Thus speaks my friend, in his expressive Provençal tongue, rehabilitating the Cicada, who has been so grossly libelled by the fabulist.

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TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

I am indebted for the following translation to the felicitous pen of my friend Mr. Osman Edwards:

THE CICADA AND THE ANT

I

Ye gods, what heat! Cicada thrills

With mad delight when fairy rills

Submerge the corn in waves of gold,

When, with bowed back and toil untold,