THE FROGS ASKING FOR A KING
青蛙求王
Time was when the Frogs were discontented because they had no one to rule over them: so they sent a deputation to Jupiter to ask him to give them a King. Jupiter, despising the folly of their request, cast a log into the pool where they lived, and said that that should be their King. The Frogs were terrified at first by the splash, and scuttled away into the deepest parts of the pool; but by and by, when they saw that the log remained motionless, one by one they ventured to the surface again, and before long, growing bolder, they began to feel such contempt for it that they even took to sitting upon it. Thinking that a King of that sort was an insult to their dignity, they sent to Jupiter a second time, and begged him to take away the sluggish King he had given them, and to give them another and a better one. Jupiter, annoyed at being pestered in this way, sent a Stork to rule over them, who no sooner arrived among them than he began to catch and eat the Frogs as fast as he could.
因为缺少一个统领者，青蛙们大为不悦。于是，他们派了一个代表去拜见朱庇特，请求赐给他们一个国王。朱庇特不屑于他们如此愚蠢的请求，便将一根木头扔到青蛙居住的池塘中，并且说这就是他们的国王。刚听到木头落下的声音时，青蛙们都吓了一大跳，纷纷潜入池塘深处;没过多久，当他们发现木头依旧静止在那里时，一个接一个地又游出水面来;不久之后，他们愈发大胆了，发现木头没什么了不起的，甚至于爬上木块，坐在它的上面。他们认为这样一个国王简直是对自己尊严的侮辱，于是又去求见朱庇特，请求把赐予他们的这个木头疙瘩拿走，再换一个更好的国王。朱庇特对此十分生气，便派了一只鹤去管制青蛙。结果，鹤一来到池塘里，便开始全力逮吃青蛙。