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Updated: June 3, 2025
Your powers should equal those of Rabelais' Gargantua, who, seated upon the towers of Notre Dame, drowned so many thousands of the inquisitive Parisians. Where I live I can capture five species of Cigale, the two principal species being the common Cigale and the variety which lives on the flowering ash. Both of these are widely distributed and are the only species known to the country folk.
In short, the resonating mechanism, so highly developed in the common Cigale, is here extremely rudimentary. How then is the feeble vibration of the cymbals re-enforced until it becomes intolerable? This species of Cigale is a ventriloquist. If we examine the abdomen by transmitted light, we shall see that the anterior two-thirds of the abdomen are translucent.
The legend of the Cigale and the cold welcome of the Ant is as old as selfishness: as old as the world. The children of Athens, going to school with their baskets of rush-work stuffed with figs and olives, were already repeating the story under their breath, as a lesson to be repeated to the teacher. "In winter," they used to say, "the Ants were putting their damp food to dry in the sun.
You change into something, don't you? What happens to you, petite Cigale?" "When?" "When the sunshine is turned off and the snow comes." "I don't know, Mr. Drene." She broke her chocolate cake into halves and laid one on his knee. "Thanks for further temptation," he said grimly. "You are welcome. It's good, isn't it?" "Excellent. Adam liked the apple, too. But it raised hell with him."
Taking the average between these two dates, we get five weeks as the probable duration of the Cigales' life on earth. Four years of hard labour underground, and a month of feasting in the sun; such is the life of the Cigale. Do not let us again reproach the adult insect with his triumphant delirium.
Even in our days, the Provençal poets, who know the Cigale as Anacreon never did, are scarcely more careful of the truth in celebrating the insect which they have taken for their emblem. A friend of mine, an eager observer and a scrupulous realist, does not deserve this reproach.
Antiquity held the Cigale in high esteem. The Greek Béranger, Anacreon, devoted an ode to her, in which his praise of her is singularly exaggerated. "Thou art almost like unto the Gods," he says. The reasons which he has given for this apotheosis are none of the best.
So much to the good; she can wait for another drink, attained in the same manner, as soon as the occasion presents itself. As we see, reality completely reverses the action described by the fable. The shameless beggar, who does not hesitate at theft, is the Ant; the industrious worker, willingly sharing her goods with the suffering, is the Cigale.
There is abundance of room for all; but each prefers to be alone as her turn arrives. There is, however, no unpleasantness of any kind; everything passes most peacefully. If a female Cigale finds a place which has been already taken she flies away and seeks another twig directly she discovers her mistake.
It is the despairing lamentation of the Cigale surprised in the silence by the grasshopper, that ardent hunter of the night, which leaps upon the Cigale, seizes it by the flank, tears it open, and devours the contents of the stomach. After the orgy of music comes night and assassination.
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