The Ant and the Dove

To a creature no bigger than the tip of a grain of rice, a puddle left after the rain is as wide as a lake. A small stream winding through the forest is like a vast ocean, with no far shore in sight.

One noon, the sun poured down on the forest like fire. A little ant crawled down to the edge of just such a stream. Its throat was parched, and all it wanted was a sip of cool water after a long trip in search of food.

The ant bent right down and brought its mouth close to the surface. Just then, a small wave rushed in without warning. The damp earth under its six tiny legs gave way, and the ant slipped and fell into the fast-flowing water.

To a tiny ant, that water was like a flood sweeping through a whole human city. The water roared in its ears, and the cold seeped into every joint of its legs. The familiar grassy bank grew smaller and smaller before its eyes. The ant struggled with all its might, its six legs kicking wildly. But the current kept dragging it away, the bank kept slipping farther off, and water poured into its mouth and eyes until it was nearly spent.

This little tale comes from ancient Greece. Over the centuries, many people have retold it in their own way, and each version changes a detail or two. Yet the story of an ant and a dove has stayed whole to this day.

Right above the stream, on a branch that leaned far out over the water, a dove was preening its feathers and resting in the midday heat. Glancing down by chance, the dove saw a tiny black dot floundering in the current, about to go under.

The dove did not hesitate for a moment. With one quick peck, it snapped off a broad leaf growing right beside its branch. Then it dropped the leaf onto the water, exactly where the current was about to carry the ant.

The leaf landed with a plop, spun once on the water, and drifted up close to the ant. With the last of its strength, the ant stretched out all six legs and clung to the edge of the leaf. Then it climbed up onto the middle of the floating leaf.

The leaf drifted on with the current, spinning a few more times, until it bumped gently against a clump of moss by the bank. The ant scrambled onto dry ground and lay there for a long while, its chest heaving. It was still shaken by how close it had come to drowning.

When it looked up at the branch, the dove was nowhere to be seen. It had flown off at some point, without waiting for a word of thanks. To the dove, what it had done seemed like nothing special in the middle of a summer day.

Some time later, when the ant had fully recovered, life in the forest went on as it always did. Then one afternoon, the search for food happened to lead the ant back to the very same stretch of stream. The row of trees still leaned its shade over the familiar water.

On a low branch close to the ground, a dove was preening its wings, calm and unaware of anything amiss. Right at the foot of the tree, a man holding a bird net was creeping forward one step at a time. His eyes never left the bird for an instant.

The man slowly raised the net high, aiming at the very branch where the dove stood. One more step and he would bring it down over the bird. The ant saw it all. It knew at once that this was the same dove that had dropped the leaf and saved it from the water.

There was no time to cry out a warning, and no time to think it over. The ant rushed forward as fast as it could and climbed straight onto the man's heel. Then it bit down hard, with all the strength a tiny ant could muster.

The man jumped and let out a sharp cry of pain. "Ow, that hurts!" He staggered backward, and his hands jerked so that the net swung far off to one side. It missed the branch in front of him.

At that very moment, the strange noise startled the dove. It beat its wings and shot straight up into the sky. It escaped just as the net came down on the empty branch.

The man stood still for a while and bent to rub his sore heel. He looked around, baffled, with no idea what had just happened. In the end, he gathered up his net and trudged away empty-handed.

Under a clump of grass by the stream, the ant watched without moving. The dove climbed higher, then circled low, right over the spot where the ant stood. Its wings beat slowly, like a greeting, before it flew off toward the distant forest and vanished behind the green leaves. Behind the dove, the stream flowed on as calmly as if nothing had ever happened.