Ants (from Dryades)

William Diaper (1685 -1717)

Overview

Aren’t ants smashing? Yes, yes, they are! This poem is an ode to ants and asks us to appreciate our little six legged troopers.

The poem shows us that they are not just industrious little buggers, but humanises them and asks us to think of their cleverness, their complexity and their broad various different cultures amongst species.

Context

If you are American or have otherwise fallen into a wayward use of their corrupted version of English, you are probably sniggering away about a poet being named Diaper. Grow up and focus.

William Diaper is not one of the big hitting English poets and has enjoyed little renown before or after his death. His day job was as a priest and his poetry has a tendency to focus on the marvels of nature and what God has created. This is taken from his most famous work ‘Dryades’ and is the perfect example of his pastoral focus. The full poem is 56 lines and focuses on the mythical dryads or tree spirits and their peaceful existence with and amongst the natural world.

For the immature of you who think Diaper must be full of shit, you are not alone. Alexander Pope (one of the big hitters of the day) unkindly remembered Diaper’s poetic ability in the following lines:

Far worse unhappy D[iape]r succeeds,
He search’d for coral, but he gather’d weeds

Translation: he tried very hard to be a good poet, but was a bit shit.

Ants prudent bite the ends of hoarded wheat,

Lest growing seeds their future hopes defeat;

And when they conscious scent the gathering rains,

Drawn down their windy eggs and pilfered grains;

With summer’s toil and ready viands fill

The deepest caverns of their puny hill;

There lie secure, and huge the treasured goods,

And safe in laboured cells they mock the coming floods.

A thousand kinds unknown in forests breed,

And bite the leaves, and notch the growing weed;

Have each their several laws, and settled states,

And constant sympathies, and constant hates.

Their changing forms no artful verse describes,

Or how fierce war destroys the wandering tribes,

How prudent Nature feeds her various young,

Has been, if not untold, at least unsung.

To th’ insect race the Muse her pain denies,

While prouder men the little ant despise.

Themes

Can we have a theme of ants? No, no we can’t. Let’s go a bit broader and say this is a poem all about celebrating the wonder of Nature, but there are also a lot of allusions to the Bible and thus we have a connection to the idea of faith and the brilliance of God’s creations.

Content

In the opening stanza, Diaper provides what I called above an ode to ants. We celebrate how remarkable they are as he details how ants are able to cultivate, harvest and store their food supply so that they can survive whatever nature throws at them.

However, the second stanza goes beyond this and more direct parallels are drawn between ants and mankind. Diaper considers the diversity of species of ants (over 10,000 according to Google) and their many different forms, cultures, societal structures, homes and conflicts. The poet celebrates this diversity and the resourcefulness of this species suggesting it is only the lack of song or poetry about their various wars and development that stops us appreciating just how remarkable they are and means that mankind looks down upon the ant as a nothing.

Language and Techniques

In the opening stanza Diaper uses rich imagery to present a detailed picture of an ant colony preparing for bad weather. There is a semantic field of language choices suggesting the wisdom of ants. Their actions are described as ‘prudent’ and ‘conscious’ in preparing for the rains, immediately dismissing the idea of them as brainless creatures. Instead Diaper depicts them as forward planning and visionary with an eye of ‘future hopes’. This suggests they are not just driven by an instinct to eat, sleep and have sex, but instead have bigger hopes and dreams that they strive to protect. This intelligence and foresight lead to the certainty of their survival in ‘secure’ and ‘safe laboured cells’, which suggests they are not just just desperately trying to survive, but have carefully planned in the most certain terms.

You also have this lovely oxymoronic depiction of ‘the deepest caverns of their puny hill’, which serves to contrast the minute scale they are operating in with the brilliance of their design and planning. Even though an anthill might be easily squashed, or in this case be washed away, the colony is deeply embedded beneath the earth and able to survive any blow.

Now we get onto the biblical intertextuality – Diaper is a priest after all. At the end of the first stanza all the ant’s preparations are presented as being to enable them to ‘mock the coming floods.’ The verb choice here again helps convey just how well prepared they are as they can laugh at something that could be potentially colony ending. This is also a reference to the biblical floods of Noah (indeed floods seem to feature in quite a lot of religious texts) that washed away a sinful human race apart from the one devout man. So, while we were wiped out by a flood, the ants are mocking it. Through drawing this parallel Diaper is encouraging the reader to appreciate just how remarkable ants are.

In the second stanza these parallels come thick and fast. We get a sense of the diversity of ant culture as there are ‘a thousand kinds unknown’ who ‘have each their several laws, and settled states’. This little bit of maths helps to give the reader an appreciation of the rich and impressive multi cultured nature of ant species, much like the richness of human societies. What’s Diaper personifies the ants by terming the differences in species as ‘laws’ and ‘settled states’, which convey a sense of human order, developed societies and settlements. Similarly the ants are given human emotions in terms of ‘constant sympathies, and constant hates’, which makes us think of them as thoughtful and discerning creatures who have things they enjoy and despise rather than dumb animal habits that are hardwired into them.

This continues in line 6 of the second stanza, but again Diaper uses a biblical allusion to reinforce the similarity between them and us. What we might observe as a meaningless ant scrap between two rival ant colonies is termed as ‘fierce war [that] destroys the wandering tribes’. The ten wandering tribes of Israel in the Old Testament who faced war and displacement until they were able to find and settle the promised land. Regardless of your biblical knowledge, the drawing of parallels elevates conflicts we see as meaningless and mindless to the complex, rich and important developments of a civilisation like our own.

After drawing us into these parallels Diaper highlights the key difference behind why ants are generally perceived as insignificant. While our history is recorded in all sorts of ways, the ants’ history and culture ‘no artful verse describes’, is ‘unsung’ and ‘the Muse her pain denies’ to the ants. What he means here is that their is no celebration in poetry or song of their great cultural acts, societal development or conflicts.

In the final line Diaper provides a short summation of why he has written this poem. Although you might think the adjective ‘prouder’ to describe mankind is a positive, the poet means this more in terms of arrogant, as in too proud or self absorbed to consider that anyone else might be worthy of merit. So ‘prouder men the little ant despise’ acts as a message stating that mankind thinks of itself as a remarkable and unique species. Luckily for us Diaper has shown us the light and the importance of recognising the wonder of other species in the world is best stated in the seventh line in this stance where ‘prudent Nature feeds her various young’. The personified spirit of Nature, which could be considered in the same terms as God, has not just created one special species, but provided a rich tapestry of complex life.

Structure

As a pastoral poem, this is a celebration of nature and a more rural existence. We see this celebration in the simplistic and lyrical form of the poem. Diaper using iambic pentameter and rhyming couplets to give this a joyous tone.