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Aesop's Fables, translated by Laura Gibbs (2002)

126. THE ANT AND THE CRICKET
Perry 373 (Syntipas 43)

During the wintertime, an ant was living off the grain that he had stored up for himself during the summer. The cricket came to the ant and asked him to share some of his grain. The ant said to the cricket, 'And what were you doing all summer long, since you weren't gathering grain to eat?' The cricket replied, 'Because I was busy singing I didn't have time for the harvest.' The ant laughed at the cricket's reply, and hid his heaps of grain deeper in the ground. 'Since you sang like a fool in the summer,' said the ant, 'you better be prepared to dance the winter away!'
This fable depicts lazy, careless people who indulge in foolish pastimes, and therefore lose out.

Note: For a condemnation of the ant's foolish greed, see Fable 127 (following). For another negative interpretation of the ant's behaviour, see Fable 513, the story of the man who became an ant.

Source: Aesop's Fables. A new translation by Laura Gibbs. Oxford University Press (World's Classics): Oxford, 2002.
NOTE: New cover, with new ISBN, published in 2008; contents of book unchanged.