fire Salisbury plain with his blazing torch; but the Arcadian bears, (she-bears probably, like Elisha's terrible allies), the "serpentes of Lybany," dragons, lions, leopards, and those formidable
"mantycors of the montaynes,"
—whatever they may be—are all summoned from the ordinary business of their lives to avenge a sparrow's death upon a cat.
"These vylanous false cattes
Were made for myse and rattes,
And not for byrdes smalle;"
explains Phylyp's mistress between her sobs; but this is precisely the point upon which she and Gyb would naturally take issue. No broad-minded cat recognizes such trivial classifications.
Gilbert, abbreviated to Gyb or Gib, was the common name for a male cat in Skelton's England, just as Thomas or Tom is the common name to-day. On the continent, Tybalt or Tybert—familiar to all readers of "Reineke Fuchs"—became, by the same process of contraction, Tyb or Tib. Mercutio, in "Romeo and Juliet," insults Tybalt on this easy score:—
"Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk?
Tybalt. What wouldst thou have with me?
Mercutio. Good king of cats, nothing but one of your nine lives."
The term gib cat or gil cat came in time to signify an old male, well past the heyday of his prime.
