In long-past times there lived a band of monkeys in a forest. As they
rambled about they saw the reflection of the moon in a well, and the
leader of the band said: “O friends, the moon has fallen into the well.
The world is now without a moon. Ought not we to draw it out?”
The monkeys said, “Good; we will draw it out.”
So they began to hold counsel as to how they were to draw it out. Some
of them said, “Do not you know? The monkeys must form a chain, and so
draw the moon out.”
So they formed a chain, the first monkey hanging on to the branch of a
tree, and the second to the first monkey’s tail, and a third one in its
turn to the tail of the second one. When in this way they were all
hanging on to one another, the branch began to bend a good deal. The
water became troubled, the reflection of the moon disappeared, the
branch broke, and all the monkeys fell into the well and were
disagreeably damaged.
A deity uttered this verse: “When the foolish have a foolish leader,
they all go to ruin, like the monkeys which wanted to draw the moon up
from the well.”