-Description-
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And every hour of every day I'm learning more
The more I learn, the less I know about before
The less I know, the more I want to look around
Digging deep for clues on higher ground

'Higher Ground', UB40

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   Thursday, May 26  

The Mouse And The Snake

One fine morning two small mice,
Much against their friend's advice
Visited a room where grain
Undisturbed for months had lain.
Other mice had entered; none
Lived to eat and tell - not one.
But the two friends, unpoliced,
Broke in and began to feast;
And their laugther fell and rose,
Till their blood with horror froze.

Gold and shiny, vicious, long,
Venom-fanged, hypnotic, strong -
Slid a snake towards the pair,
Swalloed one right then and there,
Hissed obscenely at the other:
'That's the first; and here's another!',
And, when she stood shocked and still,
Sprang at once to make his kill.

Suddenly the mouse unfroze,
Glared at him, and twitched her nose.
Every time he slid or sprang,
Dripping venom from each fang,
Out beyond his reach she lept,
Til the snake, grown tired, crept
To his hole, slid first his head,
Then his gleaming, overfed
Trunk in, so that just his tail
Jutted out to thrash and flail.
Swift as rage the little mouse
Rushed towards the killer's house,
Bit his tail once, twice, again,
Clung to it till, wild with pain,
Hissing wrath, the snake backed out,
Swerved his body round about,
Lunged towards the mouse and tried
Swallowing her - but she leapt wide
Every time he lunged, till he,
Wriggling back exhaustedly,
Slid inside his hole once more.
Then exactly as before,
Down she clamped with might and main
On his tail till, mad with pain,
Yet again the snake emerged.
Thus the battle edded and surged
And the mouse fought on and on
Till her strength was almost gone
- When the snake, without a sound,
Spat the dead mouse on the ground,
And, with mangled slither, stole
Unopposed into his hole.

Then the mouse came up and cried
Bitter tears for her who'd died.
Squeaking sadly, and bereft,
Corpse in mouth, she sobbed and left.

This was seen by Mr Yang.
When his friend the poet Chang
Heard the mouse's story later,
Eager to commemorate her,
As he walked back to his house,
He composed 'The Faithful Mouse' -
Where in elegiac metre
He extols the Snake-Defeater
And in couplets sad and stoic
Celebrated her acts heroic -
Acts that prove that shock and pain,
Death and grief are not in vain -
Which fine lines, alive or dead,
Neither of the mice has read.


This poem reminds me of a night in C-Blk, Kent Ridge Hall during my 1st year. That was a very rat-infested year for the hall. Near every few nights you can hear screams/shouts from 1 of the 5 blks, cos some fine dame or lad had crossed path with a rat. Funny rat anecdotes abound; Mr Ling, our austere hall manager, opens his office to 1 & all who wanna borrow rat glue.
Someone (I think it was Mr Ling) laid a simple but effective rat trap in our kitchenette one night - a piece of cardboard smeared with rat glue. Someone else reported that night that a rat was stuck in this trap & was squeaking away! Poor rat...none of us did anything of cos. For rats are fithy, disgusting, lowdown pest, the lowliest of beasts, to be hunted down, killed, decimated.
Late in that night, yet another someone else reported: the rat was gone! All's left was a trail of blood... What happend?
Was there also a foot, or a head, left behind? Did someone also reported, that there was another rat in the kitchenette fretting around the trapped rat ? I can't remember, my memory is vague, this happened 5 years ago...
One of the hypothesises I do recall we made was - another rat had came & tried to rescue the trappped rat. As it was unable to rescue its friend whole, it gnawed away the glue-stuck part of its friend & stoled away with the rest of the body. Hence the missing body & trail of blood.
This sounded a very touching & heroic, but also very incredulous tale then. How can a lowly rat have such brain & heart to do this?! But after reading the poem above, I guess well, it could just be possible...

   [ posted by toast @ 5:19 PM ] [ ]