Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi’ bickerin brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee
Wi’ murd’ring pattle!
I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An’ fellow-mortal!
I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen-icker in a thrave
’S a sma’ request:
I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave,
An’ never miss ’t!
Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
It’s silly wa’s the win’s are strewin!
An’ naething, now, to big a new ane,
O’ foggage green!
An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin,
Baith snell an’ keen!
Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste,
An’ weary Winter comin fast,
An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro’ thy cell.
That wee-bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble,
But house or hald,
To thole the Winter’s sleety dribble,
An’ cranreuch cauld!
But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!
Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But Och! I backward cast my e’e,
On prospects drear!
An’ forward tho’ I canna see,
I guess an’ fear!
Given that China has a rat in its zodiac and a Year of the Rat, it really isn’t surprising that they did pay attention to rat deaths associated with the plague. A young poet from Zhaoshou county in the western Yunnan province of China named Shi Daonan (1765-92) wrote this poem:
Dead rats in the east,
Dead rats in the west!
As if they were tigers,
Indeed are the people scared.
A few days following the deaths of the rats,
Men pass away like falling walls!
Deaths in one day are numberless,
The hazy sun is covered by sombre clouds.
While three men are walking together,
Two drop dead within ten steps!
People die in the night,
Nobody dares weep over the dead!
The coming of the demon of pestilence
Suddenly makes the lamp go dim,
Then it is blown out,
Leaving man, ghost, and corpse in the dark room.
The crows caw incessantly,
The dogs howl bitterly!
Man and ghost are one,
While the spirit is taken for a human being!
The land is filled with human bones,
There in the fields are crops,
To be reaped by none;
And the officials collect no tax!
I hope to ride on a firey dragon
To see the God and Goddess in heaven,
Begging them to spread heavenly milk,
And make the dead come to life again.
With the exception of the last couple stanzas, this poem could describe the plague in sixth century Byzantium as readily as eighteenth century China. Shi Daonan clearly links the deaths of rats with fast and massive human deaths so much so that crops go unharvested and taxes uncollected. Little is known of Shi Daonan, other than that he rode the firey dragon at age 27 during the 1792 outbreak in Zhaozhou along with his mother and other relatives.
From Carol Benedict, Bubonic Plague in Nineteenth-Century China (Stanford University Press, 1996, p. 23).
To a Mouse By Robert
By Robert Burns
Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi’ bickerin brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee
Wi’ murd’ring pattle!
I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An’ fellow-mortal!
I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen-icker in a thrave
’S a sma’ request:
I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave,
An’ never miss ’t!
Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
It’s silly wa’s the win’s are strewin!
An’ naething, now, to big a new ane,
O’ foggage green!
An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin,
Baith snell an’ keen!
Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste,
An’ weary Winter comin fast,
An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro’ thy cell.
That wee-bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble,
But house or hald,
To thole the Winter’s sleety dribble,
An’ cranreuch cauld!
But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!
Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But Och! I backward cast my e’e,
On prospects drear!
An’ forward tho’ I canna see,
I guess an’ fear!
Shi Daonan’s "Death of
Given that China has a rat in its zodiac and a Year of the Rat, it really isn’t surprising that they did pay attention to rat deaths associated with the plague. A young poet from Zhaoshou county in the western Yunnan province of China named Shi Daonan (1765-92) wrote this poem:
Dead rats in the east,
Dead rats in the west!
As if they were tigers,
Indeed are the people scared.
A few days following the deaths of the rats,
Men pass away like falling walls!
Deaths in one day are numberless,
The hazy sun is covered by sombre clouds.
While three men are walking together,
Two drop dead within ten steps!
People die in the night,
Nobody dares weep over the dead!
The coming of the demon of pestilence
Suddenly makes the lamp go dim,
Then it is blown out,
Leaving man, ghost, and corpse in the dark room.
The crows caw incessantly,
The dogs howl bitterly!
Man and ghost are one,
While the spirit is taken for a human being!
The land is filled with human bones,
There in the fields are crops,
To be reaped by none;
And the officials collect no tax!
I hope to ride on a firey dragon
To see the God and Goddess in heaven,
Begging them to spread heavenly milk,
And make the dead come to life again.
With the exception of the last couple stanzas, this poem could describe the plague in sixth century Byzantium as readily as eighteenth century China. Shi Daonan clearly links the deaths of rats with fast and massive human deaths so much so that crops go unharvested and taxes uncollected. Little is known of Shi Daonan, other than that he rode the firey dragon at age 27 during the 1792 outbreak in Zhaozhou along with his mother and other relatives.
From Carol Benedict, Bubonic Plague in Nineteenth-Century China (Stanford University Press, 1996, p. 23).
- https://contagions.wordpress.com/2010/03/18/shi-daonans-death-of-rats/