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The Dancing Monkeys

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By Staff Middle Land

May 31, 2024
6:05 pm
Los Angeles, CA

By adapted from Aesop ONCE upon a time a prince had some monkeys. They were very bright, funny little monkeys and so he taught them to dance. Heel-toe, forward and back! Soon they were able to dance for all the world like men and women. So the prince gave the monkeys fine clothes and he put them up on a stage to dance for all his friends. Night after night they danced just like real people. By and by those who watched them began to say to each other: “Well, well, these must be men! We thought at first they were monkeys but surely they must be men!” And the monkeys, too, began to think they were part of the tribe of men and to hold their heads very

By adapted from Aesop

ONCE upon a time a prince had some monkeys. They were very bright, funny little monkeys and so he taught them to dance. Heel-toe, forward and back! Soon they were able to dance for all the world like men and women. So the prince gave the monkeys fine clothes and he put them up on a stage to dance for all his friends. Night after night they danced just like real people.

By and by those who watched them began to say to each other: “Well, well, these must be men! We thought at first they were monkeys but surely they must be men!” And the monkeys, too, began to think they were part of the tribe of men and to hold their heads very high. “We’re just as good as men!” they said to one another. But, one day, a mischievous boy thought up a little trick.

He threw some nuts on the stage as the monkeys were lined up to dance. Suddenly, at sight of the nuts, those monkeys forgot they were dancers; they forgot they had called them-selves men. Breaking the line of their dance, they thought only of scrambling for nuts. Fighting with one another, they kicked and bit and chattered. And none of them was willing that any other monkey should get a single nut. That was a tussle for you! They tore all the clothes off each other. And now what a how-do-you-do! As they stood there without any clothes, everyone who was watching could see they were not really men. They were nothing at all but monkeys!

The people roared with laughter, while an old man cried from the crowd: “He, who thinks himself a man, will have to act like a man. Squabbling, you show yourselves monkeys! Fighting, you show yourselves beasts!”