what is the moral of the ant and the grasshopper
The Ant and the Grasshopper The story has been used to teach the virtues of hard work and the perils of improvidence. Some versions state a moral at the end along the lines of "Idleness brings want", "To work today is to eat tomorrow", "Beware of winter before it comes". In La Fontaine's Fables no final judgment is made,[9] although it has been argued that the author is there making sly fun of his own notoriously improvident ways.[10] But the point of view in most retellings of the fable is supportive of the ant. It is also influenced by the commendation in the biblical Book of Proverbs, which mentions the ant twice. The first proverb admonishes, "Go to the ant, you sluggard! Consider her ways and be wise, which having no captain, overseer or ruler, provides her supplies in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest" (6.6-9). Later, in a parallel saying of Agur, the insects figure among the 'four things that are little upon the earth but they are exceeding wise. The ants are a people not strong, yet they provide their food in the summer.' (30.24-5)