Cats
Continued.
“Saper
vedere.”
Leonardo da Vinci.
The idea of the “learned cat” first appears in
Bulgakov in his novella Fateful Eggs,
realized in the personage of Professor Persikov. It is he who appears as a
Persian learned cat who comes to Bulgakov from Pushkin’s Lukomorye [see Segment
XCVIII] and travels to Master and
Margarita as Kot Begemot.
If Bulgakov’s Aphranius “turns” with the help of his
cloak (inside out), Begemot is already a full-fledged turnskin, who turns into
a man and back into a cat as needed.
Bulgakov’s Kot Begemot is also a learned cat,
appearing as such in Chapter 22, With the
Candles, of Master and Margarita,
where he solves the riddles posed by Bulgakov in Chapter 1 Never Talk to Strangers. Woland’s words: “One, Two… Mercury is in the Second House…
the Moon is gone … Six – Misfortune… Evening – Seven… You are going to have
your head cut off!” cannot be understood without Kot Begemot’s “monologue”
in Chapter 22. Bulgakov never leaves anything unexplained.---
“My
speech by no means represents verbal soiling, as you kindly put it, but it is a
series of tightly packed syllogisms, which would have been properly appreciated
by such connoisseurs as Sextus Empiricus, Martianus Capella, and perhaps – why
not? – by Aristotle himself.”
In his bizarre monologue, Kot Begemot gives three
names. For the convenience of understanding we shall deal with the second name
first.
Martianus Capella was a Latin writer of the fifth
century AD. Little is known about him, but his only book De Nuptiis (the full title: De
Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii) is quite famous. It is considered a
landmark in the history of education, rhetoric, and science. In fact, it was read, taught, and
commented upon throughout the early Middle Ages and shaped European education
during the early medieval period and the Carolingian renaissance.
The bridegroom of De
Nuptiis is borrowed by Martianus Capella from Graeco-Roman mythology where
the Roman Mercury was initially insignificant, but having acquired the
association with the Greek Hermes, would effectively become the most popular
god of Roman antiquity. His principal function was to be the messenger of gods
(hence his winged sandals and helmet, plus his official designation in the
nineteenth century as the symbol of the postal service). But he also had
several other functions, such as being a patron of poetry, commerce, travelers
and even thieves. The metal mercury, named after him, was known to the
alchemists as “the first matter,” from which came all other metals, and it was
firmly believed that tinkering with mercury would produce any metal, including
gold, which was of course the stated objective of alchemy.
In Martianus’ book, or rather in its framework story,
the author tells us how Mercury was looking for a bride for himself, but was
rejected by three goddesses: Wisdom, Divination, and Psyche. At last he finds a
willing bride. She is Philologia, whose name speaks for itself. At the
nuptials, the newlyweds receive as their wedding gift from the gods seven
housemaids. Their names are:
1.
Grammar;
2.
Dialectic;
3.
Rhetoric;
4.
Geometry;
5.
Arithmetic;
6.
Astronomy;
7.
[Musical] Harmony
The reader may have guessed, and guessed correctly,
that the bulk of Martianus’ book consists of each housemaid [read school
discipline] introducing herself by stating the basic facts about herself, and
thus revealing the didactic purpose of the whole book as a compendium of the
desirable course of studies for schools.
Mercury marries sensibly, as one of the most important
qualities he requires in his job as the messenger of the gods (verbal
messenger, mind you!) is eloquence. He must love words, and his wife Philologia
bestows this quality on her husband in abundance. As for Mercury’s gifted
housemaids - they are on their way to make the pagan god Mercury the principal
hero of the Christian schools of those and later medieval times, as the books
of Martianus Capella are indeed becoming school textbooks.
Isn’t it amazing how the early Christians were in fact
open to knowledge, despite the derogatory “dark-ages” image that we have of
them, and long before the Renaissance they never completely renounced their
heritage, that is, the creativity of the earlier pre-Christian generations,
which they embraced whole-heartedly.
And so,---
“One,
Two… Mercury is in the Second House…”
Here Bulgakov refers to Mercury’s courtship of the
second goddess, Divination, who naturally turns him down, being able to
divine the future.
“Divination”
comes from the Latin “divinatio,”
the faculty of foreseeing; “divinare,” to foresee. In other words, the second goddess Divination has the power to foresee the future.
Introducing “the
Second House,” Bulgakov thus plays up Woland’s prediction of what was about
to happen to Berlioz.
“The
Moon is gone…”
Death awaits Berlioz. The moon plays an important role
in Bulgakov’s works, and I am writing about this in my still unposted Bulgakov chapter, the segment “Two Bears.”
Here, in Master
and Margarita, we find the answer to this Bulgakovian puzzle only at the
end of Chapter 3, titled The Seventh
Proof.---
“…Once more, and for the last time, the
moon flashed, but it was already falling into pieces, and then all went dark…
and under the grid a round-shaped dark object was thrown… it was the cut-off
head of Berlioz.”
Thus came true Woland’s “prediction,” and this is what
Bulgakov’s/Woland’s words “The Moon is gone…” mean.
Remember the line in Pontius Pilate, where Bulgakov writes:
“…and the moonlit night retreated into
the garden as if Aphranius had taken it away with him.”
Mind you, this happens after Aphranius’ report on the
killing of Judas, as we well remember…
“Six…
Misfortune…”
The number six ought to remind the reader of Kant’s Sixth Proof of the Existence of God (more
about it later in this segment), what in itself seems to have been a misfortune
for Kant, dispatched to Hell by the devil (Woland), “…and extracting him from there is in no way
possible.”
On the other hand, Berlioz’ misfortune consists in the
fact that Berlioz lost his spat with Woland regarding the Sixth Proof:
“And
no proof is needed here,” says Woland
to Berlioz, because, according to Woland, “Yeshua existed… simply existed, and there is
nothing more to it.”
There is more to Berlioz’s misfortune, of course. It
is his natural inclination for being a snitch. In fact, he gets cut up under
the tram precisely because of his urge to telephone the authorities and to
report about a certain suspicious foreigner. It is also “Annushka the Plague,”
who “already bought the sunflower oil, and spilled it
as well.”
All of these things combined--- things predestined,
but determined by his own free will: to snitch or not to snitch--- lead to the
demise of Berlioz.
“…Evening…
Seven…”
Yes, this is evening, as following Woland’s story of Pontius Pilate, Ivanushka “passed his hand over his face like a man just coming back
into his senses, and saw that it was already evening on Patriarch’s Ponds.”
Number Seven here refers to the seventh proof of
supernatural existence. Saying farewell to Berlioz, Woland says:
“But
I do implore you, before saying farewell, please believe at the very least that
the devil exists! Bear in mind that there is a seventh proof for that, and it
will be presently introduced to you.”
And, as we know, not only does everything happen
exactly the way Woland predicts to Berlioz, but it happens with Berlioz’s full
awareness.---
“Then inside Berlioz’s brain someone desperately shouted: ‘Could it really be so?' The tram covered
Berlioz… The severed head was bouncing over the cobbles.”
To be continued tomorrow.
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