one water is all we have found:
The cup felt in body we call by the sound
Of “no pain in the flesh,” and the cup felt in mind
We call tranquil — one water, two windows to find.
11. Now here comes the slip, sly as a fox on the prowl:
They say since the cup will not rise, hear them growl,
That the water inside isn’t pleasure at all —
It’s a rank set above it, and pleasure serves, small.
12. Set that claim to the test of your own common sense,
And ask the plain senses — don’t argue from pretense —
Has a kitten alive ever tasted a THIRD
Sort of feeling, past pleasure and pain, of some worth?
13. No creature has felt it. There’s no such report.
Two feelings there are, and no third of any sort —
Only “painful” or “pleasant,” with nothing between,
Not a third state, not calm as some new thing unseen.
14. So the trick of the argument, clever and neat,
Is a word built on words, with no ground ‘neath its feet —
It sounds like a proof, but it’s proof of one thing:
That logic set loose from the senses will sing
15. Any tune that you ask it, and dance any way,
And build you a tower of words on a day
Spent inside a closed room with a pen and a phrase,
While the cat in the yard, fully fed, still plays.
16. For watch what this tower, if trusted, would teach:
That once you’ve been filled, there’s no pleasure to reach
For ever again — no second good meal,
No second embrace, for the cup’s at its seal.
17. Ask any cat curled by the fire, well-fed,
If a second warm lap adds nothing, she’s said
”No” with her purr, and she’ll climb up again,
For a full cup, once poured out, wants filling. Amen.
18. Ask any wise man who has laughed with his friends,
If the tenth joke adds nothing once the first joke ends,
He will laugh at the question, and pour you more wine,
For the cup isn’t static — it’s drunk, dear, in time.
19. A life is not one cup, filled once and then sealed,
It’s a cup we drink dry and refill in the field
Of our days, dawn on dawn, over and over again,
And “the brim” is a peak felt fresh, now and then —
20. Not a wall built for life, not a ceiling that’s fixed,
But the top of each pouring, each moment we’ve mixed
Of desire that’s met, and of pain that has passed —
Pleasure’s the water at every glass.
21. So if reason insists that once painless, you’re through,
That no meal, no embrace, no fine day is left new
To be sought, to be prized, to be counted a gain —
Then reason’s abandoned the ground for the plain,
22. Old plain fact of a life — and a life, understand,
Is not proved by a page, but by living it, hand
In hand with your senses, your loves, and your years.
The proof of the pleasure is: how the cat purrs.
23. Now let’s walk through the lives that the wise ones have led —
Not the lives that this tower of words would have said,
But the lives that they lived, with their names on the stone,
Their letters, their wills, and the friends they had known.
24. Did the wise ones shut doors, live alone and serene,
Refusing all love since it troubles the scene
Of a mind held in calmness, undisturbed and apart?
No — they married. They wept. They gave freely their heart.
25. For a friend in true danger, some wise men have died,
Not because dying brought calmness — who’s lied
And called death a calm? — but because, weighed with care,
The pain of not helping outweighed what waits there.
26. If tranquility ruled every choice, high and sole,
No wise man would ever have risked his whole soul
For another — he’d count only, “will this disturb me?”
And leave his good friend to the waves and the sea.
27. But that isn’t wisdom, and none who has read
The letters and wills of the wise and the dead
Could claim that they lived so. They loved. They took risk.
They chose the far greater, though calmness was brisk
28. To depart when they chose it. Friendship’s the tool,
The finest that wisdom has lent to us, full
Of comfort and courage — no slave to mere calm,
But pleasure’s own instrument, all the way to the grave.
29. And what of the wedding, the child on the knee,
The nights of no sleep, the long worry to see
A little one grown — is there calmness in that?
Not an ounce — yet the wise have not turned away, flat.
30. For counting the joy, and the ache, side by side,
The wise found the sum came out well justified:
More pleasure than pain, taken whole, through the years,
Worth every lost hour of sleep, worth the tears.
31. So don’t tell me calmness alone was the prize
That the wise men were chasing, with reasoning eyes
Fixed only on quiet — they sought the whole spread,
And calmness, though fine, was one dish, not the bread.
32. The bread and the water some say that they kept
Was proof that they wanted for nothing except
An empty, bare life — but a house with a staff,
With students, and accounts, and a garden, and craft,
33. Needs bread and needs water for those it employs,
Not only its master. The tale that destroys
Real wisdom with images of one man alone
On dry crusts — forgets the whole household, home-grown.
34. And here’s one more witness, as plain as the sun:
If the wise had lived quiet, and sought only none
Of the world’s loud pleasures, but silence alone,
Then why did his rivals throw stone after stone?
35. The critics who hated him, loud in their scorn,
Called him a glutton, a man basely born
To sensual feasting, a lover of vice —
They never once called him a hermit on ice.
36. No enemy ever once said, in his rage,
“That man in the Garden has locked himself in a cage
Of silence and calmness, wanting nothing more” —
They said he loved pleasure, and hated him for it, sore.
37. Now think for a moment: could both of these be true?
Could he be, all at once, both a glutton in view
And a hermit who sought after nothing at all?
No — pick one, dear kitten, for one of them’s tall,
38. And a very tall tale. The plain truth, understand,
Is the one that his rivals, on every hand,
Both friend and opponent, agreed to as fact:
That pleasure’s his aim, whole and simply, in act.
39. If quiet alone were the peak he had taught,
His enemies never would truly have fought
So hard, and so long, against “living for pleasure” —
For quiet’s no scandal. No priest fears that measure.
40. It’s pleasure that scandalized, pleasure that drew
The fire of the pulpits, wherever they grew,
Not silence, not calm, not a mind at its rest —
Pleasure, entire, was the word they detest.
41. So let the old record, both cheered and defamed,
Be witness enough that the goal that was named,
By Epicurus’ own friends and his fiercest of foes,
Was pleasure entire — as the whole ancient world knows.
42. So here is the heart of it, plain as can be,
For a kitten, a child, or a grown cat like me:
“Pleasure” names ALL of the good that we feel —
Every last member, not one at the wheel.
43. The quiet nap counts. And the loud, joyful shout.
The sweet taste of honey. The hard-fought-for route
Up a steep, climbed hill, panting, proud at the peak.
The calm, folded paws of a cat, warm and meek.
44. All these are called “pleasure” — own children, each one,
Of the same happy mother, held under the sun.
We don’t disinherit the rowdy for the mild,
Nor crown only Quiet as the favorite child.
45. But don’t swing too far the opposite way, and deny
That the WHOLE has a truth of its own, by and by —
Some clever tongue tells you there’s no “full” at all,
Just sip after sip, divided and small.
46. “No cup,” they will say, “only water that’s poured,
One splash at a time — there’s no ‘full’ to record,
No fullness that’s real, just an endless procession
Of sips, with no sum, and the ‘whole’ just impression.”
47. That error’s the twin of the one we just named:
One crowns a lone part; this one says nothing’s contained
In the WHOLE, that the whole is a word, nothing more —
Both miss what is plainly right there at the door.
48. For a cup that is FULL truly differs, in fact,
From a cup with one drop — that’s a fullness, exact,
A thing you can point to, and know, and can feel —
We all see it clearly: the fullness is real.
49. So the whole is as real as the part, don’t forget,
And no single part owns the whole, or its debt —
The fullness of pleasure’s the goal, understand:
Both the cup, and each drop that has filled it, hand in hand.
50. When a choice comes before you, the question to ask
Isn’t only “will this trouble calmness?” — a task
Too narrow by half — but the fuller, true sum:
“Counting all of the joy, and the ache still to come,
51. Do I come out ahead?” That’s the Epicurean art:
Not a scale with one weight, but a scale from the start
Built to hold every pleasure against every pain,
And add up the total, and choose by that gain.
52. Tranquility often will tip the scale high,
For a mind free of dread is a wonderful buy —
Cheap in cost, rich in yield, the best bargain in town.
But “usually best” isn’t “always the crown.”
53. For there come certain days, certain hours, certain lives,
Where the calm must be spent, like a coin, to buy wives,
Buy friends, and buy causes, and buy the plain good
Of a life fully lived, understood as it should.
54. And when that day comes, does the wise man refuse,
Clutching calmness alone, as though calmness to lose
Were the only true harm he could ever incur?
No — he spends it, and pleasure’s the ledger, the spur.
55. So “pleasure” ‘s the WORD for the goal, understand,
Both the name for the whole, and the coin in your hand
For each small, single joy — it is genus and kind
Together in one, with no gap left behind.
56. It’s not one lone pleasure, held up as the chief,
With all others counted as lesser, in brief —
It’s the whole of the ledger, the sum of the sheet,
Every joy that’s not painful, from head to your feet.
57. Virtue’s no different — a tool, understand,
Not a crown for its own sake, not king of the land.
It’s useful for pleasure, and prized for that end;
Take pleasure away, it’s no virtue, my friend.
58. Now here’s a second charge, raised just as loud
Against Epicurus, by a different crowd:
That Epicurus made war on all reason and thought,
And trusted feeling alone, and all logic he fought.
59. That charge gets repeated by stranger and friend,
By men who admire and men who contend
Against him — but it isn’t the truth, I will show:
Epicurus loved reason, and made his mind grow.
60. He reasoned the skeptic straight out of his shoes:
“You say you know nothing” — well, that’s news you can’t use,
For to know you know nothing, that much you must know,
So your own mouth refutes you with every word’s flow.
61. He reasoned the man who says “all is decreed”
Right out of his chair, for by his own creed,
If he argues at all, and he blames you or praises,
He’s granted you freedom in one of his phrases.
62. No, reason’s no enemy; reason’s a friend,
A tool in the hand that we use to an end,
But a tool, understand me, is never the goal —
A hammer’s no house, though it builds one up whole.
63. Now hear the true quarrel, the war he was in:
Not logic itself, but the logic of sin —
The kind spun from words with no root in the ground,
That never once touches the world we have found.
64. Recall the three witnesses, called to the bar:
The senses that show us the world near and far,
The feeling that marks out the pleasant, the pain,
And Anticipation, that leads without strain.
65. Now reason’s no fourth witness, however it’s dressed;
It’s the judge on the bench, who takes in and who tests
Each claim that is brought, by first calling to stand
The three sworn witnesses, gavel in hand.
66. A judge who rules only from cleverness shown,
Without ever calling a witness, alone,
May reason quite finely, on paper, all day,
And still hand down a ruling that’s wrong either way.
67. Now back to the war, since I said I would show
What Epicurus fought, and I think you now know:
Not thinking. Not reason. Not mind truly free.
But logic uncoupled from all we can see.
68. The Stoics loved chains built of words, link on link,
Fine puzzles of “if” and of “then,” till you’d think
That truth was a game to be won with a phrase —
Epicurus called that an empty word-maze.
69. For a word is a coin, and a coin must be spent
On a thing that is real, or the coin’s not worth a cent —
“Justice,” and “virtue,” and “good,” and the rest,
Mean nothing at all till the senses attest.
70. So when someone builds, from a letter alone,
A tower of logic on one word, one stone,
And bids you to live in the shade that it casts,
Ask first if it’s felt — for that’s the test that outlasts.
71. For here is the method, and I’ll make it brief:
Take the claim to its end, past comfort, past belief,
And see if a life could be lived by that rule —
Or if the cup empties, cracked, spilled, and cruel.
72. If the rule, followed straight, says: stop loving your friends,
Stop marrying, stop risking your life for amends,
Stop tasting, stop laughing, stop reaching for more,
Once painless — then that rule has failed at the door.
73. No man, no cat, no child has lived by that creed.
It fits not one witnessed, true life we can read —
Not a letter, a will, not a life we can trace.
It’s a ghost made of grammar, with no home, no place.
74. And that is the proof, not of malice, but plain
Simple error — a word that got loose from its chain,
Wandered off from the senses that gave it its start,
And came home a stranger, dressed up as the heart.
75. So no, Epicurus made war on no thought,
No idea, no concept, no reasoning well-wrought —
He made war on the kind that forgets where it’s from,
And mistakes its own echo for wisdom’s true sum.
76. Concepts are fine. Words are fine. Logic’s a friend,
When it walks, hand in hand, from beginning to end,
With the senses, the feelings, and Anticipation too —
Cut loose from all three, it’s a ship with no crew.
77. But hold on a moment — don’t think that one word
Wears just the one face, the same as you’ve heard
In every last mouth, every place, every year —
A word bends its meaning to fit what is near.
78. Take “truly,” for one: when a witness speaks true,
Do we mean that he’s honest? Or that his view
Got the facts dead-on right? Both are proper, and yet
They aren’t the same thing — and that’s easy to forget.
79. Or take the word “full,” as we’ve used it so far
In the cup of our pleasure, up close to the bar:
A cup can be full for a moment, and then
Run dry a heartbeat later — and full once again.
80. We don’t want a cup that’s just full for a while,
Then runs dry by nightfall, or empty by mile —
We want a full cup that stays full, and stays true,
As long as our life and our wisdom can do.
81. So when we say “highest” is pain fully gone,
That tells you the cup’s at the brim, rightly drawn —
But it doesn’t yet tell you what’s filling the cup:
Is it water, or wine, or champagne poured up?
82. Both cups can be “full,” and both “full” ones are right —
But a full cup of water’s a different delight
Than a full cup of wine, or of love, or of song,
Though the WORD “full” applies to them, none of them wrong.
83. So here is the trap that can catch the most wise:
To think one word means the same thing to all eyes,
The same in each mouth, every place, every day —
That thinking’s the error that leads minds astray.
84. So when someone points to the words “fully filled,“
And says that means only “calmness, distilled” —
Remember: that phrase names the cup’s very brim,
Not the wine that’s within it, not fizzy, not dim.
85. Ask Catius’ Cat, up on her post of old stone,
Who taught her own kittens, and taught them alone
On a three-legged stool, not a four-legged throne —
She’ll tell you that calmness is pleasant, well known,
86. But she never once taught that it ruled all the rest,
That a nap was the king, and a feast was the guest
Who must bow at the door. She fed her own young
On sun, and on cream, and on games to be sprung.
87. “Trust Nature,” she purred, “and Nature’s clear voice
Will show you that pleasure’s the whole of your choice —
Not one dish alone, held above all the plate,
But the plate itself, filled, is what makes a cat great.”
88. And here is a truth that this song must still speak,
That the word for the whole is not tranquil, not meek —
It’s Pleasure entire, plain title, not part:
Not one dish alone, but the feast and the art.
89. When Catius asked cats to look up at the sky,
And find that the seeds are eternal, not “why
Did they come and will go” — when she asked them to see
That nothing from nothing has ever come free —
90. She asked them to trust the plain senses they had,
Not a tower of logic that made her feel sad
Or superior, propped up on some clever man’s phrase —
She built from the ground, brick by brick, all her days.
91. So take her example, whoever you are,
Reading this now, near or reading from far:
When a fine argument comes, dressed sharp, dressed to kill,
Take it down to your senses, and test it there still.
92. If it holds, keep it gladly, and reason on more.
If it breaks on the senses, then show it the door —
For a claim that can’t live in a life that is real
Isn’t knowledge at all. It’s a clever ordeal.
93. So here is my answer, laid plain and complete,
To the fine, clever tower some raised in the street:
Tranquility’s real, and tranquility’s dear,
But it isn’t the throne. It’s a pleasure, right here,
94. Among all of the others — the food, and the friend,
The child, and the risk, and the joy without end —
One member, though splendid, of one happy clan,
Not the lone king who rules the whole life of a man.
95. And the reasoning brought to dethrone it and crown
Some quieter cousin, and wear the word down
Till “pleasure” meant nothing, or meant something small —
That reasoning never once asked the senses at all.
96. It asked only words, and it answered in kind,
And built you a castle of air in the mind,
But a castle of air, though it’s clever and fine,
Won’t shelter one kitten from wind, rain, or time.
97. So test every word, every clever-turned phrase,
By taking it home to the light of your days —
Does it hold when you’re hungry? When loved? When you grieve?
Or only on paper, where no one can leave?
98. Pleasure’s the compass. Pain is its true north’s dark twin.
And the whole art of living is: weigh, and begin
Every choice with both hands full of feeling, not word,
Then choose the side, weighed whole, where more joy can be heard.
99. That is no war on thinking. That’s thinking, full-grown,
Brought home from the clouds and set down on a stone
Where the senses can touch it, the feelings can feel,
And Anticipation tests it, and stamps it as real.
100. So the next time you’re told that Epicurus feared
Reason and logic, and only revered
The quiet and calm, tell them plainly, tell true:
He trusted them so much, he gave them a crew.
101. He gave reason a captain’s chair, sturdy and sound,
But he built the whole ship with its keel on the ground
Of the senses, the feelings, Anticipation’s light —
And a ship built that way doesn’t sink in the night.
102. So sail it, dear reader, and don’t be afraid
Of the towers of logic that clever men made
Without ever once checking the tide or the storm —
Trust pleasure entire. Trust the whole, not one form.
103. And if ever you doubt it, go find a warm cat,
Full-fed on a whole mouse, and give her a pat —
On her soft, sleeping side, and ask if she’s found
One pleasure that’s higher than all, ranked and crowned.
104. She’ll open one eye, and she’ll stretch, and she’ll purr,
And curl back to sleep, without arguing a word —
For the cat knows already what logic forgets:
That pleasure’s the whole, with no ranks and no debts.
Glad is the mind that counts its whole store,
and finds that pleasure, not calmness, is what it lives for.