Spare a Thought for Archy
08/12/2005

There is a saying that "on the internet, no-one knows that you're a dog". Which is true enough and bears hidden philosophical implications to boot, but gives no hint of the problems encountered as a blogging chameleon. It's not easy, I can assure you, even when you have become skillful enough to use all four feet, your tail and tongue to work the keys, as I have.

So I may have had the occasional quiet complaint about my trials and tribulations but, in truth, I know that they are as nothing when compared to the obstacles overcome by others. Perhaps the most famous example was a cockroach who wrote poetry for a journalist, Don Marquis, way back in the 1920s and 30s. This talented and hard-working creature became renowned for his literary style and tales of a cat that he knew; he was, of course, the great Archy of Archy and Mehitabel.

One can imagine the enormous problems encountered by a cockroach attempting to work a typewriter. I am in awe of such an achievement and thank my stars that I was born to an age of touch-sensitive keyboards. In Archy's honor, I can do no better than to quote directly from Don Marquis' first article about him:

We came into our room earlier than usual in the morning, and discovered a gigantic cockroach jumping about upon the keys. He did not see us and we watched him. He would climb painfully upon the framework of the machine and cast himself with all his force upon a key, head downward, and his weight and the impact of the blow were just sufficient to operate the machine, one slow letter after another. He could not work the capital letters, and he had a great deal of difficulty operating the mechanism that shifts the paper so that a fresh line may be started. We never saw a cockroach work so hard or perspire so freely in all our lives before. After about an hour of this frightfully difficult literary labor he fell to the floor exhausted, and we saw him creep feebly into a nest of the poems which are always there in profusion.

Congratulating ourself that we had left a sheet of paper in the machine the night before so that all this work had not been in vain, we made an examination, and this is what we found:

expression is the need of my soul
I was once a vers libre bard
but I died and my soul went into the body of a cockroach
it has given me a new outlook upon life
I see things from the under side now
thank you for the apple peelings in the wastepaper basket
but your paste is getting so stale i cant eat it
there is a cat here at night i wish you would have
removed she nearly ate me the other night why dont she
catch rats that is what she is supposed to be for
there is a rat here she should get without delay
most of these rats here are just rats
but this rat is like me he has a human soul in him
he used to be a poet himself
night after night i have written poetry for you
on your typewriter
and this big brute of a rat who used to be a poet
comes out of his hole when it is done
and reads it and sniffs at it
he is jealous of my poetry
he used to make fun of it when we were both human
he was a punk poet himself
and after he has read it he sneers
and then he eats it
i wish you would have that cat kill that rat
or get a cat that is onto her job
and i will write you a series of poems
showing how things look
to a cockroach
that rats name used to be freddy
the next time freddy dies i hope he wont be a rat
but something smaller i hope i will be the rat
in the next transmigration and freddy the cockroach
i will teach him to sneer at my poetry then
dont you ever eat any sandwiches in your office
i havent had a crumb of bread for i dont know how long
or a piece of ham or anything but apple parings
and paste leave a piece of paper in your machine
every night you can call me archy

What passion and drama are conveyed by those few, simple lines! There are many of us now that the computer has made literacy so much more easily available to all sorts of creatures, but let us take a moment to remember the first and greatest of us all, Archy the cockroach.

And, of course, it is impossible to recall Archy without thoughts of the delightful Mehitabel creeping in. Here is one of Archy's finest works, in which he tells the tale of his feline friend:

The Song of Mehitabel

this is the song of mehitabel
of mehitabel the alley cat
as i wrote you before boss
mehitabel is a believer
in the pythagorean
theory of the transmigration
of the soul and she claims
that formerly her spirit
was incarnated in the body
of cleopatra
that was a long time ago
and one must not be
surprised if mehitabel
has forgotten some of her
more regal manners

i have had my ups and downs
but wotthehell wotthehell
yesterday sceptres and crowns
fried oysters and velvet gowns
and today i herd with bums
but wotthehell wotthehell
i wake the world from sleep
as i caper and sing and leap
when i sing my wild free tune
wotthehell wotthehell
under the blear eyed moon
i am pelted with cast off shoon
but wotthehell wotthehell

do you think that i would change
my present freedom to range
for a castle or moated grange
wotthehell wotthehell
cage me and i d go frantic
my life is so romantic
capricious and corybantic
and i m toujours gai toujours gai

i know that i am bound
for a journey down the sound
in the midst of a refuse mound
but wotthehell wotthehell
oh i should worry and fret
death and i will coquette
there s a dance in the old dame yet
toujours gai toujours gai

i once was an innocent kit
wotthehell wotthehell
with a ribbon my neck to fit
and bells tied onto it
o wotthehell wotthehell
but a maltese cat came by
with a come hither look in his eye
and a song that soared to the sky
and wotthehell wotthehell
and i followed adown the street
the pad of his rhythmical feet
o permit me again to repeat
wotthehell wotthehell

my youth i shall never forget
but there s nothing i really regret
wotthehell wotthehell
there s a dance in the old dame yet
toujours gai toujours gai

the things that i had not ought to
i do because i ve gotto
wotthehell wotthehell
and i end with my favorite motto
toujours gai toujours gai

boss sometimes i think
that our friend mehitabel
is a trifle too gay

Remember that in 1927, when the poem was written, there was only one meaning for the word "gay". I do urge you to visit the link given above and read more of Archy's stuff; he is highly entertaining and relevant even today. But if time proves too pressing, here is another link to just one more of his poems:

Pete the Parrot and Shakespeare.

Technorati tags: Archy and Mehitabel; Typing; Cockroach.

Clive

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