Once a king heard the complaints of his subjects about disease and the spoilage of food. He wielded his royal might against the mosquitoes, the fleas, the rats, the foxes, and all the vermin in his kingdom. He hired hunters, drained marshes, built raised storehouses, and encouraged improved hygiene through a system of public baths. Everything that money and will could do, he did, and the subjects praised him greatly.
One day he had a dream. He was among the grasses, and they were taller than he, and when he met a mouse it was horse-sized, and all the insects and other pests that gathered around were large. Even stranger, they spoke.
"O king, our descendant, why do you persecute us? Do you not realize we are your ancestors, passing through the world again in these forms? What is a king without mercy, or what is benevolence that ignores the low as well as the high?"
This shocked the king. "You were once human? How can this be?"
"O king, all must pass through the forms he has earned. It is the same for you. You were a lion before, o king, and will be again, and many other animals."
The king bowed to them so low that his head hit the earth. "My ancestors, I honor you. But I ask, what of you? Why do you make my subjects ill and more hungry than their labor deserves?"
"Well," they said, "we are vermin, after all."
The king woke up, and from then on, he altered his policy. For every coin he spent before to battle the vermin, he spent two after.
Finis
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