Il [a bondi]1 sur l'ombre d'une feuille 
qu'il avait prise pour une souris. 
A peine au sol, il se lèche une patte, 
afin de tromper la feuille 
qui sait peut-être discerner les erreurs.

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Confirmed with Franz Toussaint, La flûte de jade : poésies chinoises, Paris: H. Piazza, 1933, page 75.

¹ Steenhuis: "va bondir"; further changes may exist not shown above.

Text Authorship:

• by Franz Toussaint (1879 - 1955), "Le chat", appears in La flûte de jade, Paris, Éd. H. Piazza [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Based on:

• a text in Chinese (中文) by Tsao Chang Ling (1719 - 1763) [text unavailable]
  • Go to the text page.

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

• by François Steenhuis (1918 - 1956), "Le chat", op. 6 no. 2 (1947), published 1958 [ medium voice and piano or orchestra ], from Trois mélodies, no. 2, Amsterdam, Donemus [sung text not yet checked]

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

• ENG English (Grant Hicks) , "The Cat", copyright © 2026, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this page: Grant Hicks [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2026-05-23
Line count: 5
Word count: 34