MYTHS AND CLASSICAL ALLUSIONS. Vll 



long, and at break of clay, pours forth his voice."* 

 These lines, Mr. Martyn says, have been imitated by 

 Virgil in the hexameter : — 



" Et cantii querulae rumpent arbusta Cicacl£e."f 



With reference to the supposed fasting habits of the 

 Cicada, a Greek writer exclaims (speaking to his patron 

 as if he were a parasite), "oy Ei^ai tettiI o^^^e «o%^ia," as if 

 nrging, " I feed neither on dew, nor on grass," which, 

 Dr. Moufat points out, has some affinity with the 

 sentence in Theocritus, "Mji ^rcwxaj o-it/Ieti wWfp tettiI." 



On the ancient Myths and Classical allusions 

 TO the Cicada. 



Some w^onder may be expressed as to why this 

 insect should have called forth so much interest in 

 olden time. How far the ancient Egyptians used the 

 Cicada to typify their religious theories, it is now difficult 

 to say. Moufat says (he does not tell us where) that 

 this insect was pictorially represented in their tombs, 

 but he remarks, "Novi Hieroglyphici eas non-nunquam 

 musicos, non-nunquam garrulos significare frivoli 

 contendunt," which rather crabbed sentence may be 

 rendered: — " Kecent hieroglyphists frivolously say 

 they (the Cicadae) symbolize sometimes musical, some- 

 times garrulous persons." 



In India there would seem to have been some early 

 peculiar Buddhistic idea, connected with purification, 

 involved in the life of a Cicada. Thus, in the Institutes 

 of Menu (the Indian king, who flourished circ. 350 B.C.), 

 in a passage where punishments for certain crimes are 

 awarded by migrations into the bodies of beasts, the 

 stealer of salt is condemned to expiate his crime in 

 the body of a thirsty Cicada. 



The late erudite Dean of Chichester, Dr. Burgon, 

 suggested in conversation that the quasi-sacred character 

 of this insect may be partly due to an observation of 



* Hesiod, ' Shield of Hercules,' p. 393. f ' Georg. III.,' 1. 328. 



