The Naming of Cats is difficult matter,
It isn't just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I´m as mad as hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES:
First of all, there's the name that the family use daily,
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,
such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey-
all of them sensible everyday names.
They are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter-
But all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular,
A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out this whiskers, or cherisch his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as
Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum-
Names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there's still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover-
BUT THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effenineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.