Текст песни Army Ants (Tom Waits) с переводом

The whirligig beetles are wary and fast

With an organ to detect the ripples

The arachnid moths lay their eggs inside

Other insects along the borders of fields or roads

In clusters of white cocoons

The ribbed pine borer is a longhorn beetle

Their antennas are half the length of their body

And they feed on dead red pine

Robber flies with their immobile heads

Inject a paralyzing fluid into their prey

That they snatch from life in mid-air

The snow flea’s mode of locomotion

Strange and odd

With a spiny tail mechanism with hooks

And a protracted tube from the abdomen

To enable moisture absorption

The female praying mantis devours the male

While they are mating

The male sometimes continues copulating

Even after the female has bitten off his head

And part of his upper torso

Every night wasps bite into the stem of a plant

Lock their mandibles into position

Stretch out at right angles to the stem and

With legs dangling they fall asleep

If one places a minute amount of liquor

On a scorpion

It will instantly go mad and

Sting itself to death

The bombardier beetle

When disturbed

Defends itself by emitting a series of explosions

Sometimes setting off four or five reports in succession

The noises sound like miniature popgun blasts

And are accompanied by a cloud of

Reddish coloured vile smelling fluid

It is commonly known that ants keep slaves

Certain species

The so-called sanguinary ants

In particular

Will raid the nests of other ant tribes

And kill the queen and then kidnap many of the workers

The workers are brought back to the captor’s hive

Where they are coerced into performing menial tasks

And as we discussed last semester

The army ants will leave nothing but your bones

Perhaps you’ve encountered some of these insects

In your communities

Displaying both their predatory and defense characteristics

While embedded within the walls of flesh

And passing for what is most commonly recognized

As human

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