“You puny speck of insignificance,” the lion told the gnat one day, “get lost!”
The gnat, declaring war, said, “Don’t suppose I’m scared of you because you’re king. An ox is twice as strong as you, and him I’ve got wrapped round my little stinger.”
Sounding then the charge, both trumpeter and soldier, he attacked.
As if he were a swarm of gnats, he circled, swooped, and stung the lion’s neck and back and nose and nostrils even.
Soon deranged with rage, his eyes afire and mouth afoam, the lion roared—and creatures hid or fled for miles around. One little mite the cause of so much fright!
The gnat, unseen, but heard and felt, was triumphing, and laughed to see the lion bite and claw himself to bloody ribbons, slumping finally, defeated, to the ground.
The insect, wreathed in glory, bugling victory, withdrew—and straightway flew into a spider’s web. The end.
I see two lessons to be drawn from this. The first: Among our enemies, the smallest often should be feared the most. The second: Sometimes we escape a strifeful ordeal unscathed, then perish by some trifle.