Wednesday, March 12, 2008

DeeDee (Perdita) Cat




Our family wouldn't be complete with out our cat Perdita. Born in  our garage, abandoned by her mother, we found her in our garden, scared, hungry and thirsty. Using some deli meat and water to coax her out of hiding I was finally able to pick her up even while she was hissing at me, fighting to get free. I managed to hold on to her long enough to hand feed her more of the deli meat and she settled down. I think I became her adopted mother because she follows me every where I go. The older she gets the more affectionate she becomes.

We named after the fictional female character Perdita from Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale who was the daughter of the King of Sicilia and abandoned by her parents. There are several pronouciations: PURRditta, (we've have pronounced) PerDEETa, and PERDETA being the feminine past participle of the Latin verb perdere (perdo, perdere, perdidi, perditum)meaning to lose, ruin, destroy, raze to the ground, and lost lady. There are people today who have this as their real name. I found some of this information at A page of Perditas.

There are several online text of Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale. In original play script, or from Beautiful Stores from Shakespeare by E. Nesbit at The Baldwin Project. Another version by Charles Lamb and his Tales From Shakespeare.

Here's a beautiful rose named "Perdita". Get a view of a wonderful, antique engraving published circa 1860 of Shakespeare's Perdita.







She'll be eight years old in May and loves to sleep upstairs in one of the girl's room where it's warmer. She's in Daisy's room here:


and here underneath a cozy quilt:



and in Orangeblossom's room sooo relaxed:



One of my drawings of her:

1 comment:

  1. What a sweet rendition of your pretty Perdita, Deb :) I've spent most of my life with cats, and after three years of being without, we just recently adopted another. She's still getting used to life in a busy household with a big, barky dog -- but she is starting to explore more. I posted about her most recent perch in my last blog post -- don't know if you saw it in your perusing. I would like to try my had at drawing her one of these days. I think you did a great job!

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