At base, 'tis a tale of woe (or a hard moral tale, for the formican fellow travelers) about an improvident orthopteran who, having spent the summer singing and frolicking, faced the ominous winter's advance empty-handed (empty-tarsused?). Beseeching the industrious ants for a portion of the stores they put by for winter, the grasshopper is rebuffed and left to starve in the cold. The ants, presumably, while away the winter congratulating themselves on their hard work and foresight.
Given the millennia the fable has enjoyed the attention of artists, storytellers, and politicians, the simple story has evolved a variety of morals. At base, it is about preparing for the vagaries of life and being mindful that times of plenty are inevitably followed by times of scarcity. One must prepare for bad times during the good. One must balance work and play, and devote time to each accordingly. Those who don't do so cannot expect to live off the fruits of others' labor.
Alternatively, the grasshopper has taken on the role as a symbol of the arts in some tellings: one whose work is not productive in a traditional sense but no less worthy of a place in our society. In this case, the stingy ants, with their cramped and cruel lives obsessed only with accumulating resources, become the villains. The grasshopper living joyously and for the moment, is not troubled with thoughts of scarcity or the long, dark nights of winter. The pleasure of his song is enjoyed by all, but not valued as it should be. The starving artist, undervalued and underappreciated on the margins of society.
A middle ground declares the ants in the right for their industriousness, but wrong in their uncharitable treatment of the grasshopper. Although L'Estrange seems to come down on Team Ant in his translation, the final comment embraces a merciful outlook:
[W]e have our failings, every mother's child of us, and the improvidence of my neighbour must not make me inhumane. The ant did well to reprove the grasshopper for her slothfulness; but she did ill then to refuse her a charity in her distress.
All this is a rambling preamble for me to say, I think the grasshopper was done dirty in the fable.
You can't hold a grasshopper to an ant's standards. They are different organisms, with different niches and different behaviors to exploit those niches. The grasshopper's life is meant to end with the coming of winter. We don't blame the summer flowers for withering and passing away with the winter winds. That is the end of their life cycle, as it is for the grasshopper.
Grasshoppers generally live independently*, not in a cooperative eusocial colony where each individual is subsumed within the whole. Even if the ants had agreed to share their food, could the grasshopper survive? Does the grasshopper have the physical ability to excavate a burrow or other cavity to protect it from the winter winds and snow? Would it need to rely on the ants not only for sustenance, but shelter as well? Would it even want to suffer through those long months, unable to hop and bask in the warm sun, unable to snap their wings and munch on petals?
And what of the ant's diet? Grasshoppers are herbivores**, eating leaves and flowers though perhaps not terribly choosy about the source. Would a grasshopper be interested in what the ant has stowed away in its larder? Depending on the species, it could be fungus or honeydew, or other insects and their eggs.
I suppose the moral of the story, then, is that we must not expect different organisms to conform to the expectations of others; each has its role to play and its place in the world.
*With some exceptions: swarms of locusts, in biblical lore and throughout history, are grasshoppers whose swarming behavior is triggered by climactic conditions, when they enter a "gregarious phase".
**Again, with some exceptions: a few species may eat flesh or feces, and even those who are regularly herbivorous are not above munching on the occasional insect carcass they stumble upon, for a boost of protein.
No comments:
Post a Comment