Minor Latin poets; with introductions and English translations

THE FABLES OF AVIANUSXXXIVThe Ant and the Grasshopper[The man that has allowed his youth to go by inidleness and has not taken anxious precautionsagainst the ills of life—that man, foredone with years,will in the presence of burdensome old age often askin vain, alas, for a neighbour's help.]An ant reserved for the ^^•inter the fruits of toilsnatched during sunny hours and stored thembetimes in her tiny hole. But when earth assumedits white robe of hoar frost and fields lay hid beneathunyielding ice, then, quite idle and unfit bodily to facethe rain-storms, she picked out the moistened grainin her own abode. A grasshopper in her varied hues,who before had cleft the fields with plaintive note,amid prayers and supplications begged the ant forfood. For her part, she said, when the threshingfloorwas bruising the ripened harvest, she hadworked out the summer days in song. Then ^vith alaugh the tiny ant thus addressed the grasshopper(for their wont is to prolong their life equally) "" Since my subsistence has been secured by dint ofhardest toil, I draw out long days of ease in themidst of the frost. But you now have your last daysleft for dancing, since your past life was spent insong." ^" i.e. continue their life from year to year, as neither diesin the -winter.* The ant's ironic gibe is that, as the grasshopper has beenan inveterate singer, she can conclude her days in dancingwith her song as an accompaniment.735