The Snake and the Ants
[inside Book 3. Crows and Owls]
In a certain ant-hill lived a prodigious black snake, and his name was Haughty. One day, instead of following the beaten path out of his hole, he tried to crawl through a narrower crevice. In doing so, he suffered a wound, because his body was huge, and the opening was small, and fate willed it so.
Then the ants gathered about him, drawn by the odour of blood from the wound, and drove him frantic. How many did he kill? Or how many crush? Yet their uncounted phalanx stung him in every member, and enlarged the numerous wounds. And Haughty perished.
"And that is why I say:
Beware the populace enraged;
A crowd's a fearsome thing:
The ants devoured the giant snake
For all his quivering."
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