Page:Insect Literature by Lafcadio Hearn.djvu/300

Rh We might compare this with the beautiful address of Anacreon to the cicada, written twenty-four hundred years ago: on more than one point the Greek poet and the Chinese sage are in perfect accord:—

"We deem thee happy, O Cicada, because, having drunk, like a king, only a little dew, thou dost chirrup on the tops of trees. For all things whatsoever that thou seest in the fields are thine, and whatsoever that seasons bring forth. Yet art thou the friend of the tillers of the land,—from no one harmfully taking aught. By mortals thou art held in honor as the pleasant harbinger of summer; and the Muses love thee. Phoebus himself loves thee, and has given thee a shrill song. And old age does not consume thee. O thou gifted one,—earth-born, song-loving, free from pain, having flesh without blood,—thou art nearly equal to the Gods!"

And we must certainly go back to the old Greek literature in order to find a poetry comparable to that of the Japanese on the subject of musical insects. Perhaps of Greek verses on the cricket, the most beautiful are the lines of Meleager: "O cricket, the 註