The Ant and the Grasshopper
, also known as The Grasshopper and the Ant
or The Grasshopper and the Ants
, is a fable attributed to Aesop, providing a moral lesson about hard work and preparation. In the numbering system established for Aesopic fables by B. E. Perry, it is number 373. [1] The fable has been retold or adapted in a number of modern works.
In its Greek original, as well as in its Latin and Romance translations, the grasshopper is in fact a cicada.
The story has sometimes been cited as an example of a Libertarian society. [2]
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THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER TICKETS
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Synopsis
The fable concerns a
grasshopper who has spent the warm months singing away while the
ant (or ants in some editions) worked to store up food for winter. When winter arrives, the grasshopper finds itself dying of hunger, and upon asking the ant for food is only rebuked for its idleness. The story is used to teach the virtues of hard work and saving, and the perils of improvidence. Some versions of the fable state a moral at the end, along the lines of:
"Idleness brings want"
,
"To work today is to eat tomorrow"
or
"It is best to prepare for the days of necessity"
.
Ancient versions
Versions of the fable are found in the verse collections of
Babrius (140) and
Avianus (34), and in several prose collections including those attributed to
Syntipas and
Apthonius. In a variant prose form of the fable (Perry 112), the lazy animal is a
dung beetle, which finds that the winter rains wash away the dung on which it feeds.
Consider also the
Book of Proverbs 6:6-9, a book of the
Hebrew Bible (the Christian
Old Testament), which admonishes, "Go to the ant, you sluggard! Consider her ways and be wise, which having no captain, overseer or ruler, provides her supplies in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest. How long will you slumber, O sluggard!"
Modern versions
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