The story motif is one that's very familiar.
There's no way of understanding of knowing historically
how it came to be that way.
In other words, we're all familiar with this story
from Esau.
He saw it probably got it from somewhere in India,
and it could have gone either way.
I mean, it could have been carried to the new world.
I mean, there are some people who
think the Phoenicians got to the new world.
They could have come that way.
It could have come around the other way
through Cambodia and the people who
were convinced that their cultural links that way.
It could have come with the Spaniards, of course.
Or it could have been there all the time.
I mean, it could have been much older than that.
It's the story of the ants and the grasshoppers.
But here you see it.
You see this very familiar story.
And these Indians of these Highland Maya peoples
share with the Greeks the feeling
that a story is more exciting if you know it not less.
I mean, it's like children who say
wait till they get to that bit.
You know what I mean?
They're waiting for that bit.
And so it's like anything that's repeated many times.
I mean, various parts of one's own mind
begin to respond to it.
I think that's the way it is for them.
And there are about seven years now, I guess.
We've been trying to work with these things
and trying to find forms that would do some of the things
that the narrative, the oral narrative
form, which is completely colloquial and yet completely
formal.
Do in the original.
And you can't.
There's no way of repeating the form in English because, I
mean, there's nothing that would make that scene seem something
you'd respond to.
I mean, it would just seem exotic, and strange,
and interesting that way perhaps.
But wouldn't convey the thing that makes
them listen to these stories.
Anyway, here's one with a familiar motif.
And then I want to read one it's totally different.
This is called Story of the Ants and Grasshoppers.
Ants work very much every day none sleep.
In fact, they use the daytime.
At night, they sleep.
They rest their hearts because of their work in the days.
When in its time and its season, the rain comes,
very much food the ants have gathered
working in the clear weather.
The ants feel no sadness because of the rains.
They feel no hunger with all that food.
When the ants went to work in the cloudless season,
the grasshoppers laughed a lot and made fun of them.
Why ever should we go to work, in fact in the clear weather?
They said, the grasshopper is making fun of the ants.
The grasshoppers did no work in the corn fields every day.
The grasshoppers sleep in the fields.
In the nights, the grasshoppers have parties with their music.
All they know how to do at night is
have parties with their music.
No work to speak of.
The grasshoppers make fun of the ants a lot
for only working in the corn fields.
It came the time of hunger the rainy season for them.
The grasshoppers.
None the food of the grasshoppers in the time
of the rainy season, in fact.
None their work in the clear weather.
The grasshoppers suffered with hunger.
The grasshoppers came to the ants houses.
Won't you lend us some food because we
ourselves are dying of hunger, the grasshoppers said.
There is this suffering of yours because there was no work you
did in the cloudless weather.
In fact, in the daytime, you slept, in the night,
you had parties, the ants said.
It is better to work in the clear weather
than to be lazy and walk around and sleep
and have parties in the fields.
The ants said to the grasshoppers scolding them.
We on the other hand, did not sleep in the daytime,
the ants said.
The ants laughed because the grasshoppers
were suffering from hunger.
The grasshoppers were ashamed because the ants
had uncovered their shame.
The grasshoppers began to steal because they were hungry.
In the time long ago, there were created
the grasshoppers the creatures, who do not
work in cornfields fields.
In the time long ago, they were created the ants,
who work hard in corn fields.