WEBVTT

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The story motif is one
that's very familiar.

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There's no way of understanding
of knowing historically

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how it came to be that way.

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In other words, we're all
familiar with this story

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from Esau.

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He saw it probably got it
from somewhere in India,

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and it could have
gone either way.

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I mean, it could have been
carried to the new world.

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I mean, there are
some people who

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think the Phoenicians
got to the new world.

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They could have come that way.

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It could have come
around the other way

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through Cambodia
and the people who

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were convinced that their
cultural links that way.

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It could have come with
the Spaniards, of course.

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Or it could have been
there all the time.

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I mean, it could have
been much older than that.

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It's the story of the
ants and the grasshoppers.

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But here you see it.

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You see this very
familiar story.

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And these Indians of these
Highland Maya peoples

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share with the
Greeks the feeling

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that a story is more exciting
if you know it not less.

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I mean, it's like
children who say

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wait till they get to that bit.

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You know what I mean?

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They're waiting for that bit.

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And so it's like anything
that's repeated many times.

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I mean, various parts
of one's own mind

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begin to respond to it.

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I think that's the
way it is for them.

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And there are about
seven years now, I guess.

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We've been trying to
work with these things

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and trying to find forms that
would do some of the things

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that the narrative,
the oral narrative

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form, which is completely
colloquial and yet completely

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formal.

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Do in the original.

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And you can't.

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There's no way of repeating
the form in English because, I

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mean, there's nothing that would
make that scene seem something

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you'd respond to.

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I mean, it would just
seem exotic, and strange,

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and interesting
that way perhaps.

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But wouldn't convey
the thing that makes

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them listen to these stories.

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Anyway, here's one
with a familiar motif.

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And then I want to read
one it's totally different.

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This is called Story of
the Ants and Grasshoppers.

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Ants work very much
every day none sleep.

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In fact, they use the daytime.

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At night, they sleep.

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They rest their hearts because
of their work in the days.

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When in its time and its
season, the rain comes,

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very much food the
ants have gathered

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working in the clear weather.

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The ants feel no sadness
because of the rains.

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They feel no hunger
with all that food.

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When the ants went to work
in the cloudless season,

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the grasshoppers laughed a
lot and made fun of them.

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Why ever should we go to work,
in fact in the clear weather?

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They said, the grasshopper
is making fun of the ants.

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The grasshoppers did no work
in the corn fields every day.

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The grasshoppers
sleep in the fields.

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In the nights, the grasshoppers
have parties with their music.

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All they know how
to do at night is

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have parties with their music.

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No work to speak of.

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The grasshoppers make
fun of the ants a lot

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for only working
in the corn fields.

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It came the time of hunger
the rainy season for them.

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The grasshoppers.

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None the food of the
grasshoppers in the time

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of the rainy season, in fact.

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None their work in
the clear weather.

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The grasshoppers
suffered with hunger.

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The grasshoppers came
to the ants houses.

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Won't you lend us
some food because we

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ourselves are dying of
hunger, the grasshoppers said.

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There is this suffering of yours
because there was no work you

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did in the cloudless weather.

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In fact, in the daytime,
you slept, in the night,

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you had parties, the ants said.

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It is better to work
in the clear weather

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than to be lazy and
walk around and sleep

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and have parties in the fields.

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The ants said to the
grasshoppers scolding them.

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We on the other hand, did
not sleep in the daytime,

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the ants said.

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The ants laughed
because the grasshoppers

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were suffering from hunger.

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The grasshoppers were
ashamed because the ants

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had uncovered their shame.

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The grasshoppers began to
steal because they were hungry.

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In the time long ago,
there were created

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the grasshoppers the
creatures, who do not

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work in cornfields fields.

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In the time long ago, they
were created the ants,

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who work hard in corn fields.

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