The Boys and the Frogs
Some boys, playing near a pond, saw a number of Frogs in the water, and began to pelt them with stones. They killed several of them, when one of the Frogs, lifting his head out of the water, cried out: "Pray stop, my boys; what is sport to you is death to us."
In my opinion I think the boy represents human consciousness, the relentless eye that is jeering at the poor frogs who because of their vibrancy -- aliveness -- have attracted the boy's attention. He holds the world in his hands. The poet has given him blond hair, which in most places in the world make him a representative of a privileged class.
This consciousness has not yet been informed by the suffering of other living beings or his part in this drama. It is experimenting and exploring the connections. "...He is out / Wondering about the water bugs," or wondering about the food that the frogs he has forgotten in his jar on the shelf would be eating if he had left them there. It is a moment before the boy realizes that in the game of life, "for a god," we are all nourishment. When consciousness is not self-aware it makes a mess of things and leaves them "forgotten on a shelf."
Because of the extraordinary transformation it makes, from being a tadpole in the water to a creature that can also live on the land, the frog is an ancient symbol of alchemy. It represents the base material from which everything differentiates through self-transformation. The symbolism of the boy watching the frogs struggling is consciousness becoming acquainted with its own transformation.
This consciousness has not yet been informed by the suffering of other living beings or his part in this drama. It is experimenting and exploring the connections. "...He is out / Wondering about the water bugs," or wondering about the food that the frogs he has forgotten in his jar on the shelf would be eating if he had left them there. It is a moment before the boy realizes that in the game of life, "for a god," we are all nourishment. When consciousness is not self-aware it makes a mess of things and leaves them "forgotten on a shelf."
Because of the extraordinary transformation it makes, from being a tadpole in the water to a creature that can also live on the land, the frog is an ancient symbol of alchemy. It represents the base material from which everything differentiates through self-transformation. The symbolism of the boy watching the frogs struggling is consciousness becoming acquainted with its own transformation.
I think this fable is like today is because if a modern day soldier gets home from the war and sees his son playing a game like Call Of Duty or Battlefield or a game like that he would remember his mates who died while protecting their country, and his son is playing a game that requires you to kill people, I think the father would probably say "Son stop playing those games because it may seem like a game to you but to people like me it is real life suffering and death.
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