SOURCE: Mary-Agnes Taylor, "The Literary Transformation of a Sluggard," in Children's Literature, Vol. 12, 1984, pp. 92-104.

[In the following essay, Taylor discusses how and why various poets change the moral of the "The Grasshopper and the Ant."]

I cannot claim that I learned to read from Dick and Jane; I can, however, say that I remember quite well the first time that I was able to decipher Baby Ray. I can also remember that our class was not allowed to linger with such innocent reading matter. Rather quickly we moved to more substantial tales such as those found in a collection of Aesop's fables. From the very beginning we were made to understand that the selections were somewhat akin to our Sunday School lessons. But in spite of such exalted status, there was one story which particularly troubled my child mind: how could those miserly ants be so unkind to the grasshopper? Traditionally, from the fifteenth century to the present, adults have supported a utilitarian version of poetic justice: the frugal ant enjoys the fruits of his labor, while the shiftless grasshopper suffers the consequences of his indolence. However, happily for me, a few wise poets in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have transformed the much maligned singer by giving value to his calling.

The first printed offering of the tale for English-speaking children came from William Caxton in 1484. Written in late middle English, the version is not comprehensible to the modern child. There is, however, a faithful adaptation that has been written by John J. McKendry for a publication by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It reads:

A grasshopper in the wintertime went and demanded of the ant some of her corn for to eat. And then the ant said to the grasshopper, "What hast thou done all the summer last past?" And the grasshopper answered, "I have sung." And after said the ant to her, "Of my corn shalt thou none have, and if thou hast sung all summer, dance now in the winter."

The epilogue, printed in red ink, leaves no doubt about the moral:

There is one time for to do some labor and work, and one time for to have rest, for he that worketh not nor does no good shall have oft at his teeth great cold, and lack at his need.¹

The Caxton cadence clearly reflects the rhythms of fifteenth century biblical translations. The initial "And" beginning new sentences; the "hast," the "shalt," and the "thou"; and the reverse word orders all follow those patterns. Furthermore, the epilogue is an obvious paraphrase from the third chapter of Ecclesiastes. Actually, Caxton's strong deprecation of idleness was not limited to his rendition of the fables. Many of the preface sheets of his voluminous output in other translations carried warnings about the evils of sloth. And he lived by his word, accomplishing most of his work with no skilled help. By example, Caxton has a personification of the fabled ant, and he held no truck with idle singers of song.

Although Caxton, by virtue of his early translations, holds a coveted "first" in the history of Western children's literature, he cannot, in a literary context, compete in charm with that seventeenth-century gentleman commonly referred to as Le Fablier—Jean de La Fontaine. In a critical analysis of La Fontaine's fables, Howard Hugo suggests that association of the pieces with children's literature "is more apparent than real," having grown primarily from La Fontaine's dedication of the first several books to the six-year-old son of Louis XIV. The appeal of the fables, he reminds us, goes far beyond the nursery, "perpetuating and renewing the classical tradition" for the whole of mankind. In a manner characteristic of the period of neoclassicism, La Fontaine employs a completely impersonal voice, revealing the fundamental natures of his subjects in a public rather than a private context.² His jocular, but objective, spirit is preserved in Marianne Moore's translation of "The Grass-hopper and the Ant."

Here the fable ends without benefit of epilogue. La Fontaine's fable needs none. His mid-poem voice as third-party commentator has already performed the function of that traditional postscript. Initially, the grasshopper offers the ant a business proposition: she seeks a loan, not charity. But the third-party voice intrudes. "Share one's seeds? Now what is worse / For any ant to do?" La Fontaine's ant—whom he intimately calls "ours"—confirms the attitude behind the word "worse" by maintaining the established role of the self-righteous judge who chastises the singer. The refusal is managed with a chilling clarity of conscience. "Sang, you say? You have put me at ease. / A singer! Excellent. Now dance." The singer of songs remains a minstrel without champion.

Except for the third-party rhetorical question, it is difficult to find evidence that would classify La Fontaine as either ant or grasshopper in his sympathies. He leaves no clues such as those planted by Caxton. Nor is he the naturally clear-cut case of the Oliver Goldsmith and Thomas Bewick team.

Bewick, from the time of his impoverished childhood to the time of a solvent old age, exhibited antlike qualities. On the other hand, Goldsmith lived his entire life as an improvident grasshopper. Some brief biographical glimpses of the two lead to interesting speculation.

During a childhood spent on his father's modest Northumberland farm, Thomas Bewick developed two characteristics that were to shape his future: a love of drawing and a love of nature. His earliest works—mainly portraits of hunters, horses and hounds—adorned the walls of the homes of his rus tic neighbors. Later, during an apprenticeship served from 1767 to 1774 at Newcastle, he received a number of commissions for woodcuts for children's books. Two of these—New Lottery-Book of Birds and Beasts and Moral Instructions of a Father to His Son—were tentative efforts that would become more sophisticated editions variously associated with Goldsmith.

As a young man, Oliver Goldsmith traveled over Europe on foot. In Flanders, Switzerland, and France he often played his flute for bed and board. Early exposure to an Irish schoolmaster, who preferred to teach tales and song rather then mathematics and letters, gave Goldsmith an inexhaustible supply of folklore. But the Italians did not care for Irish mirth, so Goldsmith there found himself at the gates of convents begging alms for food. Later, back in London, he turned to writing as a last resort. After publishing the epic Traveller in 1776, his fortunes, but not his wasteful ways, changed. Bewick became his illustrator for Traveller, and thus the two were brought together for other publications, among which was Bewick's Aesopus, Select Fables of Aesop and Others, for which Goldsmith wrote an introduction that included a biography of Aesop and an essay on the moral and aesthetic values of fable. Although some scholars had already begun to question the actual existence of Aesop, that possibility did not bother Goldsmith. His biography is filled with apocryphal details about Aesop's life and death.

How much of the rest of the text in Select Fables was actually composed by Goldsmith and how much by Bewick is a matter of question. According to the Dictionary of National Biography, both Select Fables and Tommy Trip's History of Beasts and Birds were "traditionally supposed to have been by Goldsmith, but the tradition is incapable of proof."⁴ The DNB does state, however, that Select Fables grew from the earlier Moral Instructions of a Father to His Son, and likewise that Tommy Trip's History was a reworking of New-Lottery Birds and Beasts. Some thirty years later, Bewick would again attempt yet another set of fables. If one compares the text of Bewick's third attempt—Fables of Aesop (1818)—with Select Fables (1784), enough differences emerge to lend credence to the belief that Goldsmith did indeed compose the melodramatic rhymes in Select Fables.

Modern editors have eschewed the Bewick fables and denounced them as some of the worst that ever were written for children. Not satisfied with the traditional epilogue to the fable of the grasshopper and the ant, Bewick, in his Select Fables, added a prologue that creates a ponderous overkill:

O now, while health and vigour still remain.
Toil, toil, my lads, to purchase honest gain!
Shun idleness! shun pleasure's tempting snare!
A youth of revels breeds an age of care.

The fable itself is handled in a traditional way, in neoclassical verse balancing terms and values. Like Caxton, in the epilogue the author borrows from the Bible; but instead of choosing from Ecclesiastes, he chooses from Proverbs (6:6) to support his advice that

Action and industry is the business of a wise and a good man, and nothing is so much to be despised as slothfulness. Go to the Ant, thou sluggard, says the Royal Preacher, consider her ways and be wise;which in a few words sums up the moral of this fable.⁵

Although the moral in Fables of Aesop (1818) remains the same as that in Select Fables (1784), both the format and the style of writing are changed radically. The prologue is omitted, and the fable is recorded in a cumbersome single paragraph of only four sentences, which wind ponderously through a verbal maze. The opening scene depicts a "commonwealth of Ants" gathered in their "comfortable mansion" as they are approached by a lone grasshopper. One ant becomes spokesman for the group. Thus, in this particular version, the grasshopper suffers censure not only from an individual ant, but from a whole community of ants to expand the disapproval of the manner in which he has spent the summer.

Instead of an epilogue, Bewick attached an "Application" in this later edition, in which the prose remains as stilted as that in the fable. The appendage is fully as long as the primary text. In an extended metaphor, Bewick equates summer with youth and winter with old age. He began Fables after a long illness during his mid-sixties, a circumstance that no doubt contributed to the heavy tone. He preaches that youth and manhood are the times when one must lay "in such a stock as may suffice for helpless old age," but, he warns, there are many

rational creatures, who squander away in a profuse prodigality, whatever they get in their younger days, as if the infirmity of age would require no supplies to support it, or at least would find themselves administered to in some miraculous way.

The second sentence—there are only two—restates the "admirable lesson" learned from the fable. The last part of this sentence I find of particular interest:

for it should always be remembered, that "a youth of revels breeds an age of care," and that temperence in youth lays the foundation of health and comfort for old age.⁶

A question comes to mind. Why has "a youth of revels breeds an age of care" been placed in quotation marks? Certainly it is true that Bewick constantly borrowed from his own earlier works, and that many of his books for children represent a sequence of reworked materials. In light of this practice, it seems unlikely that he would, in an isolated case, put quotes around a phrase taken from an earlier work if that work had been his. The evidence is faint, but it does lend support to the belief that the rhymed verses in Select Fables are indeed the work of Goldsmith, and that Bewick, being the thoroughly honest man that he was, acknowledges it as such.

Caxton, La Fontaine, Bewick and Goldsmith are but a few of the many writers who have presented the grasshopper as a worthless character, but there have been some others who were not willing to vilify the long-legged singer. Somewhat parallel scenarios have been created by John Keats and John Ciardi. James Joyce has written an ironic adult parable that condemns the ant, while Leo Lionni, without chastising ants, has recast the grasshopper as a child reader's hero.

Keats's sonnet, titled "On the Grasshopper and Cricket," does not actually mention the ant, but habitual pairing admits allusion to the ant as a foil. Keats opens with the pronouncement that "The poetry of earth is never dead." This generalization is particularized in the octave through the observation that even when "all the birds are faint with the hot sun," a voice will be heard: it is the voice of the grasshopper. The sestet restates the opening line of the octave and then explains how the song is perpetuated:

The grasshopper's voice may be silenced by winter, but not song itself, for "from the stove there shrills / The Cricket's song" to effect a continuity, which is emphasized by the use of present tense and absolutes in the lines "The poetry of earth is never dead" and "The poetry of earth is ceasing never." Keats's respect for the singer contrasts sharply with that of Bewick's; and, in keeping with romantic sensibilities, it is his grasshopper-poet, not a pragmatist-ant, who reigns supreme regardless of season.

Ciardi, in a much longer verse, takes us full round literally to meet the grasshopper again next spring. He titles his rhymed melodrama John J. Plenty and Fiddler Dan. John J. was an ant workaholic. The summer birds sang as he packed his larder tighter and tighter. But a great sadness befell him—his beloved sister eloped with a grasshopper named Fiddler Dan. So magnetic were the fiddler's tunes that

… all summer stirred to hear
The voice of the music. Far and near
The grasses swayed, and the sun and shade
Danced to the love and music played.

Dan played on for the world to turn,
While his little wife lay on a fringe of fern.

John J. missed none of this. But he did pause long enough to warn that when winter came, the lovers could expect no help from him. Ciardi's winter, like that described by Keats, "wrought a silence" which assured John J. that the lovers were dead. He became so paranoid about the sufficiency of his larder that he ate only sparingly. Weakened by the self-imposed fast, he emerged in the spring. So surprised was he to hear the familiar sounds of Dan's fiddle that he fell on his face in the mud. Ciardi says he does not know where the fiddler and his wife hid during the winter. But he does "really know," just as Keats did, that you can

… Say what you like as you trudge along,
The world won't turn without a song.
And—Fiddlers grow thin and their hands turn blue
When winter comes, but they pull through.
There's this about music—and, oh, it's true!—
It never stays stopped⁸

Both Ciardi and Keats write in relatively simple, positive vein to affirm the eternal worth of the grasshopper, but James Joyce attacks the entire theme of the fable itself through a highly complex and satirical parable. His ploy is imbedded in Finnegans Wake as Shaun tells his brother Shem the "feeble" of the "Ondt" and the "Gracehoper." Whereas these three puns reveal the gist of the parable, they can in no way do justice to the depth and the sweep of the multiple puns and foreign-language references which are detailed in William Tindall's A Reader's Guide to Finnegans Wake. Tindall quotes his own earlier work on Joyce, noting that "the pun is mightier than the word."⁹

Feeble, we can see at once, attacks the total weakness of the parent fable's argument. Ondt is a Danish word meaning evil and thus doubly casts the original character. Gracehoper is likewise cast, being simultaneously the original sluggard and the poet in whom we observe grace and take hope. Shaun is the Ondt—the economically—and sexually powerful man of the world. Shem is the Gracehoper——the poet who, according to Shaun, is the offensive and ineffectual one. As Shaun relates the fable to his brother, instructing him in the worldly successes of the Ondt, it appears on the literal level that Joyce is praising the Ondt. But the whole tale is an extended example of the Irishman's superb verbal irony, for Joyce is unmistakably a grasshopper. He has the Gracehoper sing a mock apology to the Ondt for having offended him:

I pick up your reproof, the horsegift of a friend,
For the prize of your save is the price of my spend.

…..

Your feats end enormous, your volumes immense,
(May the Graces I hoped for sing your Ondship sense!)
Your genus its worldwide, your spacest sublime!
But Holy Salmartin, why can't you beat time!¹⁰

The Ondt responds in an epilogue which follows the apology. To pious folks his commentary may seem sacrilegeous because their eyes read, "In the name of the former and of the latter and of their holocaust. Allmen," while their ears hear, "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."¹¹

A possible objection in all of the fables discussed so far is that either the ant or the grasshopper is drawn as totally anti-heroic. One is rejected at the expense of the other. Their fixed incompatibility is synthesized by Joyce's Gracehoper: "The prize of your save is the price of my spend." Leo Lionni, however, in Frederick manages to present the two types in a harmonious way without belittling either. To do so, he resorts to a fundamental technique used by fablers of old. Just as they presented their humans in a disguised form—usually in feathers or fur—he takes Aesop's traditionally paired insects and recasts them as a family of mice.

From the beginning a warm tone is set: "Not far from the barn and in the granary, a chatty family of field mice had their home." "Chatty," "family," and "home" suggest compatibility—a pleasant bond. But the situation is not without conflict. The farmer had moved away, the granary was empty, and winter was approaching. The wise mice began to gather supplies. "They all worked day and night. All except Frederick." The story has scarcely begun, but the grasshopper syndrome is already apparent. The four working siblings asked Frederick why he did not work. Frederick replied, "I do work…. I gather sun rays for the cold winter days." Again they questioned his inactivity. He responded that he was gathering colors because winter was gray. A third time they reproached him more sternly. "Are you dreaming, Frederick?" His denial came quickly. "Oh no, I am gathering words." Lionni has set us up for the compleat artist, one who later starts his magic through the recall of sunlight and painted flowers. However, the other mice clamored for more than pictures; they wanted words. To accommodate them Frederick climbed up on a huge stone, a stage high above the others, and affecting a timid voice from the mount he asked,

Who scatters snowflakes: Who melts the ice?
Who spoils the weather? Who makes it nice?
Who grows the four-leaf clovers in June?
Who dims the daylight? Who lights the moon?

Four little field mice who live in the sky.
Four little field mice … like you and I.

One is the Springmouse who turns on the showers.
Then comes the Summer who paints the flowers.
The Fallmouse is next with walnuts and wheat.
And Winter is last with little cold feet.

Aren't we lucky the seasons are four?
Think of a year with one less … or one more!

When he finished, the others responded in gleeful surprise, "But Frederick, … you are a poet!" The vindicated bard "blushed, took a bow, and said shyly, 'I know it."¹²

In closing, one more epilogue is offered to make two points—one in the context of metaphor, and the other in a context of morality. Through early exposure to the Aesop collection, all of us have come to know some dog in the manger, some wolf in sheep's clothing, some joker who cries wolf. We know the loser who pleads sour grapes, and we know that it is almost impossible to find a brave soul to bell the cat. But we do not label anyone as lazy as a grasshopper, as worthless as a singer of songs. Admittedly, our society has never given poets unanimous support, but a few philosophers have always hailed them as the real seers of truth. To continue to cast the poets as worthless grasshoppers is to give credence to a misconception. Even though Keats, Ciardi, Joyce, and Lionni may all have been indulging in self-defense, they have at the same time defended the grasshopper, changing him from sluggard to bard. And in this time of poetry revival for children, I say unto you, "Go thou and do likewise."

Notes

¹Aesop, Five Centuries of Illustrated Fables, selected by John J. McKendry (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1964), p. 14.

² Howard E. Hugo, introduction to "Masterpieces of Neoclassicism," World Masterpieces, 3rd ed. (New York: Norton, 1973), 2, 9.

³ From The Fables of La Fontaine, trans. Marianne Moore, copyright 1954 by Marianne Moore, copyright renewed 1982 by Lawrence E. Brinn and Louise Crane; reprinted by permission of Viking Penguin Inc.

⁴Dictionary of National Biography, s.v. "Goldsmith, Oliver."

⁵ Thomas Bewick, Treasury of Aesop's Fables illustrated by Thomas Bewick Together with the Life of Aesop, by Oliver Goldsmith (New York: Avenel Books, Crown, 1973), pp. 56-57; rpt. from part 3 of Aesopus, Select Fables of Aesop and Others (Newcastle: J. Saint, 1784), commonly referred to as Select Fables.

⁶ Thomas Bewick, Fables of Aesop, ed. Michael Marqusee (New York: Paddington Press, 1975), pp. 307-08.

⁷ John Keats, Selected Poems and Letters, ed. Douglas Bush (New York: Houghton Mifflin, Riverside Edition, 1959), p. 19.

⁸ John Ciardi, John J. Plenty and Fiddler Dan (New York: Lippincott, 1963), unpaged.

⁹ William York Tindall, A Reader's Guide to Finnegans Wake (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1969), p. 7.

¹⁰ James Joyce, Finnegans Wake (1939; rpt. New York: Viking Compass, 1959), pp. 418-19.

¹¹ Ibid., p. 419.

¹² Leo Lionni, Frederick (New York: Pantheon, 1967), unpaged.