1
00:00:03,080 --> 00:00:07,120
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

2
00:00:12,680 --> 00:00:14,440
Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My

3
00:00:14,560 --> 00:00:15,840
Speaker 2: name is Robert Lamb.

4
00:00:15,760 --> 00:00:18,280
Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with the

5
00:00:18,320 --> 00:00:22,160
Speaker 3: fourth and final part in our series on cicadas. Now,

6
00:00:22,160 --> 00:00:24,159
Speaker 3: if you haven't heard the first three parts yet, you

7
00:00:24,239 --> 00:00:26,239
Speaker 3: might want to go check those out first. That's where

8
00:00:26,239 --> 00:00:30,280
Speaker 3: we talk a good bit more about the biology of cicadas.

9
00:00:30,280 --> 00:00:33,040
Speaker 3: We've sort of had a special focus on the periodical

10
00:00:33,080 --> 00:00:36,360
Speaker 3: cicadas of North America because of a big exciting co

11
00:00:36,560 --> 00:00:39,839
Speaker 3: emergence we had this year in the eastern United States,

12
00:00:39,880 --> 00:00:43,600
Speaker 3: but we've been talking generally about the biology of the cicadas.

13
00:00:43,640 --> 00:00:47,600
Speaker 3: In the last episode, we had a really exciting digression

14
00:00:47,640 --> 00:00:51,400
Speaker 3: about a fungal parasite that sort of fills up the

15
00:00:51,400 --> 00:00:54,360
Speaker 3: abdomens of the cicadas and turns them into turns them

16
00:00:54,360 --> 00:00:58,720
Speaker 3: into a parmesan cheese dispenser. But today we are back

17
00:00:58,760 --> 00:01:02,400
Speaker 3: to talk about some more ideas of cicadas in culture

18
00:01:02,480 --> 00:01:03,360
Speaker 3: and in literature.

19
00:01:04,040 --> 00:01:06,280
Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah, As is often the case with our

20
00:01:06,560 --> 00:01:08,880
Speaker 2: part fours or even Part fives, this is kind of

21
00:01:08,920 --> 00:01:12,039
Speaker 2: like what's left. What did we not get to or

22
00:01:12,120 --> 00:01:15,040
Speaker 2: what new and weird ideas came up in our research.

23
00:01:15,200 --> 00:01:19,560
Speaker 2: So I guess before we get going too much here,

24
00:01:19,600 --> 00:01:21,880
Speaker 2: I do want to just touch based on two things

25
00:01:21,920 --> 00:01:23,600
Speaker 2: that I thought I was going to talk about more

26
00:01:23,920 --> 00:01:27,480
Speaker 2: but ended up largely ignoring. Or we're looking into a

27
00:01:27,520 --> 00:01:29,840
Speaker 2: little bit and deciding, well, there's maybe not as much

28
00:01:29,840 --> 00:01:33,120
Speaker 2: that I wanted to get into there. But I do

29
00:01:33,240 --> 00:01:37,360
Speaker 2: want to point out that there are some interesting accounts

30
00:01:37,400 --> 00:01:43,600
Speaker 2: of North American periodical cicadas from the sixteen hundreds at Plymouth.

31
00:01:44,080 --> 00:01:46,520
Speaker 2: This is something that was brought up in the latest

32
00:01:46,520 --> 00:01:50,080
Speaker 2: book from cicada expert Gen Kritzky, the twenty twenty four

33
00:01:50,120 --> 00:01:54,800
Speaker 2: Emergence of the Periodical Cicada, And I just found this

34
00:01:55,240 --> 00:01:56,640
Speaker 2: fun quotes, so I'm going to read it. This is

35
00:01:56,680 --> 00:02:00,400
Speaker 2: from William Bradford, the second governor of Plymouth Colony. This

36
00:02:00,640 --> 00:02:05,760
Speaker 2: in his History of Plymouth Plantation, so something like sixteen

37
00:02:05,800 --> 00:02:09,239
Speaker 2: twenty through sixteen forty seven quote and the spring before,

38
00:02:09,360 --> 00:02:11,480
Speaker 2: especially all the month of May, there was such a

39
00:02:11,760 --> 00:02:15,480
Speaker 2: quantity of a great sort of flies, like for bigness

40
00:02:15,600 --> 00:02:18,800
Speaker 2: to wasps or bumblebees, which came out of holes in

41
00:02:18,840 --> 00:02:21,680
Speaker 2: the ground and replenished all the woods and ate the

42
00:02:21,720 --> 00:02:25,200
Speaker 2: green things and made such a constant yelling noise as

43
00:02:25,320 --> 00:02:28,000
Speaker 2: made all the woods ring of them and ready to

44
00:02:28,120 --> 00:02:31,320
Speaker 2: death the hearers. They have not, by the English, been

45
00:02:31,400 --> 00:02:36,000
Speaker 2: heard or seen before or since. Okay, so I don't know.

46
00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:38,320
Speaker 2: I just kind of like the idea of these these

47
00:02:38,320 --> 00:02:41,919
Speaker 2: guys trying to make sense of these wasp or bumble

48
00:02:42,040 --> 00:02:46,480
Speaker 2: bee like creatures that made this racket, and you know,

49
00:02:46,520 --> 00:02:49,520
Speaker 2: it just seemed to sort of come out of nowhere

50
00:02:49,800 --> 00:02:52,840
Speaker 2: without previous or latter records regarding them.

51
00:02:53,160 --> 00:02:56,360
Speaker 3: Now, this came up actually in the most recent Listener

52
00:02:56,400 --> 00:02:59,760
Speaker 3: Male episode, or actually maybe in two Listener Male episodes ago.

53
00:03:00,600 --> 00:03:02,640
Speaker 3: But I do want to clarify that there are in

54
00:03:02,680 --> 00:03:05,920
Speaker 3: fact cicadas in Europe. It's not that there are no

55
00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:08,480
Speaker 3: cicadas in Europe, but they are all annual species. I

56
00:03:08,480 --> 00:03:11,760
Speaker 3: do not believe there are any periodical cicadas in Europe.

57
00:03:11,919 --> 00:03:15,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, periodical cicadas are a North American phenomena, but we

58
00:03:15,680 --> 00:03:19,520
Speaker 2: do have these rich tradition traditions regarding annual cicadas elsewhere

59
00:03:19,560 --> 00:03:20,079
Speaker 2: in the world.

60
00:03:20,400 --> 00:03:22,720
Speaker 3: I believe there are. Actually I was looking at research

61
00:03:22,760 --> 00:03:26,160
Speaker 3: there might be a couple of other possible periodical cicadas

62
00:03:26,200 --> 00:03:28,760
Speaker 3: elsewhere in the world, but they have different periods than

63
00:03:28,760 --> 00:03:29,720
Speaker 3: the thirteen or seventeen.

64
00:03:29,760 --> 00:03:32,239
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there's one that Kritsky brings up in

65
00:03:32,280 --> 00:03:35,240
Speaker 2: this latest book that's being looked at. I go back

66
00:03:35,240 --> 00:03:38,680
Speaker 2: to that episode, but I mentioned it in passing at least. Yeah,

67
00:03:38,800 --> 00:03:42,680
Speaker 2: but again, there are annuals all over the place, and

68
00:03:42,720 --> 00:03:47,480
Speaker 2: therefore there are traditions of eating annual cicadas in cultures

69
00:03:47,520 --> 00:03:50,320
Speaker 2: around the world. This was another area I thought I

70
00:03:50,360 --> 00:03:54,080
Speaker 2: was going to dive into more. But suffice to say, yeah,

71
00:03:54,080 --> 00:03:57,320
Speaker 2: they've long been considered by humans, and you'll find them

72
00:03:57,680 --> 00:04:00,720
Speaker 2: on menus traditionally around the world. But also it looks

73
00:04:00,760 --> 00:04:03,320
Speaker 2: like a lot of the more adventurous restaurants in the

74
00:04:03,360 --> 00:04:07,240
Speaker 2: world have been capitalizing on cicicada fever. I was reading

75
00:04:07,280 --> 00:04:11,080
Speaker 2: an article that came out on the website for Smithsonian

76
00:04:11,200 --> 00:04:15,800
Speaker 2: last month by Aaron Borstein titled from Dinner Parties to Restaurants,

77
00:04:15,840 --> 00:04:19,039
Speaker 2: Cicadas are landing in the kitchen. He points out that, yeah,

78
00:04:19,080 --> 00:04:22,640
Speaker 2: they can be prepared numerous ways, often fried, and they're

79
00:04:22,640 --> 00:04:26,120
Speaker 2: generally held to have a shrimpy, nutty taste. I've read

80
00:04:26,160 --> 00:04:28,920
Speaker 2: elsewhere that fresh cicadas have kind of a buttery flavor.

81
00:04:29,680 --> 00:04:33,000
Speaker 2: I can't really speak to this myself, as I've never

82
00:04:33,600 --> 00:04:36,159
Speaker 2: consumed circadas. I have not had the opportunity to do.

83
00:04:36,200 --> 00:04:38,120
Speaker 2: But if the opportunity came up and with somebody who

84
00:04:38,160 --> 00:04:41,000
Speaker 2: knew what they were doing, yeah, I guess I would

85
00:04:41,040 --> 00:04:41,680
Speaker 2: try it. Why not.

86
00:04:42,360 --> 00:04:45,920
Speaker 3: I'm not surprised that that fried is a common option

87
00:04:46,040 --> 00:04:48,640
Speaker 3: for people who don't already have cicadas as a major

88
00:04:48,720 --> 00:04:51,520
Speaker 3: part of their diet, because it just seems like, you know,

89
00:04:51,600 --> 00:04:54,880
Speaker 3: you deep fry anything, and it makes it more more acceptable,

90
00:04:55,000 --> 00:04:59,000
Speaker 3: you know, like that's like the easy way to introduce

91
00:04:59,000 --> 00:05:01,240
Speaker 3: a new food stuff, and then maybe later you could

92
00:05:01,240 --> 00:05:03,760
Speaker 3: try try different preparation methods.

93
00:05:03,760 --> 00:05:07,960
Speaker 2: Now deep frying. Aside, they are apparently not only a

94
00:05:08,000 --> 00:05:11,480
Speaker 2: safe food but also pretty healthy. They're supposedly full of

95
00:05:11,640 --> 00:05:16,560
Speaker 2: any oxidants, full of protein essential amino acids. So yeah,

96
00:05:16,600 --> 00:05:20,440
Speaker 2: I mean these this article in the Smithsonian, you know,

97
00:05:20,520 --> 00:05:22,719
Speaker 2: makes it sound like, yeah, if cicadas are on the menu,

98
00:05:23,160 --> 00:05:25,599
Speaker 2: give them a try, why not? And then you know,

99
00:05:25,640 --> 00:05:27,200
Speaker 2: around the world there are going to be these different

100
00:05:27,200 --> 00:05:29,960
Speaker 2: traditions for exactly how you cook them up and or

101
00:05:30,080 --> 00:05:34,440
Speaker 2: what exact seasoning, dipping, exhausces, et cetera might be utilized

102
00:05:34,720 --> 00:05:37,800
Speaker 2: alongside the cicadas. So again, if anyone out there has

103
00:05:37,839 --> 00:05:40,400
Speaker 2: personal experience with this, either you know, some sort of

104
00:05:40,440 --> 00:05:44,000
Speaker 2: like a modern culinary experience, or some sort of like

105
00:05:44,040 --> 00:05:47,200
Speaker 2: you know, traditional cicada preparation, write in. We would love

106
00:05:47,240 --> 00:05:50,680
Speaker 2: to hear from you. All right now, we've already spoken

107
00:05:50,839 --> 00:05:55,160
Speaker 2: a bit about cicadas and mythologies, cicadas and philosophy, and

108
00:05:55,360 --> 00:05:57,920
Speaker 2: I have another fun example here of cicadas as a

109
00:05:57,920 --> 00:06:00,719
Speaker 2: as a teacher or a model for human and behavior.

110
00:06:02,040 --> 00:06:04,440
Speaker 2: I looked at several sources on this, but one of

111
00:06:04,480 --> 00:06:07,000
Speaker 2: the first ones I came across was an article this

112
00:06:07,160 --> 00:06:09,760
Speaker 2: posted on the website of Smithsonian National Museum of Asian

113
00:06:09,880 --> 00:06:13,640
Speaker 2: Art by Jan Stuart back in twenty sixteen. And Stuart

114
00:06:13,640 --> 00:06:16,080
Speaker 2: points out that you'll often find the symbol of the

115
00:06:16,120 --> 00:06:20,719
Speaker 2: golden cicada on the headgear of rulers and nobles in

116
00:06:20,800 --> 00:06:27,600
Speaker 2: Chinese antiquity, and here they would signify modesty, refinement, and awareness.

117
00:06:28,640 --> 00:06:31,359
Speaker 2: And I think that awareness is in part due to,

118
00:06:31,400 --> 00:06:34,400
Speaker 2: of course, the prominent eyes on the cicada, which are

119
00:06:34,440 --> 00:06:37,359
Speaker 2: featured in the artifact Joe. I've included an image of

120
00:06:37,360 --> 00:06:41,240
Speaker 2: one of these cicada plaques and numerous examples of these

121
00:06:41,240 --> 00:06:44,160
Speaker 2: have been found from this time period in China. This

122
00:06:44,880 --> 00:06:47,599
Speaker 2: is like golden bronze, I believe. But you can see

123
00:06:47,640 --> 00:06:49,360
Speaker 2: the cicada motif there in the center.

124
00:06:49,680 --> 00:06:53,040
Speaker 3: Absolutely. Yeah. So we see a big emphasis on the eyes.

125
00:06:53,080 --> 00:06:56,280
Speaker 3: They're rendered as huge. You see a kind of a

126
00:06:56,320 --> 00:06:59,560
Speaker 3: shortened version of the body with these kind of round

127
00:06:59,600 --> 00:07:03,480
Speaker 3: oval wings. And then are these bent lines up above

128
00:07:03,520 --> 00:07:05,280
Speaker 3: the head? Are those supposed to be legs?

129
00:07:05,800 --> 00:07:06,279
Speaker 2: I believe?

130
00:07:06,320 --> 00:07:09,840
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, it's a very elegant design. It's also ornate,

131
00:07:10,000 --> 00:07:11,760
Speaker 3: like it's busy. There's a lot going on.

132
00:07:12,720 --> 00:07:14,920
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now this would be from I believe the third

133
00:07:14,960 --> 00:07:19,720
Speaker 2: to fourth century, and Stuart points out that this is

134
00:07:19,920 --> 00:07:21,840
Speaker 2: a lot of this is based on the idea that

135
00:07:21,880 --> 00:07:24,800
Speaker 2: the cicada was understood to live high in the trees,

136
00:07:25,320 --> 00:07:28,360
Speaker 2: privy to great views and a lofty existence where it

137
00:07:28,440 --> 00:07:32,160
Speaker 2: was thought to subsist entirely upon the dew. So it's

138
00:07:32,200 --> 00:07:35,200
Speaker 2: a it's a creature of vision, a creature of pure diet.

139
00:07:35,880 --> 00:07:37,480
Speaker 2: You know, it's it's not eating a bunch of junk,

140
00:07:37,480 --> 00:07:40,760
Speaker 2: it's just eating the dew itself, right, or that's the belief.

141
00:07:41,200 --> 00:07:44,080
Speaker 2: And again lofty, and it has this great view of

142
00:07:44,120 --> 00:07:48,000
Speaker 2: everything around it. It's very aware of its surroundings. And

143
00:07:48,080 --> 00:07:50,440
Speaker 2: to a certain extent this is true, not that the

144
00:07:50,520 --> 00:07:53,680
Speaker 2: dow part per se, but the part about cicadas having

145
00:07:53,760 --> 00:07:54,800
Speaker 2: excellent vision.

146
00:07:55,680 --> 00:07:58,360
Speaker 3: So having a liquid diet. I mean it might not

147
00:07:58,440 --> 00:08:00,680
Speaker 3: be do but the you know, the ones under the

148
00:08:00,720 --> 00:08:03,680
Speaker 3: ground they feed off of the rude xylum, and then

149
00:08:03,760 --> 00:08:05,800
Speaker 3: the ones above ground they still just feed off of

150
00:08:05,840 --> 00:08:08,360
Speaker 3: the plant juices from inside the stems.

151
00:08:08,480 --> 00:08:11,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's a certain amount of I think accurate

152
00:08:11,320 --> 00:08:16,360
Speaker 2: observation wrapped up in this idea. And you see this

153
00:08:16,680 --> 00:08:20,720
Speaker 2: referenced in various forms, but one that I that I

154
00:08:20,800 --> 00:08:22,600
Speaker 2: ran across that I thought was really needed is this

155
00:08:23,040 --> 00:08:26,280
Speaker 2: poem Owed to a Cicada. This is by Kauji, who

156
00:08:26,320 --> 00:08:29,920
Speaker 2: lived one two through two thirty two. This was a

157
00:08:29,960 --> 00:08:35,360
Speaker 2: poet and calligrapher. And there's an extended part of this

158
00:08:35,440 --> 00:08:37,959
Speaker 2: poem there about the cicadas. I'm just going to read

159
00:08:37,960 --> 00:08:40,800
Speaker 2: a part of it. The cicada's nobility is hidden in

160
00:08:40,840 --> 00:08:44,720
Speaker 2: the darkest shadows, under the dazzling sunlight of midsummer. It

161
00:08:44,840 --> 00:08:49,720
Speaker 2: roams the fragrant forest, not seeking prestige and having few desires,

162
00:08:49,880 --> 00:08:54,360
Speaker 2: humming with contentment alone. Its calls, ring out, piercing, lingering,

163
00:08:54,800 --> 00:08:58,720
Speaker 2: like the unwavering hearts of virtuous men, benevolent and kind.

164
00:08:58,840 --> 00:09:02,080
Speaker 2: It does not eat, asking nothing of other creatures. It

165
00:09:02,160 --> 00:09:05,600
Speaker 2: purchases high above all and looks down, only drinking the

166
00:09:05,640 --> 00:09:09,600
Speaker 2: freshest dew. Hidden among dense mulberry leaves and sheltered from

167
00:09:09,679 --> 00:09:11,640
Speaker 2: the heat, it sings with joy.

168
00:09:12,200 --> 00:09:14,760
Speaker 3: Now there are some differences, but it's interesting what this

169
00:09:14,840 --> 00:09:18,360
Speaker 3: has in common with the vision of cicadas propounded by

170
00:09:18,400 --> 00:09:21,080
Speaker 3: Socrates and the Platonic dialogue that we talked about in

171
00:09:21,080 --> 00:09:24,040
Speaker 3: the last episode, the idea that they do not eat,

172
00:09:24,480 --> 00:09:29,240
Speaker 3: they only sing, and portraying them as kind of an

173
00:09:29,280 --> 00:09:32,840
Speaker 3: ally of the heavens or as like a holy creature

174
00:09:32,880 --> 00:09:34,640
Speaker 3: in a way.

175
00:09:34,080 --> 00:09:38,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think it does. But I also have

176
00:09:38,200 --> 00:09:40,040
Speaker 2: to note that this poem ends up taking kind of

177
00:09:40,040 --> 00:09:41,880
Speaker 2: a I don't know if it's a darker turn, but

178
00:09:42,720 --> 00:09:45,800
Speaker 2: it ends up going in an interesting direction because in

179
00:09:45,920 --> 00:09:49,600
Speaker 2: full it stresses that, first of all, rulers of the

180
00:09:49,640 --> 00:09:52,600
Speaker 2: world should strive to be like the cicada. Again, these

181
00:09:52,600 --> 00:09:55,680
Speaker 2: are noble virtues, but the poem also stresses that the

182
00:09:55,720 --> 00:09:58,880
Speaker 2: cicada is a creature with many enemies, and it has

183
00:09:58,880 --> 00:10:03,160
Speaker 2: a very fixed time upon the summer Earth, with lines

184
00:10:03,280 --> 00:10:06,400
Speaker 2: like to escape all these dangers and avoid capture, it

185
00:10:06,520 --> 00:10:10,400
Speaker 2: flees to the Grand Palace, and that as it perceives

186
00:10:10,440 --> 00:10:13,160
Speaker 2: its many threats and tries to escape them, quote, it

187
00:10:13,280 --> 00:10:17,920
Speaker 2: succeeds only in tightening its bonds and thus foresees its end.

188
00:10:18,320 --> 00:10:20,560
Speaker 3: So it's that kind of nobility that you see in

189
00:10:20,600 --> 00:10:23,319
Speaker 3: some characters in art. That's a kind of a nobility

190
00:10:23,320 --> 00:10:25,920
Speaker 3: in its fragility. It's a doomed nobility.

191
00:10:26,520 --> 00:10:30,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's worth noting that kylege Hear himself was

192
00:10:30,200 --> 00:10:33,200
Speaker 2: apparently something of a political prisoner. He was ostracized from

193
00:10:33,240 --> 00:10:37,199
Speaker 2: political power, so you know, perhaps he's he's channeling. It's

194
00:10:37,200 --> 00:10:40,760
Speaker 2: my understanding, he's channeling a certain amount of that understanding

195
00:10:40,960 --> 00:10:46,800
Speaker 2: of power and politics and life here now. Stuart also

196
00:10:46,920 --> 00:10:51,440
Speaker 2: outlines that the Cicada was heavily associated with resurrection as well.

197
00:10:52,000 --> 00:10:55,800
Speaker 2: And these ideas go back pretty long ways, and I

198
00:10:55,800 --> 00:10:58,760
Speaker 2: think it makes sense given the life cycle. As we've discussed,

199
00:10:59,280 --> 00:11:02,400
Speaker 2: these are creatures that emerge from the earth, you know,

200
00:11:02,520 --> 00:11:06,280
Speaker 2: shed in their dark earth and skins, and then they

201
00:11:06,880 --> 00:11:10,240
Speaker 2: climb out, they re emerge, They're reborn from their own

202
00:11:11,240 --> 00:11:13,920
Speaker 2: kind of dead flesh and then take to the skies.

203
00:11:14,440 --> 00:11:18,440
Speaker 2: And in Chinese traditions, this was interpreted as a symbolic

204
00:11:18,520 --> 00:11:21,480
Speaker 2: for the transference of the soul after death into a

205
00:11:21,520 --> 00:11:27,480
Speaker 2: more transcendent realm. As such, during the Han dynasty, jade

206
00:11:27,600 --> 00:11:31,720
Speaker 2: amulets in the shape of cicadas were apparently placed on

207
00:11:31,800 --> 00:11:35,160
Speaker 2: the tongues of the deceased, and I included an example

208
00:11:35,160 --> 00:11:36,640
Speaker 2: of one of these for you here, Joe.

209
00:11:37,280 --> 00:11:40,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting how it sort of looks like depictions

210
00:11:40,640 --> 00:11:43,319
Speaker 3: of a tongue, like the wings come together and create

211
00:11:43,360 --> 00:11:46,040
Speaker 3: the folds that is often represented going down the middle

212
00:11:46,080 --> 00:11:46,720
Speaker 3: of a tongue.

213
00:11:47,000 --> 00:11:51,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, the jade is key here as well. Of course,

214
00:11:51,120 --> 00:11:54,360
Speaker 2: it was the most valued of stones through much of

215
00:11:54,440 --> 00:11:58,680
Speaker 2: Chinese history, representing purity and indestructibility, and so it was

216
00:11:58,720 --> 00:12:03,679
Speaker 2: widely used in both decorative and ritual objects. And of

217
00:12:03,679 --> 00:12:06,360
Speaker 2: course I think from like a modern tie in, you know,

218
00:12:06,400 --> 00:12:08,440
Speaker 2: we can't help but think about the moths and the

219
00:12:08,440 --> 00:12:12,400
Speaker 2: silence of the lambs and the death said moths placed

220
00:12:12,400 --> 00:12:14,880
Speaker 2: in the mouth or throat. And then there was also

221
00:12:14,880 --> 00:12:18,959
Speaker 2: a tradition in ancient Egypt for some time where you

222
00:12:19,000 --> 00:12:21,520
Speaker 2: would have a golden tongue amulet placed in the mouth

223
00:12:21,600 --> 00:12:25,600
Speaker 2: of the deceased, supposedly so they could speak when summoned

224
00:12:25,600 --> 00:12:28,920
Speaker 2: before the court of Osiris in the afterlife. But anyway,

225
00:12:28,960 --> 00:12:32,360
Speaker 2: back to Chinese tradition. Stewart also shares a fourth century

226
00:12:32,400 --> 00:12:36,480
Speaker 2: BCE Dallas scholar Jong Za covered this in his writing,

227
00:12:37,800 --> 00:12:41,960
Speaker 2: wrote about the Cicada. And I read his writing on

228
00:12:42,040 --> 00:12:46,160
Speaker 2: this in full and translation elsewhere, and I'm going to

229
00:12:46,160 --> 00:12:49,640
Speaker 2: summarize it here. Basically plays out as follows. So Jongsa

230
00:12:49,960 --> 00:12:52,679
Speaker 2: is walking in the forest when he spots a strange

231
00:12:52,679 --> 00:12:55,679
Speaker 2: bird in the sky. It has large wings, it's kind

232
00:12:55,720 --> 00:12:59,800
Speaker 2: of awkward flying around, it has big eyes. He hasn't

233
00:12:59,800 --> 00:13:03,600
Speaker 2: really seen this kind of bird before, so curious, he

234
00:13:03,679 --> 00:13:06,000
Speaker 2: stalks up to where the bird is perched in a tree,

235
00:13:06,440 --> 00:13:08,640
Speaker 2: and hey, he has his sling shot on him, so

236
00:13:09,120 --> 00:13:11,120
Speaker 2: why not take a shot at the bird? Right? So

237
00:13:11,160 --> 00:13:14,679
Speaker 2: he draws in, you know, I mean, it's like, I

238
00:13:14,720 --> 00:13:17,680
Speaker 2: don't know if he's necessarily, you know, looking to eat

239
00:13:17,679 --> 00:13:20,679
Speaker 2: the bird, or it's about studying the specimen more, but

240
00:13:21,080 --> 00:13:22,880
Speaker 2: you know, at any rate, it's what he does. He

241
00:13:22,920 --> 00:13:25,360
Speaker 2: gets off the sling all right, and the bird doesn't

242
00:13:25,400 --> 00:13:27,240
Speaker 2: seem to notice him, so all the better. This is

243
00:13:27,240 --> 00:13:29,280
Speaker 2: going to be an easy bird to pick off. But

244
00:13:29,480 --> 00:13:33,520
Speaker 2: as he creeps closer, he notices something there in the tree.

245
00:13:34,000 --> 00:13:38,600
Speaker 2: There's a mantis stalking an oblivious cicada about to strike.

246
00:13:39,080 --> 00:13:42,160
Speaker 2: And equally oblivious, the mantis is being stalked by this

247
00:13:42,200 --> 00:13:46,400
Speaker 2: strange bird. And oh yeah, and so he and here,

248
00:13:46,440 --> 00:13:50,679
Speaker 2: of course is our Dalis scholar stalking that bird. And

249
00:13:50,760 --> 00:13:54,800
Speaker 2: so he stops at this point and he lowers his sling.

250
00:13:55,800 --> 00:13:58,720
Speaker 2: He feels that the dow is revealed in this scenario,

251
00:13:59,160 --> 00:14:00,720
Speaker 2: and he leaves the bird alone.

252
00:14:01,280 --> 00:14:03,199
Speaker 3: Oh, I wondered if it was going to end with

253
00:14:03,320 --> 00:14:06,480
Speaker 3: him like looking over his own shoulder, like, what's stalking me?

254
00:14:07,000 --> 00:14:10,360
Speaker 2: Essentially, I mean, that's essentially the thought. And Stuart points

255
00:14:10,360 --> 00:14:12,760
Speaker 2: out that there is a common Chinese saying based on

256
00:14:12,880 --> 00:14:16,880
Speaker 2: this quote. As the mantis catches the cicada, the jay

257
00:14:17,160 --> 00:14:20,440
Speaker 2: is just behind, so you know, it's kind of there's

258
00:14:20,440 --> 00:14:25,080
Speaker 2: always a bigger fish right right, And indeed, look over

259
00:14:25,120 --> 00:14:29,640
Speaker 2: your shoulder before you you take advantage of the oblivious

260
00:14:29,720 --> 00:14:41,960
Speaker 2: nature of the birth. Now cicadas are invoked elsewhere in

261
00:14:42,040 --> 00:14:45,640
Speaker 2: Chinese culture, is pointed out by Hayan Lee, a professor

262
00:14:45,720 --> 00:14:49,320
Speaker 2: of East Asian languages and cultures and of Comparative Literature

263
00:14:49,360 --> 00:14:52,600
Speaker 2: at Stanford University, cited in a twenty twenty one m

264
00:14:52,600 --> 00:14:56,160
Speaker 2: PR article brewed ten is back or brood x is

265
00:14:56,200 --> 00:14:59,680
Speaker 2: back if you'd rather buy Anita Ollaby, and in this

266
00:15:00,000 --> 00:15:03,440
Speaker 2: one point out that in the sixth century military text

267
00:15:03,720 --> 00:15:08,240
Speaker 2: thirty six Stratagems, one of the strategies outlined is shed

268
00:15:08,280 --> 00:15:12,200
Speaker 2: your skin like the Golden Cicada, which entails creating a

269
00:15:12,240 --> 00:15:16,560
Speaker 2: decoy by which to escape from an overwhelming or more

270
00:15:16,560 --> 00:15:20,720
Speaker 2: powerful enemy. So I looked up the translation of the

271
00:15:20,760 --> 00:15:24,000
Speaker 2: text here, and in translation, it says, when you are

272
00:15:24,000 --> 00:15:26,960
Speaker 2: in danger of being defeated and your only chance is

273
00:15:27,000 --> 00:15:30,560
Speaker 2: to escape and regroup, then create an illusion. While the

274
00:15:30,640 --> 00:15:34,440
Speaker 2: enemy's attention is focused on this artifice, secretly remove your men,

275
00:15:34,600 --> 00:15:37,480
Speaker 2: leaving behind only the facade of your presence.

276
00:15:38,000 --> 00:15:39,800
Speaker 3: Ah okay, So maybe if you're hiding down in a

277
00:15:39,800 --> 00:15:42,960
Speaker 3: bunch of earthworks or something, you simulate activity still going

278
00:15:43,000 --> 00:15:46,480
Speaker 3: on there, put up some flags and stuff while you're evacuating.

279
00:15:46,880 --> 00:15:49,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, which you know, this is not really part of

280
00:15:50,480 --> 00:15:53,080
Speaker 2: what's going on with the cicada per se. It's not

281
00:15:53,160 --> 00:15:56,480
Speaker 2: doing this to distract predators. But on the other hand,

282
00:15:56,480 --> 00:15:57,800
Speaker 2: it does kind of match up with I think with

283
00:15:58,280 --> 00:16:01,920
Speaker 2: our experience of cicadas, often is the case where we

284
00:16:02,000 --> 00:16:04,880
Speaker 2: venture outside and we see something, hope, there's something there

285
00:16:04,920 --> 00:16:07,640
Speaker 2: that wasn't there before. It is the cicada's shell. It is,

286
00:16:07,960 --> 00:16:10,680
Speaker 2: but where's the cicada that emerged? It is nowhere to

287
00:16:10,680 --> 00:16:13,760
Speaker 2: be seen. It has moved on. Though you do get

288
00:16:13,800 --> 00:16:17,440
Speaker 2: the rare occurrence too of finding both shell and emergent cicada,

289
00:16:17,760 --> 00:16:20,360
Speaker 2: and that is also magical. But sometimes I can see

290
00:16:20,400 --> 00:16:23,040
Speaker 2: where it might seem as if, oh, I'm looking at

291
00:16:23,040 --> 00:16:26,120
Speaker 2: the wrong thing. I'm looking at the empty shell. The

292
00:16:26,160 --> 00:16:27,680
Speaker 2: tasty cicada has flown off.

293
00:16:28,400 --> 00:16:30,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, it got away from me now.

294
00:16:30,320 --> 00:16:32,640
Speaker 2: I was also looking at traditions of the cicada in

295
00:16:32,720 --> 00:16:38,080
Speaker 2: Japan and this was I found this pretty interesting. There

296
00:16:38,080 --> 00:16:40,920
Speaker 2: are a couple of different ways to refer to cicadas

297
00:16:40,720 --> 00:16:44,440
Speaker 2: in Japanese. There's a there's semi, which I think is

298
00:16:44,960 --> 00:16:48,080
Speaker 2: the main word for cicada. But then there's also this

299
00:16:48,240 --> 00:16:52,440
Speaker 2: name that is like kana kana, and this is on

300
00:16:52,560 --> 00:16:55,240
Speaker 2: a monopa. This is a This is a name that

301
00:16:55,320 --> 00:16:58,200
Speaker 2: is supposed to sound more or less like the sound

302
00:16:58,400 --> 00:17:01,720
Speaker 2: that the the howling, the screeching of the cicadas in

303
00:17:01,760 --> 00:17:07,000
Speaker 2: their tree. And more to the point, I was reading

304
00:17:07,000 --> 00:17:10,439
Speaker 2: about this in several different sources that this sound, the

305
00:17:10,560 --> 00:17:15,320
Speaker 2: sound of the cicadas, is in Japanese traditions often associated

306
00:17:15,840 --> 00:17:22,160
Speaker 2: with melancholy summer vibes, so essentially that summertime sadness, if

307
00:17:22,160 --> 00:17:28,800
Speaker 2: you will, and it's it's referenced, you know, throughout various

308
00:17:28,840 --> 00:17:32,800
Speaker 2: examples of Japanese poetry, but also in contemporary pop culture works.

309
00:17:33,359 --> 00:17:37,000
Speaker 2: They're also associated with this concept of mujo, the passing

310
00:17:37,080 --> 00:17:42,080
Speaker 2: nature of things. And so you see like these overlapping

311
00:17:42,200 --> 00:17:45,440
Speaker 2: ideas referenced in a lot of different Japanese works and

312
00:17:45,520 --> 00:17:46,640
Speaker 2: in a lot of different poems.

313
00:17:47,280 --> 00:17:50,879
Speaker 3: It's so interesting that you get such different associations with

314
00:17:50,960 --> 00:17:56,160
Speaker 3: these creatures. Some are melancholy versus sort of doomed nobility

315
00:17:56,520 --> 00:17:59,840
Speaker 3: versus the kind of care free, summer playful.

316
00:18:00,600 --> 00:18:01,040
Speaker 2: Uh.

317
00:18:01,160 --> 00:18:05,800
Speaker 3: There's there's like such such different feelings about the same phenomenon.

318
00:18:06,440 --> 00:18:08,639
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I I do feel like I get this

319
00:18:08,800 --> 00:18:12,760
Speaker 2: idea of cicadas as the soundtrack of summertime sadness, though,

320
00:18:12,800 --> 00:18:16,000
Speaker 2: you know, because I do associate it with like oppressive

321
00:18:16,080 --> 00:18:19,040
Speaker 2: heat and like a really bright sun. You know, it's

322
00:18:19,080 --> 00:18:21,560
Speaker 2: like everything outside the house is trying to push you

323
00:18:21,720 --> 00:18:24,760
Speaker 2: into the house and maybe make you feel a little

324
00:18:24,800 --> 00:18:29,159
Speaker 2: isolated or you're outside and you have no choice in

325
00:18:29,160 --> 00:18:32,240
Speaker 2: the matter, and it can be just a little bit overwhelming. Uh.

326
00:18:32,280 --> 00:18:34,639
Speaker 2: And then you again compound that with the id like

327
00:18:34,760 --> 00:18:37,240
Speaker 2: the knowledge of what the cicada is doing, that it

328
00:18:37,280 --> 00:18:39,960
Speaker 2: has emerged for this very brief time, and that they're

329
00:18:39,960 --> 00:18:42,320
Speaker 2: all gonna die, but you know they're not gonna they're

330
00:18:42,359 --> 00:18:44,040
Speaker 2: they're not going to be around for the for the

331
00:18:44,080 --> 00:18:44,679
Speaker 2: next summer.

332
00:18:45,440 --> 00:18:47,879
Speaker 3: I guess I don't. It would depend also on like

333
00:18:48,000 --> 00:18:51,399
Speaker 3: what types of activities you do culturally in the summertime.

334
00:18:51,960 --> 00:18:55,320
Speaker 3: I associate summertime sadness with like having to say bye

335
00:18:55,400 --> 00:18:57,200
Speaker 3: to your friends from camp who you're not going to

336
00:18:57,240 --> 00:18:58,280
Speaker 3: see again for a long time.

337
00:18:58,800 --> 00:19:00,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's kind of like that was is.

338
00:19:00,320 --> 00:19:03,440
Speaker 2: You're not going to see thea again. You'll see different ones,

339
00:19:03,520 --> 00:19:06,199
Speaker 2: but you're gonna have to wait a bit. Anyway, I

340
00:19:06,200 --> 00:19:09,840
Speaker 2: wanted to read a couple of examples of Japanese poetry

341
00:19:09,960 --> 00:19:13,399
Speaker 2: concerning cicadas in translation, of course. This first one is

342
00:19:13,400 --> 00:19:18,320
Speaker 2: by Japanese edo poet Matsuo Basho, and it just goes

343
00:19:18,320 --> 00:19:21,439
Speaker 2: as follows, the cry of the cicada gives us no

344
00:19:21,600 --> 00:19:25,359
Speaker 2: sign that presently they will die straight into the point.

345
00:19:25,640 --> 00:19:27,520
Speaker 2: I like it, you know, And again it is one

346
00:19:27,560 --> 00:19:29,240
Speaker 2: of the interesting things about like there, and in a

347
00:19:29,280 --> 00:19:31,639
Speaker 2: way it's inspiring. Right they are living life to the

348
00:19:31,680 --> 00:19:32,800
Speaker 2: absolute fullest.

349
00:19:33,560 --> 00:19:33,880
Speaker 3: They are.

350
00:19:34,359 --> 00:19:37,040
Speaker 2: They are going about it, but they do not have

351
00:19:37,160 --> 00:19:38,280
Speaker 2: lung in which to do it.

352
00:19:38,840 --> 00:19:40,119
Speaker 3: Yolo, as they say.

353
00:19:40,359 --> 00:19:44,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, here's another one. This one is apparently by eighteenth

354
00:19:44,680 --> 00:19:49,399
Speaker 2: century samurai poet Yo Koi Yayu. And this one I

355
00:19:49,440 --> 00:19:52,639
Speaker 2: got off of the website Tofu Gou dot com in

356
00:19:52,680 --> 00:19:56,040
Speaker 2: an article titled the Cicada's Song Japan's Summer Soundtrack from

357
00:19:56,080 --> 00:19:59,359
Speaker 2: twenty fourteen. It contains multiple examples of this sort of thing.

358
00:19:59,400 --> 00:20:01,840
Speaker 2: But I always say, and by this particular example that

359
00:20:01,920 --> 00:20:07,679
Speaker 2: goes as follows. Again, the Japanese word semi is is

360
00:20:07,720 --> 00:20:11,800
Speaker 2: what this means. Cicada methinks that SIMI sits and sings

361
00:20:12,080 --> 00:20:16,000
Speaker 2: by his former body, chanting the funeral service over his

362
00:20:16,080 --> 00:20:21,159
Speaker 2: own dead self. WHOA yeah, which is great because it

363
00:20:21,640 --> 00:20:24,119
Speaker 2: brings to mind, you know, the of course, the emergence,

364
00:20:25,080 --> 00:20:29,840
Speaker 2: the shedding of the old skin, the nearness of its demise,

365
00:20:30,320 --> 00:20:34,080
Speaker 2: but also like the richness of its sound, that you

366
00:20:34,160 --> 00:20:37,199
Speaker 2: could associate with various emotions and in this case, like

367
00:20:37,400 --> 00:20:40,520
Speaker 2: think of it as kind of a funeral dirge. Yeah,

368
00:20:40,720 --> 00:20:43,160
Speaker 2: I like this one. And there are other examples too,

369
00:20:43,240 --> 00:20:45,880
Speaker 2: particularly in this article, you know, where it's like there's

370
00:20:45,960 --> 00:20:49,640
Speaker 2: it's not so much a contemplation of the cicada's sorrow

371
00:20:49,920 --> 00:20:53,360
Speaker 2: or you know, it's forthcoming demise, but using it as

372
00:20:53,359 --> 00:20:57,840
Speaker 2: a metaphor using it alongside considerations of more you know,

373
00:20:57,960 --> 00:21:01,119
Speaker 2: human centric feelings of say, heart break and so forth.

374
00:21:01,480 --> 00:21:03,359
Speaker 3: Oh well, that connects to something I'm going to get

375
00:21:03,400 --> 00:21:05,120
Speaker 3: into in a few minutes here, because there are more

376
00:21:05,760 --> 00:21:09,160
Speaker 3: tragic use of the cicada as an image of tragedy

377
00:21:09,200 --> 00:21:09,600
Speaker 3: to come.

378
00:21:10,240 --> 00:21:12,879
Speaker 2: All right, Well, I'd love to hear other examples of

379
00:21:13,280 --> 00:21:17,359
Speaker 2: Japanese literature and you know, in cinnamon and pop culture

380
00:21:17,400 --> 00:21:19,720
Speaker 2: that invoked the cicada. I think I'm going to be

381
00:21:19,840 --> 00:21:23,560
Speaker 2: extra alert for it now, engaging with Japanese cinema and

382
00:21:23,640 --> 00:21:27,879
Speaker 2: so forth. Another idea I ran across. And first of all,

383
00:21:27,880 --> 00:21:30,399
Speaker 2: I should point out that that Japanese traditions also inherit

384
00:21:30,440 --> 00:21:33,399
Speaker 2: some various Chinese ideas about cicadas. You know, some of

385
00:21:33,400 --> 00:21:36,560
Speaker 2: these various virtues that we already talked about including the

386
00:21:36,600 --> 00:21:41,280
Speaker 2: idea that not only is the cicada virtuous because you

387
00:21:41,320 --> 00:21:43,080
Speaker 2: know it can see far, and it's up in the

388
00:21:43,080 --> 00:21:48,200
Speaker 2: trees and it drinks dew, but also it emerges at

389
00:21:48,200 --> 00:21:51,720
Speaker 2: fixed and regular times, so it is faithful. You know,

390
00:21:51,760 --> 00:21:55,480
Speaker 2: it is sincere. You know, other people in your life

391
00:21:55,480 --> 00:21:57,440
Speaker 2: are the things in your life. There may be uncertainty

392
00:21:57,440 --> 00:21:59,600
Speaker 2: to them, but you can count on the cicadas. They

393
00:21:59,640 --> 00:22:00,440
Speaker 2: always come.

394
00:22:01,240 --> 00:22:03,960
Speaker 3: Well said, well, are you ready to get into some

395
00:22:04,040 --> 00:22:05,040
Speaker 3: other cicada stuff?

396
00:22:05,280 --> 00:22:05,840
Speaker 2: Let's do it.

397
00:22:06,320 --> 00:22:10,919
Speaker 3: So in the previous episode, I mentioned an ancient Greek

398
00:22:11,119 --> 00:22:15,280
Speaker 3: story about the mythological origins of cicadas, which is told

399
00:22:15,359 --> 00:22:19,679
Speaker 3: by Socrates in the Platonic dialogue known as the fe Dress.

400
00:22:20,080 --> 00:22:24,280
Speaker 3: And according to that story, cicadas were once humans like us,

401
00:22:24,320 --> 00:22:27,760
Speaker 3: but they lived at a time before the muses had

402
00:22:27,800 --> 00:22:31,600
Speaker 3: introduced song and music to the world. And the story

403
00:22:31,640 --> 00:22:35,800
Speaker 3: goes once these people encountered music, they were so enraptured

404
00:22:35,840 --> 00:22:38,920
Speaker 3: by it that they spent every moment of their lives

405
00:22:39,080 --> 00:22:42,199
Speaker 3: singing and listening to music, and not even stopping to

406
00:22:42,240 --> 00:22:46,040
Speaker 3: eat or drink until they finally sang themselves to death.

407
00:22:46,680 --> 00:22:49,280
Speaker 3: But the muses took pity on them and allowed them

408
00:22:49,320 --> 00:22:54,000
Speaker 3: to be reincarnated as cicadas, who would still, according to

409
00:22:54,040 --> 00:22:57,440
Speaker 3: the understanding of some ancient Greeks, go on singing their

410
00:22:57,600 --> 00:23:01,600
Speaker 3: entire lives and never stop to eat or drink. And

411
00:23:01,880 --> 00:23:04,919
Speaker 3: Socrates also says in the story that cicadas are the

412
00:23:05,040 --> 00:23:08,280
Speaker 3: earthly informers for the muses, so they kind of spy

413
00:23:08,400 --> 00:23:11,320
Speaker 3: on us and report back whether we're doing things that

414
00:23:11,359 --> 00:23:14,600
Speaker 3: honor the muses or not. So that was an interesting view.

415
00:23:14,640 --> 00:23:17,080
Speaker 3: But this, it turns out, is not the only famous

416
00:23:17,119 --> 00:23:20,480
Speaker 3: story about cicadas tracing back to ancient Greek and other

417
00:23:20,560 --> 00:23:25,320
Speaker 3: classical sources. So I collected a couple of examples in

418
00:23:25,400 --> 00:23:29,000
Speaker 3: a reference text called the Book of Greek and Roman

419
00:23:29,080 --> 00:23:32,439
Speaker 3: Folk Tales, Legends and Myths. This is edited by the

420
00:23:32,600 --> 00:23:37,960
Speaker 3: classicist William Hansen from Princeton University Press, twenty seventeen. And

421
00:23:38,440 --> 00:23:40,560
Speaker 3: this led me to a couple of great examples. The

422
00:23:40,600 --> 00:23:44,280
Speaker 3: first one I want to mention is the story of

423
00:23:44,520 --> 00:23:49,800
Speaker 3: the great singer UniMas and the Cicada, as told by

424
00:23:49,800 --> 00:23:54,719
Speaker 3: the ancient Greek author Strebo, who lived from about sixty

425
00:23:54,720 --> 00:23:58,080
Speaker 3: four BCE to twenty four CE in the Roman Empire.

426
00:23:58,320 --> 00:24:02,080
Speaker 3: And this was in Strebo's book geography, as you might

427
00:24:02,119 --> 00:24:05,280
Speaker 3: guess from its inclusion in a book about geography. This

428
00:24:05,400 --> 00:24:08,960
Speaker 3: story comes in the context of Strabo talking about some

429
00:24:09,280 --> 00:24:13,399
Speaker 3: natural features of the land and landmarks. Specifically, he's talking

430
00:24:13,400 --> 00:24:18,120
Speaker 3: about a river called Halix, which he says separates two

431
00:24:18,520 --> 00:24:23,160
Speaker 3: lands called Region and Locris, and he says it exits

432
00:24:23,160 --> 00:24:26,240
Speaker 3: through a deep ravine, and then Strebo says, there is

433
00:24:26,280 --> 00:24:29,960
Speaker 3: an odd thing about the cicadas here on the two

434
00:24:30,080 --> 00:24:33,840
Speaker 3: sides of the river Halix. The ones on one bank

435
00:24:33,880 --> 00:24:36,960
Speaker 3: of the river make a song. They sing like any

436
00:24:36,960 --> 00:24:41,120
Speaker 3: other cicadas, but the cicadas on the opposite bank are silent.

437
00:24:41,920 --> 00:24:44,480
Speaker 3: And he says that people have guessed that the reason

438
00:24:44,520 --> 00:24:48,200
Speaker 3: for this is that the Locrian bank, where the cicadas

439
00:24:48,240 --> 00:24:52,160
Speaker 3: are loud, is dry and sun baked, so the cicadas

440
00:24:52,160 --> 00:24:55,119
Speaker 3: there have dry membranes that they can rattle with ease,

441
00:24:55,600 --> 00:24:58,399
Speaker 3: whereas on the other bank, the other bank is in

442
00:24:58,440 --> 00:25:00,679
Speaker 3: the shade. And I'm not sure if he means the

443
00:25:00,720 --> 00:25:04,280
Speaker 3: shade of the ravine or if it's more shaded by foliage,

444
00:25:04,520 --> 00:25:06,959
Speaker 3: but the other side is shady, and he says because

445
00:25:07,000 --> 00:25:10,119
Speaker 3: it's in the shade, people believe that quote. The cicadas

446
00:25:10,160 --> 00:25:14,800
Speaker 3: are moist with dew and cannot expand their membranes hated

447
00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:18,280
Speaker 3: when that happens, And so I got really curious, is

448
00:25:18,680 --> 00:25:22,600
Speaker 3: what Strabo's talking about here? Based on reality? I looked

449
00:25:22,640 --> 00:25:25,359
Speaker 3: around to see if I could find any entomologists in

450
00:25:25,400 --> 00:25:29,080
Speaker 3: the present day offering informed commentary on this observation, but

451
00:25:29,119 --> 00:25:32,439
Speaker 3: I couldn't really find anything solid. The closest I found

452
00:25:32,760 --> 00:25:36,520
Speaker 3: to a direct reference was a twentieth century Strabo translator

453
00:25:36,920 --> 00:25:40,280
Speaker 3: talking about how he could attest personally that the cicadas

454
00:25:40,359 --> 00:25:42,879
Speaker 3: of southern Italy, where I believe this is supposed to

455
00:25:42,920 --> 00:25:46,400
Speaker 3: take place, are unusual. But that's not all that helpful,

456
00:25:47,160 --> 00:25:49,000
Speaker 3: So I went to see what I could piece together

457
00:25:49,080 --> 00:25:52,240
Speaker 3: on my own. So my big question, a big way

458
00:25:52,280 --> 00:25:55,280
Speaker 3: to check the plausibility of this claim, is to ask,

459
00:25:55,600 --> 00:25:59,960
Speaker 3: are there actually today any known examples of a specie

460
00:26:00,320 --> 00:26:04,480
Speaker 3: or a population within a species of totally silent cicadas

461
00:26:04,640 --> 00:26:07,920
Speaker 3: like the ones from the region side of the river. Now,

462
00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:11,440
Speaker 3: if you ask the question, are there any like actually

463
00:26:11,560 --> 00:26:16,080
Speaker 3: truly completely silent cicadas? I could not find any examples

464
00:26:16,200 --> 00:26:21,680
Speaker 3: of that. But while most cicadas have males that emit

465
00:26:21,760 --> 00:26:25,520
Speaker 3: these loud, obvious mating signals, there are in fact a

466
00:26:25,560 --> 00:26:30,399
Speaker 3: few species that are sometimes referred to as mute cicadas, which,

467
00:26:30,680 --> 00:26:34,159
Speaker 3: while not actually mute, to make a sound that is

468
00:26:34,359 --> 00:26:37,480
Speaker 3: not at all similar to the songs produced by the

469
00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:41,920
Speaker 3: timbal organs in most male cicadas. So here I'm going

470
00:26:42,000 --> 00:26:45,919
Speaker 3: to refer to a paper by chanching Low, Songwei and

471
00:26:46,080 --> 00:26:50,399
Speaker 3: Christian Nonsen, and it's called how do Mute Cicadas Produce

472
00:26:50,440 --> 00:26:53,480
Speaker 3: their calling Songs? This was published in Plus one in

473
00:26:53,560 --> 00:26:58,360
Speaker 3: twenty fifteen, and again the researchers here were Christian Nonsen

474
00:26:58,560 --> 00:27:03,000
Speaker 3: and entomologist affiliate with UC Davis, and Chuan ching Low

475
00:27:03,119 --> 00:27:07,959
Speaker 3: and Songwei from the Northwest anf University in China. And

476
00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:12,120
Speaker 3: this paper focuses on a genus of cicadas known as Corenia,

477
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:17,359
Speaker 3: containing five species found in China, Vietnam and Burma. And

478
00:27:17,480 --> 00:27:20,359
Speaker 3: it turns out that species within this genus are not

479
00:27:20,640 --> 00:27:24,480
Speaker 3: able to make sounds with a timble mechanism. Remember from

480
00:27:24,560 --> 00:27:26,399
Speaker 3: part one of our series here we talked about the

481
00:27:27,119 --> 00:27:30,280
Speaker 3: timble organ. The timble is an organ that is used

482
00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:33,640
Speaker 3: by most male cicadas to make sounds, and the timbles

483
00:27:33,640 --> 00:27:37,600
Speaker 3: are rigid corrugated membranes on the sides of the abdomen

484
00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:40,760
Speaker 3: that are connected to an internal muscle, and the internal

485
00:27:40,840 --> 00:27:45,879
Speaker 3: muscle flexes and relaxes rapidly to collapse the membrane and

486
00:27:45,880 --> 00:27:47,919
Speaker 3: then allow it to kind of snap back into place.

487
00:27:48,240 --> 00:27:51,439
Speaker 3: And this rapid collapsing and snapping back sort of the

488
00:27:51,480 --> 00:27:55,520
Speaker 3: buckling and snapping, produces the whirr and the drone that

489
00:27:55,560 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 3: we associate with cicadas. But Krenia cicadas do not have

490
00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:05,040
Speaker 3: functional timbal organs, which is why they are called mute cicadas. However,

491
00:28:05,200 --> 00:28:09,400
Speaker 3: they are not completely mute. They do make sounds, and

492
00:28:09,480 --> 00:28:14,720
Speaker 3: this paper investigates how Now in the introduction to this paper,

493
00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:18,440
Speaker 3: there's a really interesting fact that the authors discuss as

494
00:28:18,480 --> 00:28:21,480
Speaker 3: to the backstory of this investigation. I just want to

495
00:28:21,480 --> 00:28:26,200
Speaker 3: read from their introduction quote. Recently, Way at All reported

496
00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:31,480
Speaker 3: sound production in Corenia chauma and discovered that this species

497
00:28:31,600 --> 00:28:36,080
Speaker 3: exhibited an atypical behavior, i e. The male adults can

498
00:28:36,160 --> 00:28:40,640
Speaker 3: be easily attracted to sounds produced by clapping of hands,

499
00:28:41,160 --> 00:28:48,720
Speaker 3: knocking of bamboo sticks, breaking of twigs, and chopping of wood. Weird. Okay,

500
00:28:48,800 --> 00:28:50,960
Speaker 3: so you might be chopping on a log, you might

501
00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:53,880
Speaker 3: be clapping, you might be knocking some bamboo together and

502
00:28:54,360 --> 00:28:57,600
Speaker 3: suddenly the cicadas come running. They like this. It attracts

503
00:28:57,600 --> 00:29:02,160
Speaker 3: them very odd So anyway, they say that sound production

504
00:29:02,320 --> 00:29:06,400
Speaker 3: in this genus had not been deeply investigated until this paper.

505
00:29:07,240 --> 00:29:12,360
Speaker 3: So the authors here studied the species Carrenia keela tata

506
00:29:12,440 --> 00:29:15,960
Speaker 3: to discover that they do make a to my ears

507
00:29:16,040 --> 00:29:20,720
Speaker 3: rather inconspicuous sound. It's a clicking sound that they make

508
00:29:20,760 --> 00:29:24,800
Speaker 3: by knocking two parts of their outer bodies together. So

509
00:29:24,880 --> 00:29:28,800
Speaker 3: this is not an example of stridulation, which a lot

510
00:29:28,840 --> 00:29:32,080
Speaker 3: of insects use. Stridulation again, is rubbing parts of the

511
00:29:32,080 --> 00:29:35,280
Speaker 3: body together, often one part that's kind of ridged like

512
00:29:35,320 --> 00:29:38,040
Speaker 3: a comb, and another part that's just sort of a

513
00:29:38,040 --> 00:29:40,840
Speaker 3: flat scraper thing that scrapes the teeth of the comb.

514
00:29:41,440 --> 00:29:44,000
Speaker 3: This is called a file and scraper system. They do

515
00:29:44,120 --> 00:29:47,560
Speaker 3: not use stridulation like that. Instead, what they produce is

516
00:29:47,560 --> 00:29:51,080
Speaker 3: an impact sound, more like a drum beat, which they

517
00:29:51,120 --> 00:29:54,360
Speaker 3: make by banging the leading edge of the fore wing,

518
00:29:54,480 --> 00:29:57,840
Speaker 3: which is known as the costa, against a hard plate

519
00:29:58,040 --> 00:30:02,480
Speaker 3: on the outside of the body, known as as an operculum.

520
00:30:02,520 --> 00:30:06,040
Speaker 3: So they're drumming on their own outer shells with their wings,

521
00:30:06,920 --> 00:30:10,280
Speaker 3: and this sound is indeed audible to human ears. But Robi,

522
00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:12,560
Speaker 3: I let you listen to a sample of it before

523
00:30:12,600 --> 00:30:14,920
Speaker 3: we recorded here, and I was listening to it myself,

524
00:30:15,360 --> 00:30:18,320
Speaker 3: and I think if I were walking through a forest

525
00:30:18,440 --> 00:30:21,760
Speaker 3: and I heard this sound, I might well not even

526
00:30:21,800 --> 00:30:24,760
Speaker 3: attribute it to an insect. And if I did attribute

527
00:30:24,760 --> 00:30:27,760
Speaker 3: it to an insect, I might not likely think of

528
00:30:27,800 --> 00:30:31,160
Speaker 3: it as a cicada sound. It's sort of a clicking

529
00:30:31,360 --> 00:30:34,520
Speaker 3: or a snapping that could be anything in the environment.

530
00:30:34,600 --> 00:30:37,840
Speaker 3: Breaking of a twig, could be wood creaking in the wind.

531
00:30:37,960 --> 00:30:40,600
Speaker 3: It could be a pebble falling. It just doesn't seem

532
00:30:40,640 --> 00:30:42,680
Speaker 3: to me like it would really stand out in a

533
00:30:42,760 --> 00:30:43,760
Speaker 3: riverside grove.

534
00:30:44,320 --> 00:30:47,080
Speaker 2: Yeah. I agree, it doesn't quite register to me as

535
00:30:47,200 --> 00:30:51,280
Speaker 2: it instantly as being an insect noise or even another

536
00:30:51,400 --> 00:30:55,520
Speaker 2: animal sound. So yeah, it's interesting. I could see where

537
00:30:55,560 --> 00:30:59,040
Speaker 2: you might even have sort of maybe supernatural interpretations of

538
00:30:59,080 --> 00:31:01,280
Speaker 2: the noise at first, like, well, you know, what is that?

539
00:31:01,800 --> 00:31:04,400
Speaker 2: What is that? Are Is there some sort of drumming

540
00:31:04,440 --> 00:31:06,920
Speaker 2: going on amid the invisible folk? I don't know?

541
00:31:07,280 --> 00:31:10,600
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, anyway, So given this, I was wondering, is

542
00:31:10,640 --> 00:31:13,840
Speaker 3: it possible that Strabo's story here has a basis in

543
00:31:13,960 --> 00:31:16,880
Speaker 3: fact that the cicadas on the two sides of the

544
00:31:16,960 --> 00:31:19,480
Speaker 3: river are different. Maybe on the Lockers side they're loud,

545
00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:23,080
Speaker 3: they sound like cicada's normally sound. But what if there

546
00:31:23,120 --> 00:31:26,040
Speaker 3: were cicadas on the region side of the river Helix

547
00:31:26,720 --> 00:31:30,320
Speaker 3: that were known to be silent, not because they were

548
00:31:30,480 --> 00:31:33,600
Speaker 3: actually silent, but because they didn't make the sounds we

549
00:31:33,720 --> 00:31:37,440
Speaker 3: associate with cicadas. What if they were clicking or something

550
00:31:37,560 --> 00:31:40,360
Speaker 3: like that. Now, I want to be clear, this is

551
00:31:40,400 --> 00:31:43,200
Speaker 3: pure speculation on my part because I look to see

552
00:31:43,600 --> 00:31:47,000
Speaker 3: again if entomologists had commented to this effect about this

553
00:31:47,200 --> 00:31:50,400
Speaker 3: historical passage, and I didn't come across anything. So I

554
00:31:50,400 --> 00:31:52,320
Speaker 3: don't know, But I at least do know that there

555
00:31:52,360 --> 00:31:55,720
Speaker 3: are some species of cicadas that don't make the worrying

556
00:31:55,800 --> 00:31:58,400
Speaker 3: sound we think of. They make some other kind of sound,

557
00:31:58,520 --> 00:32:02,800
Speaker 3: like a sort of incanspicuous click. And the Krenia cicadas

558
00:32:02,800 --> 00:32:06,880
Speaker 3: are not the only ones. Now, remember, if there were

559
00:32:07,280 --> 00:32:11,240
Speaker 3: so called mute cicadas in this region in the ancient Mediterranean,

560
00:32:11,280 --> 00:32:13,959
Speaker 3: that seems unlikely they would have been the Karnia genus

561
00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:17,280
Speaker 3: because that genus is native to East and Southeast Asia.

562
00:32:17,840 --> 00:32:20,680
Speaker 3: But there are other so called mute cicadas. I was

563
00:32:20,760 --> 00:32:23,520
Speaker 3: looking for examples of them. The plus one paper mentions

564
00:32:23,600 --> 00:32:29,320
Speaker 3: four other genera of cicadas that contain species without timbal organs.

565
00:32:29,640 --> 00:32:37,440
Speaker 3: It mentions Platypedia, neo, Platypedia maroboduus, and Lemmo tialna. And

566
00:32:37,520 --> 00:32:39,480
Speaker 3: so I was looking these genera up, it seems like

567
00:32:39,560 --> 00:32:41,760
Speaker 3: most of the ones where I could get information about

568
00:32:41,760 --> 00:32:44,160
Speaker 3: where they were located, more of them were centered around

569
00:32:44,200 --> 00:32:48,600
Speaker 3: North America, but some more more global species. So nothing solid.

570
00:32:48,640 --> 00:32:51,360
Speaker 3: But there are a number of cicada species known to be,

571
00:32:51,520 --> 00:32:55,920
Speaker 3: if not mute, at least incapable of typical cicada timbal sounds,

572
00:32:56,520 --> 00:32:59,800
Speaker 3: and this could be mistaken for muteness. So I wonder

573
00:32:59,840 --> 00:33:03,080
Speaker 3: if if such a species were found on the region

574
00:33:03,200 --> 00:33:05,440
Speaker 3: side of the river, and if they were mistaken by

575
00:33:05,440 --> 00:33:07,520
Speaker 3: the ancients for silent insects.

576
00:33:08,160 --> 00:33:13,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, this sounds entirely plausible to me that you could

577
00:33:13,080 --> 00:33:16,080
Speaker 2: have had some species like this that is not mute,

578
00:33:16,080 --> 00:33:18,440
Speaker 2: but it's either making a sound that we don't associate

579
00:33:18,440 --> 00:33:21,320
Speaker 2: with cicadas or one that is, you know, maybe out

580
00:33:21,320 --> 00:33:25,280
Speaker 2: of register of human hearing. So yeah, absolutely plausible.

581
00:33:25,720 --> 00:33:27,720
Speaker 3: Listeners, if you have anything to add to this, please

582
00:33:27,720 --> 00:33:30,880
Speaker 3: write in. But anyway, I wanted to continue with Strabo's

583
00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:33,600
Speaker 3: account here because so it just starts off with the

584
00:33:33,960 --> 00:33:36,440
Speaker 3: two different kinds of cicadas on the two banks of

585
00:33:36,480 --> 00:33:41,000
Speaker 3: the river, but this leads into Strabo's account of UniMas

586
00:33:41,080 --> 00:33:44,959
Speaker 3: and the cicada. So I'm going to read from Strabo's geography,

587
00:33:45,160 --> 00:33:47,840
Speaker 3: but a couple of things to know for context. In

588
00:33:47,880 --> 00:33:52,640
Speaker 3: this passage, it makes reference to an object called a kithara,

589
00:33:52,880 --> 00:33:56,600
Speaker 3: which was a stringed instrument that people played in ancient Greece.

590
00:33:56,960 --> 00:34:00,680
Speaker 3: The etymological root of the word guitar actually the cathara.

591
00:34:01,520 --> 00:34:05,200
Speaker 3: And it also makes reference to the Pythian Games, which

592
00:34:05,240 --> 00:34:09,080
Speaker 3: were sort of like the Olympics, except they included both

593
00:34:09,200 --> 00:34:13,960
Speaker 3: athletic and artistic competitions. And while the ancient Olympic Games

594
00:34:13,960 --> 00:34:17,400
Speaker 3: were held at Olympia in honor of Zeus, the Pythian

595
00:34:17,480 --> 00:34:20,920
Speaker 3: Games were held at Delphi in honor of Apollo. And

596
00:34:21,040 --> 00:34:23,799
Speaker 3: remember which of the regions had which cicadas. It was

597
00:34:23,880 --> 00:34:27,520
Speaker 3: the cicadas of Locris that would sing and the cicadas

598
00:34:27,560 --> 00:34:31,520
Speaker 3: of region that were silent. So Strebo writes a statue

599
00:34:31,600 --> 00:34:35,480
Speaker 3: of UniMas, the singer and kathara player, with a cicada

600
00:34:35,560 --> 00:34:39,080
Speaker 3: sitting on his cathara used to be displayed in Locris.

601
00:34:39,719 --> 00:34:45,080
Speaker 3: Timaios says that this man, UniMas, and Ariston of Region

602
00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:48,879
Speaker 3: were once competing at the Pythian Games and got into

603
00:34:48,920 --> 00:34:54,120
Speaker 3: a dispute about their respective lots. Ariston beseeched the Delphians

604
00:34:54,160 --> 00:34:57,480
Speaker 3: to support him, seeing as his ancestors had belonged to

605
00:34:57,600 --> 00:35:01,160
Speaker 3: the god and their colony had been dis patched from Delphi,

606
00:35:01,760 --> 00:35:05,560
Speaker 3: but UniMas declared that persons in whose land the cicadas,

607
00:35:05,960 --> 00:35:09,920
Speaker 3: most sweet voiced of animals were mute, had no business

608
00:35:09,960 --> 00:35:14,560
Speaker 3: even participating in a voice competition. Ariston was nonetheless held

609
00:35:14,600 --> 00:35:17,480
Speaker 3: in high regard and hoped for victory, but it was

610
00:35:17,600 --> 00:35:21,319
Speaker 3: UniMas who won and dedicated in his own homeland the

611
00:35:21,360 --> 00:35:25,160
Speaker 3: statue I mentioned. For during the contest, when one of

612
00:35:25,200 --> 00:35:29,400
Speaker 3: his strings broke, a cicada perched on his cathara and

613
00:35:29,480 --> 00:35:31,200
Speaker 3: supplied the missing note.

614
00:35:31,520 --> 00:35:34,920
Speaker 2: Wow again, it is so surprising how we can have

615
00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:39,000
Speaker 2: such totally different cultural interpretations of the cicada. You know,

616
00:35:39,200 --> 00:35:44,480
Speaker 2: is it screeching madness that that maddens the ear? Or

617
00:35:44,640 --> 00:35:47,720
Speaker 2: is it the sweet songs? Is it sent from the gods?

618
00:35:47,800 --> 00:35:50,240
Speaker 2: You know, Yeah, it's wonderful.

619
00:35:50,640 --> 00:35:53,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I will say that this story, I think

620
00:35:54,000 --> 00:35:57,120
Speaker 3: it's open to multiple interpretations, and it has been interpreted

621
00:35:57,160 --> 00:36:00,600
Speaker 3: in different ways over the years. So sort of like

622
00:36:00,640 --> 00:36:04,120
Speaker 3: the origin story told by Socrates, it portrays cicadas as

623
00:36:04,120 --> 00:36:09,640
Speaker 3: fundamentally musical animals, musical beings, but also in this case

624
00:36:09,680 --> 00:36:13,000
Speaker 3: they're kind of they're kind of belligerent, like they intervene

625
00:36:13,040 --> 00:36:16,839
Speaker 3: to take sides in a battle of the bands. And

626
00:36:17,160 --> 00:36:20,200
Speaker 3: it's I think a little hard to discern the intended

627
00:36:20,280 --> 00:36:23,200
Speaker 3: meaning or moral here, assuming there is supposed to be one,

628
00:36:23,800 --> 00:36:26,920
Speaker 3: because on one hand, I would think the snapping of

629
00:36:26,960 --> 00:36:31,080
Speaker 3: a string during a performance would indicate a kind of

630
00:36:31,120 --> 00:36:34,160
Speaker 3: punishment by the fates for UniMas, I would think is

631
00:36:34,200 --> 00:36:37,160
Speaker 3: sort of a payback for his haughtiness and hubris he's

632
00:36:37,200 --> 00:36:41,120
Speaker 3: insulting Ariston, you know. But then the insect intervenes to

633
00:36:41,200 --> 00:36:45,279
Speaker 3: supply the missing note, which seems like another divine intervention,

634
00:36:45,440 --> 00:36:47,760
Speaker 3: but in this case in the opposite direction in favor

635
00:36:47,800 --> 00:36:48,440
Speaker 3: of UniMas.

636
00:36:49,280 --> 00:36:52,280
Speaker 2: The infighting of the gods via insects.

637
00:36:52,600 --> 00:36:55,719
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it doesn't supply that gloss in Strabo's

638
00:36:55,760 --> 00:36:57,879
Speaker 3: telling here, but it does kind of remind me of

639
00:36:58,320 --> 00:37:01,000
Speaker 3: like in the Iliad, we have the gods intervening on

640
00:37:01,080 --> 00:37:04,120
Speaker 3: both sides of an issue, like in opposite directions.

641
00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:07,319
Speaker 2: You know, normally I take a very logical approach to

642
00:37:07,400 --> 00:37:09,640
Speaker 2: this sort of thing. But I'm just gonna go ahe

643
00:37:09,640 --> 00:37:12,000
Speaker 2: and say it. I think this absolutely happened. Has written

644
00:37:12,360 --> 00:37:15,839
Speaker 2: this is one accurate and that we shouldn't question it.

645
00:37:16,200 --> 00:37:18,719
Speaker 3: I mean, it's not actually all that implausible that a

646
00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:21,960
Speaker 3: cicada lands on a lands on somebody's instrument makes a sound.

647
00:37:22,200 --> 00:37:23,520
Speaker 3: Everybody would remember that.

648
00:37:23,680 --> 00:37:28,160
Speaker 2: Not just any sound, the exact right sound. So I

649
00:37:28,200 --> 00:37:30,200
Speaker 2: think that's the really fun part of the story. And

650
00:37:30,239 --> 00:37:32,400
Speaker 2: again I don't question it at all. This absolutely happened.

651
00:37:32,680 --> 00:37:35,120
Speaker 2: Every every other story out there, every other myth in religion,

652
00:37:35,160 --> 00:37:38,600
Speaker 2: it's open to interpretation, and you're right to question it,

653
00:37:38,640 --> 00:37:40,080
Speaker 2: but not this one's good to go.

654
00:37:40,800 --> 00:37:44,120
Speaker 3: I came across an interesting passage in another book that

655
00:37:44,280 --> 00:37:49,680
Speaker 3: was about Christian theologians reinterpreting this Greek tale to have

656
00:37:49,760 --> 00:37:52,719
Speaker 3: a different understanding of it. Specifically, I was looking at

657
00:37:52,719 --> 00:37:55,840
Speaker 3: a work called Music and Philosophy in the Roman Empire

658
00:37:56,000 --> 00:38:00,960
Speaker 3: by Pelosi and Petrucci, and the author of a passage

659
00:38:00,960 --> 00:38:03,640
Speaker 3: of this book is talking about a work where the

660
00:38:03,680 --> 00:38:08,400
Speaker 3: early Christian theologian Clement of Alexandria is taking a bunch

661
00:38:08,440 --> 00:38:12,680
Speaker 3: of pagan myths and pagan stories and reinterpreting them to

662
00:38:12,719 --> 00:38:16,360
Speaker 3: have Christian morals. And so it's sort of in the

663
00:38:16,360 --> 00:38:21,080
Speaker 3: context of talking about these Christian church fathers and theologians

664
00:38:21,120 --> 00:38:24,720
Speaker 3: taking pagan myths and saying, yeah, this is actually good

665
00:38:25,040 --> 00:38:28,160
Speaker 3: and still instructive, but here's what it actually means to

666
00:38:28,200 --> 00:38:31,520
Speaker 3: emphasize something about their view of the world. And in

667
00:38:31,640 --> 00:38:35,120
Speaker 3: Clement's retelling of the story, there's a difference that is

668
00:38:35,160 --> 00:38:39,319
Speaker 3: subtle but important, And Clement's version is that it is

669
00:38:39,400 --> 00:38:43,960
Speaker 3: not that the Cicada is so enchanted by Unimas's beautiful

670
00:38:44,080 --> 00:38:46,759
Speaker 3: song and thus comes to help him in a time

671
00:38:46,800 --> 00:38:50,080
Speaker 3: of need. This version of the story that serves to

672
00:38:50,160 --> 00:38:53,160
Speaker 3: emphasize Eunomas's virtue as a singer. It's like, you know,

673
00:38:53,160 --> 00:38:57,720
Speaker 3: a story about a great virtuous person. Instead, Clement's retelling

674
00:38:57,800 --> 00:39:02,440
Speaker 3: emphasizes that it is UniMas who attunes himself to the

675
00:39:02,480 --> 00:39:06,720
Speaker 3: perfect natural song of the cicada. So in Clement's telling,

676
00:39:06,840 --> 00:39:10,200
Speaker 3: it's not that the Cicada humbles itself to UniMas sort

677
00:39:10,239 --> 00:39:13,680
Speaker 3: of in awe of his greatness, but that UniMas humbles

678
00:39:13,800 --> 00:39:18,080
Speaker 3: himself to the cicada, as we must humble ourselves into

679
00:39:18,200 --> 00:39:20,120
Speaker 3: tune to the music of God's word.

680
00:39:20,600 --> 00:39:23,239
Speaker 2: All right, yeah, I mean, all in all, that's kind

681
00:39:23,239 --> 00:39:26,239
Speaker 2: of a that's a nice interpretation, right, It's like your

682
00:39:26,320 --> 00:39:29,680
Speaker 2: music's not about you, it's about like getting in harmony

683
00:39:29,760 --> 00:39:32,440
Speaker 2: with at the very least existence, right.

684
00:39:32,640 --> 00:39:34,879
Speaker 3: Mm hmmm. I mean for Clement, I think that had

685
00:39:34,880 --> 00:39:38,359
Speaker 3: a specific sectarian meaning, but yeah, more broadly, you could

686
00:39:38,360 --> 00:39:42,360
Speaker 3: think about it as as singing together with nature. Who's

687
00:39:42,400 --> 00:39:44,520
Speaker 3: the person who needs to get in key? Is it

688
00:39:44,680 --> 00:39:46,440
Speaker 3: nature that needs to get in key with you? Or

689
00:39:46,480 --> 00:39:47,960
Speaker 3: do you need to get in key with nature?

690
00:39:48,360 --> 00:39:51,680
Speaker 2: Right? Right? Right? Instead of warping nature to your your

691
00:39:51,719 --> 00:39:54,360
Speaker 2: own tastes and purposes, you're you're the one that's getting

692
00:39:54,360 --> 00:39:55,680
Speaker 2: in tune with everything else. Se.

693
00:40:05,560 --> 00:40:09,960
Speaker 3: So there's another famous reference to cicadas in classical Greek literature,

694
00:40:10,600 --> 00:40:14,359
Speaker 3: and it is in the Esopic fable, more widely known

695
00:40:14,520 --> 00:40:18,640
Speaker 3: as the Ant and the grasshopper. But as with the

696
00:40:18,719 --> 00:40:21,040
Speaker 3: example from Plato that we talked about last time, the

697
00:40:21,040 --> 00:40:24,680
Speaker 3: word that used to be translated as grasshopper or sometimes

698
00:40:24,680 --> 00:40:28,600
Speaker 3: cricket is now generally understood as a reference to cicadas.

699
00:40:28,640 --> 00:40:31,239
Speaker 3: It seems this is the case in a bunch of

700
00:40:31,239 --> 00:40:33,360
Speaker 3: ancient Greek and Roman literature. There are a lot of

701
00:40:33,400 --> 00:40:38,320
Speaker 3: things that, for the longest time in English said cricket, locust, grasshopper, whatever,

702
00:40:38,560 --> 00:40:42,080
Speaker 3: it often meant cicadas. So this famous ancient story is

703
00:40:42,120 --> 00:40:45,680
Speaker 3: more accurately the ant and the cicada. Now, as with

704
00:40:45,800 --> 00:40:49,400
Speaker 3: many esopic tales, it is thought to originate in oral traditions,

705
00:40:49,480 --> 00:40:53,080
Speaker 3: and it appears in different forms in different texts traditions.

706
00:40:53,120 --> 00:40:56,120
Speaker 3: There's not like one original text form of it. You

707
00:40:56,520 --> 00:40:59,320
Speaker 3: different ancient authors who put down versions of this tale.

708
00:41:00,320 --> 00:41:03,240
Speaker 3: And the book edited by William Hanson that I mentioned earlier,

709
00:41:03,320 --> 00:41:07,359
Speaker 3: it presents it as follows. Cold and wintry weather came

710
00:41:07,440 --> 00:41:11,080
Speaker 3: down from Olympus. The ant had collected a lot of

711
00:41:11,120 --> 00:41:14,600
Speaker 3: food during harvest time, storing it in its house, But

712
00:41:14,719 --> 00:41:18,440
Speaker 3: the cicada went into its hole and was panting from hunger.

713
00:41:18,800 --> 00:41:23,360
Speaker 3: Gripped by starvation in the considerable cold. The cicada asked

714
00:41:23,360 --> 00:41:25,560
Speaker 3: the ant to share its food in order that the

715
00:41:25,600 --> 00:41:29,200
Speaker 3: cicada too might eat some wheat and be saved from starvation.

716
00:41:29,840 --> 00:41:32,879
Speaker 3: But the ant asked, where were you in summer? Why

717
00:41:32,880 --> 00:41:36,600
Speaker 3: didn't you collect food during harvest time? The cicada answered,

718
00:41:36,800 --> 00:41:40,120
Speaker 3: I was singing and giving pleasure to the wayfarers. The

719
00:41:40,200 --> 00:41:44,360
Speaker 3: ant showered it with laughter, saying, then in winter dance.

720
00:41:45,440 --> 00:41:48,359
Speaker 3: The tale teaches us that nothing is more important than

721
00:41:48,400 --> 00:41:51,800
Speaker 3: to give thought to necessary provisions, and not to devote

722
00:41:51,800 --> 00:41:54,680
Speaker 3: one's leisure time to pleasure and revelry.

723
00:41:55,239 --> 00:41:58,280
Speaker 2: Oh wow, so this time the cicada is the dummy, right.

724
00:41:58,600 --> 00:42:01,920
Speaker 3: Yes, this time the cicada is the fool. Well, actually,

725
00:42:02,080 --> 00:42:06,080
Speaker 3: so it's interesting. This is most often taken as a

726
00:42:06,120 --> 00:42:09,400
Speaker 3: tale illustrating the value of hard work and denouncing the

727
00:42:09,400 --> 00:42:13,279
Speaker 3: cicada for its frivolity, for its failure to prepare for

728
00:42:13,320 --> 00:42:16,920
Speaker 3: the future. So yes, the most common interpretation is that

729
00:42:16,960 --> 00:42:21,359
Speaker 3: the cicada is the fool. But not just recently, even

730
00:42:21,440 --> 00:42:25,240
Speaker 3: going back to ancient times, there have been counter interpretations

731
00:42:25,320 --> 00:42:28,520
Speaker 3: and sort of inverted variants of the story, in some

732
00:42:28,600 --> 00:42:32,839
Speaker 3: cases castigating the ant for its greed or in some

733
00:42:32,920 --> 00:42:36,200
Speaker 3: cases for its lack of charity, or pointing out good

734
00:42:36,280 --> 00:42:39,400
Speaker 3: things about the cicada. After all, even the classic version

735
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:42,960
Speaker 3: of the story I just mentioned has the cicada not

736
00:42:43,320 --> 00:42:47,040
Speaker 3: merely seeking its own enjoyment in the summer. It spends

737
00:42:47,080 --> 00:42:50,279
Speaker 3: the summer singing to wayfarers and giving them pleasure in

738
00:42:50,320 --> 00:42:53,400
Speaker 3: its song. And this emphasizes something that came up in

739
00:42:53,440 --> 00:42:56,759
Speaker 3: our discussion of the feedress. Socrates talks about this, but

740
00:42:56,840 --> 00:42:59,279
Speaker 3: it's also mentioned in an editor's note here. In the

741
00:42:59,560 --> 00:43:04,200
Speaker 3: Handsome book. Ancient Greek sources regularly indicate that the Greeks

742
00:43:04,280 --> 00:43:07,799
Speaker 3: were delighted by the singing of cicadas. They they thought

743
00:43:07,800 --> 00:43:09,720
Speaker 3: it was just great. They loved to sit and listen

744
00:43:09,719 --> 00:43:13,799
Speaker 3: to them. It was wonderful entertainment. So the cicada was

745
00:43:13,920 --> 00:43:17,399
Speaker 3: giving two others of itself what it could give all

746
00:43:17,440 --> 00:43:21,240
Speaker 3: summer long, and then the ant would not later share

747
00:43:21,320 --> 00:43:24,800
Speaker 3: what it had gathered. And then some other tellings still

748
00:43:24,800 --> 00:43:27,920
Speaker 3: emphasized that, hey, whatever the ant has gathered, it the

749
00:43:28,000 --> 00:43:30,800
Speaker 3: ant did not create, by the way, it simply raided

750
00:43:30,880 --> 00:43:34,839
Speaker 3: from its surroundings. So it's interesting. This is a more

751
00:43:34,960 --> 00:43:37,400
Speaker 3: complex tale than I remember from when I was a kid.

752
00:43:37,480 --> 00:43:40,080
Speaker 3: I mean, I encountered some version of it that was

753
00:43:40,160 --> 00:43:42,640
Speaker 3: just kind of like, yeah, basically like do your homework

754
00:43:42,680 --> 00:43:45,920
Speaker 3: instead of playing outside. It's like, you know, think ahead.

755
00:43:46,680 --> 00:43:49,000
Speaker 3: But but there I think there are actually more layers

756
00:43:49,040 --> 00:43:49,319
Speaker 3: to it.

757
00:43:49,840 --> 00:43:51,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, now that you pointed out, I think this, yeah,

758
00:43:51,840 --> 00:43:54,640
Speaker 2: totally the case. I think I also grew up just

759
00:43:54,960 --> 00:43:58,640
Speaker 2: consuming the very sort of like capitalist version of it,

760
00:43:58,680 --> 00:44:02,359
Speaker 2: where it's like, don't don't be a grasshopper, be an ant.

761
00:44:02,480 --> 00:44:04,160
Speaker 2: But yeah, you look at it this way, it's like, well,

762
00:44:04,160 --> 00:44:08,960
Speaker 2: that ant sounds miserable, Like he's not dancing, he's not singing,

763
00:44:09,000 --> 00:44:11,200
Speaker 2: he's not enriching the world in any way. I guess,

764
00:44:11,239 --> 00:44:13,799
Speaker 2: you know he'll be fine through the winner, but come on,

765
00:44:13,880 --> 00:44:16,160
Speaker 2: what kind of life is he living? Also, he's a

766
00:44:16,160 --> 00:44:20,359
Speaker 2: weird aunt in that he's such an individualist and male,

767
00:44:20,440 --> 00:44:24,680
Speaker 2: I guess. And this, yeah, we're setting aside a lot

768
00:44:24,680 --> 00:44:26,960
Speaker 2: of biological realities to consider the moral here.

769
00:44:28,040 --> 00:44:30,360
Speaker 3: Maybe it should be that the cicada speaks to the

770
00:44:30,440 --> 00:44:33,839
Speaker 3: ant colony as a whole, and the queen communicates back

771
00:44:33,880 --> 00:44:34,720
Speaker 3: for it or something.

772
00:44:34,880 --> 00:44:36,839
Speaker 2: I don't know, there's a whole Pixar movie right here.

773
00:44:39,040 --> 00:44:41,719
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I do think the traditional understanding of the

774
00:44:42,400 --> 00:44:46,439
Speaker 3: esopic tale does match with like the origin story given

775
00:44:46,480 --> 00:44:49,320
Speaker 3: by Socrates and the Feederist dialogue, where in both cases

776
00:44:49,320 --> 00:44:53,160
Speaker 3: it's just like that the the cicada is a being

777
00:44:53,400 --> 00:44:56,800
Speaker 3: that is so enraptured with sort of the performance of

778
00:44:56,840 --> 00:44:59,440
Speaker 3: the moment, like it gets caught up in song and dance,

779
00:45:00,120 --> 00:45:02,360
Speaker 3: or well, in both cases, it gets caught up in

780
00:45:02,400 --> 00:45:05,279
Speaker 3: song and dance to the point that it is it

781
00:45:05,360 --> 00:45:08,440
Speaker 3: dies later or it cannot feed itself when winter comes.

782
00:45:08,920 --> 00:45:12,040
Speaker 2: It has a very short term view of life because

783
00:45:12,080 --> 00:45:15,520
Speaker 2: it's it's life is very short term at this stage. Yea,

784
00:45:16,280 --> 00:45:18,680
Speaker 2: and yeah, there are different ways to interpret that. Does

785
00:45:18,680 --> 00:45:22,319
Speaker 2: it bring on feelings of, you know, vast summer melancholy

786
00:45:22,719 --> 00:45:26,320
Speaker 2: or is there a little bit of you know, a

787
00:45:26,400 --> 00:45:28,359
Speaker 2: little bit of live live life to the fullest while

788
00:45:28,400 --> 00:45:30,160
Speaker 2: you got it sort of a vibe going on here.

789
00:45:30,160 --> 00:45:32,200
Speaker 2: I mean, there's so many ways to interpret.

790
00:45:31,880 --> 00:45:35,240
Speaker 3: It, though, if you want to keep pumping the metaphors there. Actually,

791
00:45:35,680 --> 00:45:39,640
Speaker 3: it's interesting that cicadas may have quite long lives in

792
00:45:39,680 --> 00:45:42,840
Speaker 3: our underground stage before the part you even ever see es.

793
00:45:42,840 --> 00:45:45,480
Speaker 3: But with the periodical cicada some of the longest development

794
00:45:45,520 --> 00:45:47,120
Speaker 3: periods of any insect on Earth.

795
00:45:47,640 --> 00:45:50,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, it would be more like saying, hey, Grandpa, why

796
00:45:50,680 --> 00:45:53,240
Speaker 2: don't you act your age instead of you know, writing

797
00:45:53,280 --> 00:45:55,200
Speaker 2: jet skis and going to Burning Man or whatever the

798
00:45:55,200 --> 00:45:58,279
Speaker 2: case may be, and Grandpa can rightly respond. It's like

799
00:45:58,800 --> 00:46:01,680
Speaker 2: I've done all the other stuff before, I've lived the

800
00:46:01,719 --> 00:46:04,959
Speaker 2: ant life before. Uh, this is this is my time

801
00:46:05,120 --> 00:46:06,680
Speaker 2: to shine one last time.

802
00:46:06,680 --> 00:46:11,200
Speaker 3: Right, this is my short window of reproductive phase. Doesn't

803
00:46:11,200 --> 00:46:14,879
Speaker 3: really map onto human life.

804
00:46:13,880 --> 00:46:16,040
Speaker 2: But darn it, we will. We will make everything fit

805
00:46:16,120 --> 00:46:18,879
Speaker 2: one way or another. That's that's how that's how we

806
00:46:19,000 --> 00:46:23,759
Speaker 2: use animals as ideas. Uh but uh, yeah, I mean

807
00:46:23,760 --> 00:46:25,720
Speaker 2: that's I think it's the remarkable thing about the cicada.

808
00:46:25,760 --> 00:46:29,440
Speaker 2: It's like it's it's life cycle and biology is so

809
00:46:29,600 --> 00:46:34,759
Speaker 2: unique and fascinating, and then it's it's uniqueness, you know,

810
00:46:34,880 --> 00:46:37,920
Speaker 2: begs for some sort of metaphoric usage, you know, like

811
00:46:38,000 --> 00:46:40,400
Speaker 2: we we we have to see ourselves. We try to

812
00:46:40,440 --> 00:46:42,640
Speaker 2: see ourselves in any animal just to see what we

813
00:46:42,680 --> 00:46:44,920
Speaker 2: can get out of it. Right, And there's a lot

814
00:46:44,920 --> 00:46:47,680
Speaker 2: to play with there with the life cycle of the cicada.

815
00:46:47,719 --> 00:46:50,359
Speaker 3: No doubt. All Right, is it time? Is it time

816
00:46:50,400 --> 00:46:52,239
Speaker 3: to go underground? And hope we don't pick up any

817
00:46:52,239 --> 00:46:56,000
Speaker 3: massive sporaes on the way. Is that when you're coming up.

818
00:46:56,400 --> 00:46:59,480
Speaker 2: That's when you're coming up. Yeah, the coming up is

819
00:46:59,480 --> 00:47:02,120
Speaker 2: when you hit those spores. But you know there's other

820
00:47:02,120 --> 00:47:05,640
Speaker 2: stuff that can go wrong down there as well. But Yeah,

821
00:47:05,640 --> 00:47:07,719
Speaker 2: it's time for us to go underground, but we'll be

822
00:47:07,880 --> 00:47:12,080
Speaker 2: we'll we'll be back with new non cicada episodes, and

823
00:47:12,160 --> 00:47:14,040
Speaker 2: who knows, in time, we might return to the world

824
00:47:14,120 --> 00:47:17,160
Speaker 2: of cicadas. Because, as we've been discussing, this is all

825
00:47:17,200 --> 00:47:20,040
Speaker 2: going to happen again. We're gonna get excited. People are

826
00:47:20,040 --> 00:47:22,960
Speaker 2: going to get excited about cicadas in the future, be

827
00:47:23,080 --> 00:47:27,719
Speaker 2: it just your your normal annual cicadas or those periodical

828
00:47:27,719 --> 00:47:31,799
Speaker 2: emergencies that can just be so amazing and overwhelming and yeah,

829
00:47:31,920 --> 00:47:34,359
Speaker 2: some a little like frightening and icky, but I think

830
00:47:34,400 --> 00:47:37,880
Speaker 2: you should embrace the cicada. Don't look away, look closer,

831
00:47:38,440 --> 00:47:41,440
Speaker 2: because there's a there's a lot to there's a lot

832
00:47:41,440 --> 00:47:44,439
Speaker 2: of wonder there if you look at it. All right,

833
00:47:44,520 --> 00:47:46,640
Speaker 2: we'll go and close it out here then, But again,

834
00:47:46,680 --> 00:47:48,319
Speaker 2: we'd love to hear from everyone out there. If you

835
00:47:48,360 --> 00:47:51,759
Speaker 2: have any thoughts or observations about cicadas. We'll continue to

836
00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:54,640
Speaker 2: talk about it in listener mail. Yes, send in your photos.

837
00:47:54,680 --> 00:47:56,480
Speaker 2: You find a good cicada, take a photo of it

838
00:47:56,520 --> 00:47:59,000
Speaker 2: and send it to us. If no one else in

839
00:47:59,000 --> 00:48:01,919
Speaker 2: your life is interested in it, we are interested. Show

840
00:48:02,000 --> 00:48:02,680
Speaker 2: us those bugs.

841
00:48:03,520 --> 00:48:06,440
Speaker 3: We'll remind us your favorite thing you've done with Cicada

842
00:48:06,520 --> 00:48:07,759
Speaker 3: exoskeletons with the.

843
00:48:07,760 --> 00:48:11,840
Speaker 2: Molts, Yeah yeah. Or if you're doing stuff with sound,

844
00:48:11,880 --> 00:48:14,600
Speaker 2: are you doing, like you know, field samples of a

845
00:48:14,760 --> 00:48:17,480
Speaker 2: Circada song and doing something with it. Send us an

846
00:48:17,520 --> 00:48:20,040
Speaker 2: example of that. We'd love to hear it. Just a

847
00:48:20,080 --> 00:48:22,239
Speaker 2: reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a

848
00:48:22,280 --> 00:48:26,200
Speaker 2: science and culture podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays,

849
00:48:26,480 --> 00:48:29,000
Speaker 2: but we also put out other stuff during the week.

850
00:48:29,120 --> 00:48:31,400
Speaker 2: We got that listener mail on Mondays, We've got a

851
00:48:31,600 --> 00:48:34,759
Speaker 2: short form episode that comes out on Wednesdays, and then

852
00:48:34,800 --> 00:48:37,080
Speaker 2: on Fridays. We set aside most serious concerns, so just

853
00:48:37,080 --> 00:48:39,680
Speaker 2: talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.

854
00:48:39,840 --> 00:48:43,560
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

855
00:48:43,880 --> 00:48:45,480
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

856
00:48:45,480 --> 00:48:48,040
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

857
00:48:48,040 --> 00:48:50,080
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

858
00:48:50,480 --> 00:48:53,120
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

859
00:48:53,160 --> 00:49:01,440
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.

860
00:49:01,640 --> 00:49:04,560
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

861
00:49:04,640 --> 00:49:08,480
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

862
00:49:08,560 --> 00:49:24,160
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.