'Bears couple in the beginning of winter, and not after the fashion of
other quadrupeds; for both animals lie down and embrace each other. The
female then retires by herself to a separate den, and there brings
forth on the thirtieth day, mostly five young ones. When first born,
they are shapeless masses of white flesh, a little larger than mice; their claws alone being prominent.
The mother then licks them gradually
into proper shape.'
- Pliny the Elder, The Natural History, 8. 54
I.
Because cats have psychic ablities, they know when we are feeling out of sorts and will sometimes seek to comfort their human companions. Thus it is that my cat has recently taken to not just sitting or lying on me and touching my nose with hers, but incorporating me into her grooming cycle.
Sensing that I'm physically and mentally at a low ebb after more than 2,300 days of caring for my mother without a break or any assistance, I feel she is literally attempting to lick me back into shape and not merely demonstrating her affection or attempting to strengthen the bond between us.
II.
Interestingly, this idiomatic expression arose from the endearing belief held in medieval Europe that bear cubs were born as formless lumps of flesh and had to be licked by their mothers into their kyndely ursine shape.
Whilst such an idea can be traced back to the writings of the great Roman author Pliny the Elder (who cheerfully discussed it as fact in his Naturalis historia), the first mention of this belief in English is in The Pylgremage of the Sowle, a
15th-century (part prose) translation of the 14th-century French verse composition Le Pèlerinage de
l’Âme, by Guillaume de Deguileville.
In this text, the narrator asks his guardian angel why a devout woman is licking a deformed pilgrim. The angel replies that, just like baby bears, human beings - thanks to original sin - are also born imperfect and
so need to be licked into shape by the tongue of one who knows the Word of God; otherwise they remain, as the French say, ours mal léché.
But I think I'd rather that - i.e., rather retain something of the Old Adam with all his flaws and failings - than be licked into moral perfection - and submission - by a virtuous woman.
