In a kingdom far away there was a very foolish king. He was, however, very proud and thought he was extremely intelligent.
He had a problem. He could never sleep in peace, because there was a fly that always worried him whenever he lay down to rest. One night, he told his Queen, “My dear, I have to look after the whole kingdom and its affairs. If I do not sleep at night, I shall not be able to govern my kingdom wisely during the day. Will you please help me?”
“Certainly, my lord. What would you like me to do?” asked the Queen.
“You must stay awake at night and wave the fan so that the fly may not wake me up. Could you please do that?” The Queen agreed. That night, she sat up with a fan and kept waving it over the King while he was sleeping. But after a while, she too started feeling sleepy. The fan slid out of her hand and she slept. The fly came back and woke the King up!
The King was upset, but he did not scold the Queen. He had to find some other way to deal with the fly. So the next night, he told his guards to stand around him and chase away the fly when it came. But that night, the guards too dozed off while standing around.
Now the King was really angry. “I will have a trained monkey to keep the fly away! You people are all useless!” And so, the royal animal-keeper was called in and asked to find a good monkey and train it. Soon, he found a monkey, trained it and brought it to the palace.
The king was very pleased. That night, the King slept peacefully with the monkey waving away the fly. “The problem had finally been solved,” thought the King. For a few nights, there was peace in the palace.
But then one night, the monkey got very excited. He jumped around trying to chase the fly away, but the wretched fly would keep coming right back! Then, the monkey saw the King’s sword lying near by. “That is what I need!” he thought. Picking up the sword he began to chase the fly. “Ah! There he is, sitting on the King!” said the monkey. He attacked the fly. He kept swiping the air with the sword, happily chasing the fly. The fly flew away, but suddenly the sword slashed the nose of the poor King! The foolish King learnt a very harsh lesson!
