HEMIPTEEA. 103 



Cicada : he saw in it nothing better than a hoarse and disagree- 

 able sound : 



" At mecum raucis, tua dum vestigia lustre, 

 Sole sub ardenti resonant arbusta cicadis," 



says the Latin poet in his " Eclogues/' and repeats the same opinion 

 in a verse in his " Georgics :" 



" Et cantu qnerulso rumpent arbusta cicadee." 



The song of the Cicada, so sharp, so discordant, was, however, 

 the delight of the Greeks. 



Listen to Plato in the first few lines of " Phcedo : " " By Juno," 

 cries the philosopher-poet, "what a charming place for repose! 

 .... It might well be consecrated to some nymphs and to the 

 river Achelous, to judge by these figures and statues. Taste a 

 little the good air one breathes. How charming, how sweet ! 

 One hears as a summer noise, a harmonious murmur accompany- 

 ing the chorus of the Cicada." 



The Greeks then had quite a peculiar taste for the song of the 

 Cicada. They liked to hear its screeching notes, sharp as a point 

 of steel. To enjoy it quite at their ease, they shut them up 

 in open wicker-work cages, pretty much in the same way 

 as children shut up the cricket, so as to hear its joyous cri-cri. 

 They carried their love for this insect with the screaming voice so 

 far as to make it the symbol of music. We see, in drawings emblem- 

 atical of the musical art, a Cicada resting on strings of a cythera. 

 A Grecian legend relates that one day two cythera players, 

 Eunomos and Aristo, contending on this sonorous instrument, 

 one of the strings of the former's cythera having broken, a Cicada 

 settled on it, and sang so well in place of the broken cord, that 

 Eunomos gained the victory, thanks to this unexpected assistant. 

 Anacreon composed an ode in honour of the Cicada. "Happy 

 Cicada, that on the highest branches of the trees, having drank 

 a little dew, singest like a queen ! Thy realm is all thou seest 

 in the fields, all which grows in the forests. Thou art beloved by 

 the labourer ; no one harms thee ; the mortals respect thee as the 

 sweet harbinger^ of summer. Thou art cherished by the muses, 

 cherished by Phoebus himself, who has given thee thy harmonious 

 song. Old age does not oppress thee. good little animal, 

 sprung from the bosom of the earth, loving song, free from sufiPer- 



