
The Cricket to the Cicada
Meleager
(Greece, circa 100 B.C.) 
The Cricket to the Cicada 
O resonant cicada, drunk on dewy droplets. 
You sing your rustic song that sounds in lonely places. 
Perched with your saw-like limbs, high up among the leaves 
You shrill forth the lyre's tune with your sun-darkened body. 
But, dear friend, sound forth something new for the woodland nymphs, 
A divertissement, chirping a tune for Pan as the song which you sing in your turn, 
So that I, escaping from Eros, can catch some noon-time sleep 
While reclining there under the shady plane tree.