The Snake and the Ants

A great black snake named Haughty lived in an ant-hill, but one day, rather than take the wide path he normally used to leave his hole, he chose to force his massive body through a much narrower crack -- and in doing so, wounded himself badly.

The smell of his blood drew the ants of the hill, who gathered around him in overwhelming numbers. No single ant posed him any threat, and he could crush or kill any number of them individually, but their sheer collective mass, stinging from every side at once, was more than even a powerful snake could withstand.

Haughty perished not from any one enemy strong enough to defeat him, but from an uncountable number of small ones acting together -- each sting trivial alone, unbearable combined.

The tale is remembered as a caution about underestimating collective force: pride that dismisses many small threats as beneath notice can be undone by exactly those threats, once they act as one.