The colored butterfly perched on a branch in the flourishing garden among roses and beautiful flowers. She moved from flower to flower, from leaf to leaf, proud and joyful at what God had bestowed upon her of beauty and gracefulness. Then she began to speak to herself, saying: “How wonderful my body and its proportion and gracefulness, and how beautiful my colors that resemble all the colors of nature, and how sweet my two soft wings like silk. Without doubt I am the most beautiful thing God the Exalted has created in this garden, and its most wonderful. I am the queen of the garden.”
On a tree near her was a bee that would buzz and fly, then return, then fly again, return to draw nectar, smell fragrance, and sing: “I am from the kingdom of bees. I am the maker of wax and honey. I am the bee. I am the bee.” The butterfly looked arrogantly at the bee and said to her mockingly: “O your ugliness! How strange your form and peculiar your build. Your wings are short and your body wide, but your sound is harsh and your buzzing is ugly. You do not please me, nor do you move me.”
The bee turned to her and said: “O your lack of refinement, O arrogant butterfly. The beauty of your colors and the gracefulness of your body and the lightness of your wings do not compensate for your lack of manners.” The butterfly said angrily: “What do you say? That I am unrefined and unmannered?” The bee said: “Yes, you are indeed. Did you not mock me and then mock my sound and my form? I am better than you. Go far away. I am more deserving of the flowers than you, O foolish arrogant one.” The butterfly said: “And why should I go from here, and why are you more deserving of the garden and flowers than I?”
The bee said: “Because I make honey and wax for man, and he cares for me. Go ask him.” The farmer who had been listening to the conversation between them came. He said to the butterfly: “Yes, O arrogant one, in your own estimation, the bee is better than you and more deserving of the garden and flowers, for she gives me honey and wax. If you wish to be among us, then be refined, leave your arrogance, and be intelligent.”
From the stories of Kalīlah wa Dimnah.