Aesop’s Fables

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Fable 4 of 12

The Ant and the Grasshopper

In Townsend’s translation: The Ants and the Grasshopper

On frosty, snow-flecked ground, four ants spread wheat to dry on a cloth while a thin, starving grasshopper, his fiddle and bow lying on the frost, raises his front legs to beg for food.

The Fable

THE ANTS were spending a fine winter’s day drying grain collected in the summertime. A Grasshopper, perishing with famine, passed by and earnestly begged for a little food. The Ants inquired of him, “Why did you not treasure up food during the summer?” He replied, “I had not leisure enough. I passed the days in singing.” They then said in derision: “If you were foolish enough to sing all the summer, you must dance supperless to bed in the winter.”

Before the Frost

A short game on the fable

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