The Frogs
The frogs are croaking in the yard.
Their throats are hoarse. They’ve sung for hours.
“Ninety-nine droplets of dew on the lawn,”
they sing, “ninety-nine droplets of dew.
Take one sip, then wipe your lip,
ninety-eight droplets of dew on the lawn...”
they must be drunk, or stoned on grass.
If they kept a rhythm, I’d sleep,
perhaps to dream of railway journeys,
but each must croak to his own drum,
and sing his own off-key notes.
Some claim their chorus marks their turf,
others say they sing for mates.
I’m wakeful, plotting frogicide.
Pond of the Barking Frogs -- John Evans
The frogs are croaking in the yard.
Their throats are hoarse. They’ve sung for hours.
“Ninety-nine droplets of dew on the lawn,”
they sing, “ninety-nine droplets of dew.
Take one sip, then wipe your lip,
ninety-eight droplets of dew on the lawn...”
they must be drunk, or stoned on grass.
If they kept a rhythm, I’d sleep,
perhaps to dream of railway journeys,
but each must croak to his own drum,
and sing his own off-key notes.
Some claim their chorus marks their turf,
others say they sing for mates.
I’m wakeful, plotting frogicide.
Pond of the Barking Frogs -- John Evans
In 405 BCE Aristophanes won 1st prize at the Lenaia for his play "Batrachol" (The Frogs"). The Lenaia was a festival of Dionysus, the god of wine, and the play involved Dionysus traveling to Hades to retrieve Euripides (who had died the year before). During the parados (the 1st choral interlude), the frogs made their only appearance, aggravating Dionysus by singing their refrain, "Brekekekex-koax-koax." In his travelogue "Jesting Pilate," Aldous Huxley described listening to an Arab in Bombay reciting a poem on Sicilia written by the Pakistani poet Muhammad Iqbal: "And in the suspended notes, in the shakes and warblings over a single long-drawn syllable, I seemed to recognize that distinguishing feature of the Euripidean chorus which Aristophanes derides and parodies in the 'Frogs.'"
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