The frogs were fed up with democracy and clamored for a king.
So Jupiter delivered one. The monarch, falling from the sky, made such a splash on landing in the swamp that all the frogs were terrified, and trembling hid themselves amid the reeds and bulrushes. None dared to even look at their new leader, whom they thought must be some fierce and fearsome giant.
He, in fact, was but a wooden plank.
The first among the frogs to peek at him was much impressed by his majestic gravitas. She moved toward him timidly; another did the same; eventually his subjects grew accustomed to the sight of their new king, and perched and hopped and climbed all over him. He suffered in unflustered silence this indignity.
A new petition soon disturbed the peace of Jupiter: “We want a king that moves!” the frogs demanded.
So the god sent them a crane—who munched and gulped them down in gobbets.
Now the frogs complained, and with good cause. But Jupiter was deaf to further pleas.
“Am I obliged to grant your every wish, obey your every whim? You should have been content with what you had. You risk the worse when you reject the bad.”