Perry 373: Ant and Grasshopper

Today's fable is Perry 373, the story of how the ant worked all summer storing up food for winter, while the grasshopper (or cricket or cicada) had nothing to eat when winter came. I guess I should have been more like the ant, storing up blog posts for when the beginning of the semester arrives... but I had too much fun playing ping pong this summer, ha ha! Anyway, at del.icio.us, you can see a complete list of the versions of this fable type that I have collected.

For a Latin version of the fable by the medieval scholar Vincent of Beauvais:

Formica hieme frumentum ex caverna trahens siccabat quod aestate colligens coagulaverat. Cicada autem eam rogabat, esuriens, ut daret aliquid illi de cibo, ut viveret. Cui Formica: Quid faciebas (inquit) in aestate? At illa: Non mihi vacabat: per saepes oberrabam cantando. Formica igitur, ridens et frumentum includens, ait: Si aestate cantasti, hieme salta!

Here it is written out in segmented style to make it easier to follow, while respecting the Latin word order:

Formica
hieme
frumentum
ex caverna trahens
siccabat
quod
aestate
colligens coagulaverat.
Cicada autem
eam rogabat,
esuriens,
ut daret aliquid illi
de cibo,
ut viveret.
Cui Formica:
Quid faciebas
(inquit)
in aestate?
At illa:
Non mihi vacabat:
per saepes oberrabam
cantando.
Formica igitur,
ridens
et frumentum includens,
ait:
Si aestate cantasti,
hieme salta!

I've created a slideshow of images for this story. You can visit the album, or view a full-screen version of the slideshow. Here is a small version of the slideshow; to hide the captions, just click on the caption icon in the lower left-hand corner.

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