Archy the Cockroach and Mehitabel the Cat were introduced to the world in 1916 by Don Marquis, a columnist for the New York Evening Sun. Marquis was more than a mere columnist; he was a social commentator and satirist admired by nearly every famous writer of the first quarter of the 20th century. Franklin P. Adams, for example, said Marquis was “far closer to Mark Twain than anybody I know” (see note).
As the story goes, Marquis said he came into his office one morning to find a big cockroach jumping about on his typewriter keys. The cockroach kept climbing up the metal frame and hurling itself headfirst onto a key, one slow letter after another. He couldn’t use the shift lock (except one time when he hit it accidentally and produced an entire uppercase column), so his writing is lowercase. After about an hour, Marquis reported, the cockroach fell to the floor, exhausted after typing just one page. He never could manage punctuation, and he also had trouble with the carriage return—how many of us remember how those old typewriters worked?—but he somehow hit it every time. (My grandfather had an old typewriter like this. The keys were very stiff. I felt like my little fingers were gonna break when I tried to type.)
In his previous life, Archy was a free verse poet. As he explains to Marquis,
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
Vers libre, or free verse, was highly popular in the first half of the 20th century (consider “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”) because it does not require use of any of the standard poetical meters (iambic, trochaic, etc.) and uses the rhythms of ordinary speech. You know what? Most of the verse that appears in these FAR posts is free verse. It’s perfectly good poetry, but not Miltonic or Shakespearean or even Keatsean or Yeatsean.
One of Archy’s friends is Mehitabel the Cat. She says she started out as Cleopatra, but now in perhaps her ninth life, she is a fairly scruffy, always hungry, alley cat. Here is one of Archy’s reports on her:
mehitabel the cat claims that
she has a human soul
also and has transmigrated
from body to body and it
may be so boss you
remember i told you she accused
herself of being cleopatra once i
asked her about antony
anthony who she asked me …
listen archy she said i
have been so many different
people in my time and met
so many prominent gentlemen i
won t lie to you or stall i
do get my dates mixed sometimes
think of how much i have had a
chance to forget and i have
always made a point of not
carrying grudges over
from one life to the next …
… i am a free spirit … i
look on myself as being
quite a romantic character oh the
queens I have been and the
swell feeds I have ate
Reading today about Mehitabel’s life a hundred years ago, I begin to wonder if she might be a model for us women living in the first quarter of the 21st century. Thanks to the Nuns on the Bus and #MeToo and the brave women who run for public office and win, we seem to be doing somewhat better than we were, say, half a century ago. (Yes, this a subject for lively debate; please give your opinions in the Comments.) What I think Mehitabel has is persistence. She has the ability to endure, no matter what. I think it’s her free spirited persistence we can adopt today. What do you think?
Here is Mehitabel’s song, as transcribed by Archy, who observed her dancing:
i have had my ups and downs
but wotthehell wotthehell
yesterday scepters 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 a moated grange
wotthehell wotthehell
cage me and i go frantic
capricious and corybantic
and i am 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
“A dance in the old dame yet.” Do we still have any dancing in us in this Awful Age of Trump? Let’s look for our own endurance, for our own kind of dancing. And while we’re looking, let’s also find a DVD of Andrew Lloyd Webber and T.S. Eliot’s Cats and watch it again. We’ll see the endurance. (Dancing is hard work.) We’ll also how see the dancing keeps cats—us—going. Yes, indeed—there’s a dance is our old dames yet!
BTW, in 1957 there was a Broadway musical about Archy and Mehitabel titled Shinbone Alley. It was written by Mel Brooks (The Producers) and Joe Darien (Man of La Mancha). Eddie Bracken played Archy, Eartha Kitt played Mehitabel, and it ran for forty-nine performances. I guess Don Marquis was way too smart and satiric for 1950s America. Marquis died in 1936; Archy and Mehitabel live on.
Note: This quote and all the poetry are taken from The Annotated Archy and Mehitabel by Don Marquis, Edited with Notes and Introduction by Michael Sims (Penguin Books, 2006). https://www.amazon.com/Annotated-Archy-Mehitabel-Penguin-Classics/dp/014303975X/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=annotated+archy+and+mehitabel&qid=1573754142&sr=8-1 It’s one of the funniest books you’ll ever read.
Barbara Ardinger, Ph.D. (www.barbaraardinger.com), is a published author and freelance editor. Her newest book is Secret Lives, a novel about grandmothers who do magic. Her earlier nonfiction books include the daybook Pagan Every Day, Finding New Goddesses (a pun-filled parody of goddess encyclopedias), and Goddess Meditations. When she can get away from the computer, she goes to the theater as often as possible—she loves musical theater and movies in which people sing and dance. She is also an active CERT (Community Emergency Rescue Team) volunteer and a member (and occasional secretary pro-tem) of a neighborhood organization that focuses on code enforcement and safety for citizens. She has been an AIDS emotional support volunteer and a literacy volunteer. She is an active member of the Neopagan community and is well known for the rituals she creates and leads.
What a post! Creative and funny – and serious all at once.
“She has the ability to endure, no matter what. I think it’s her free spirited persistence we can adopt today. What do you think?”
I think endurance may be all at this point. I am not sure that we are in any better position as women today although many would disagree – there is too much woman hatred for self and other out there for my comfort – but I think of Earth’s tribulations and what I see is her ability to endure, regardless of outcome.
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Oh, I love this post, and remembering the wit of Don Marquis. I love that Archie says Mehitabel “accused herself” of being Cleopatra. And I love her dismissal of Anthony. I am going to save her song in my favorite poems file. And perhaps also kick up my heels and dance to it! Thank you for a wonderful start to the day and the month.
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I think every modern woman who is healthy enough and motivated to do so should kick up her heels from time to time, either literally or metaphorically by doing something she doesn’t normally do. Hopefully there’s a dance left in all of us!
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Thanks for this delightful piece … education and a morning smile all wrapped up together with a crinkly bow. My favorite bit is that humans reincarnated as a cockroach and a cat … helps give us a bit of a remove from anthropocentricity.
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Grateful for mehitabel. And every woman like her.
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Gee, how many women are like hungry alley cats?? Do you want to reconsider and amend your comment? But thanks for reading my post.
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i have been weary lately but your post gave me smiles and energy to endure…
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i’ve loved archy and mehitabel since i stumbled on them as a voraciously reading young thing sixty years ago. I’ve been muttering “wotthehell, wotthehell” ever since though these days i say it aloud instead of undermybreath i agree things have changed for women somewhat for the better but wotthehell are we still doing marching in the streets for the same things we’ve been marching for my whole life where’s the equal pay bottom line respect reedom of choice across the land wotthehell wotthehell pussies unite!
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So interesting to read this just after Sara’s post about the Native American dancers. It makes me think about dancing and liberation and persistence… lots of sources of inspiration for me, and I hope I can always dance somehow… even just with my mind! Fascinating post.
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The dancing was what started my mind thinking about what to write……..and then I remembered Mehitabel. Who is no doubt still dancing.
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