The Song of Ceber
Argument: Ceber, hungry from walking, starts to look for something to eat. She runs into a grasshopper singing a song and despite wanting to eat the grasshopper, instead asks it to teach her the music.
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Grasshopper
Following the fair River Vada from Terbeir
Towards conical snowcapped Cran
She soon became hungry
A warrior’s strength is in her stomach
So say the old stories.
She went a little way off
To see if she could find some small creature
To sting and eat.
Near the edge of a forest
In thick, tall, fluted grass
She heard someone singing.
Such a song she’d never heard
And suddenly she desired to learn it.
Stepping around she found the singer
A spur-throat grasshopper
Resplendent in yellow and green
Spotted on the wings
Tiger-striped and dotted
With wild eyes
And yellow zebra’d legs.
Plump and juicy perfect for stew
Or with a little seasoning
Sided with steak
Cow and hopper strips
With mushrooms, sautéed.
A mountain hopper could feed two comfortably
And Ceber felt she could eat three!
Ceber’s mouth watered
At the thought of that white meat
Marbled with fat and blue veins
But it was the grasshopper who was singing
And so she approached in the open and hallo’d it freely.
The hopper started and said,
“Oh, curse my luck
A black hawkwasp here to kill me.
What days these are that one cannot enjoy
The fiery sun or the silky wind
When enemies walk abroad
In what used to be open lands.”
“Calm yourself noble hopper,”
Ceber said trying not to salivate.
“I come not for slaughter
I heard your singing it sounds a fair piece.
Will you not teach it to me?”
“I would,” returned the grasshopper,
“But I fear you
If I told you the song from beginning
To the final caesura
Would you not then slay me?
Would both my song and my body
Be in your mouth?
By what measure do I have
To weigh the weight of a wasp’s words?”
“Verily,” Ceber said,
A bit hurt
When her honesty was her pride
Among her own people,
“I try not to lie,
Though it is sometimes difficult.
My name is Ceber Starlight
daughter of Tanis Dragonhalf
I am heading into Mount Cran
On a rescue mission most important to me.
I expect a hard journey
But perhaps it would not be so unpleasant
With a fine song.
My people recognize the grasshopper’s
Strength in song and sing in praise ourselves
Of your virtuosity in verbal veracity.”
“Well spoken, wasp,” the grass-eater said.
“I suppose I could cent you the song
Though, it isn’t lengthy long, or deep
No verisimilitude or deeper meaning—
I only like to sing—
The words must be pleasant
But that’s all they have to be.”
Ceber nodded,
“Tales are often of this sort
The only thing they need to be is entertaining.”
The grasshopper began his song.
Song of the Grasshopper
Okikikikikiki
What desire finally be?
Okikikikikiki
Will some pretty lady see?
Okikikikikiki
Wish some lover call me!
Okikikikikiki
Where my love, my lady be?
Okidekidekide
Wild fields a lady hides!
Okidekidekide
Will she come be my bride?
Okikikikikiki
Okidekidekide
In spring or late fall ladies come to hear my call.
Okikikikikikikikikikikikikikikikikikikikikikikikikikikikikiki!
Ceber’s Response
“Oh, lovely. Fair and lovely.
It was fair far lovelier close up than afar.
When I had love life seemed full of light.
But now my love lies under a mountain.”
Ceber said thus and she meant it too
For the song stirred her and made her hope.
“Would that the grasshopper ladies
Felt the same as the wasp lady,”
said the hopper.
“It will be winter before they come
And later than that if a wasp calls me friend.”
“Sorry,” Ceber said.
“I’ll leave you to your love-longings
My quest is dark,
But you've brought me a little light
And light is good in dark places.”
She took her leave singing Okikikikikiki.
And this she sang until the sun dipped
And she was standing in the shadow of the mountain.
The Song of Ceber
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