Phaedrus is curious about cicadas so Sokrates goes on to supply some traditional lore:

Once upon a time, the story goes, cicadas were human beings, before the birth of the Muses. When the Muses were born and song came into being, some of these creatures were so struck by the pleasure of it that they sang and sang, forgot to eat and drink, and died before they knew it. From them the race of cicadas arose, and they have this special privilege from the Muses: from the time they are born they need no nourishment, they just sing continually without eating or drinking until they die… 

Like Midad, the cicadas can be read as an image of the fundamental erotic dilemma. They are creatures pulled into confrontation with time by their own desires. They enact a nobler version of this dilemma than Midas did, for their passion is musical, and they offer a new solution to the lover’s paradox of ‘now’ and ‘then.’ The cicadas simply enter the ‘now’ of their desire and stay there. Abstracted from the processes of life, oblivious to time, they sustain the present indicative of pleasure from the instant they are born until, as Sokrates says, “they escape their own notice, having died” (elathon teleutesantes hautons, 259c) Cicadas have no life apart from their desire and when it ends, so do they. 

Anne Carson (Eros the Bittersweet)

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