“I do not care for your clothes, your pearls and jewels, nor for your golden crown, but if you will love me and let me be your companion and play-fellow, and sit by you at your little table, and eat off your little golden plate, and drink out of your little cup, and sleep in your little bed – if you will promise me this I will go down below, and bring you your golden ball up again.” Thus spoke the frog in The Frog Prince, as he negotiated with the princess as to his reward for retrieving her golden ball, which had fallen into the well.
“Oh yes,” said the princess, “I promise you all you wish, if you will but bring me my ball back again.” But she thought, “How the silly frog does talk. All he does is to sit in the water with the other frogs, and croak. He can be no companion to any human being.”
To what lengths would you go to get, or keep, your heart’s desire?
This reminds me of Picasso´s late etchings of the Minotaur, standing over the beautiful sleeping woman (who always somehow happens to be naked…)
Funny how that is with Picasso, isn’t it?
How much we cling to material things!
The moral of the story is that a lie will catch up to you. But if you want to read some really interesting rationalization, try Bruno Bettelheim’s explanation of why the frog turned into a prince when he was dashed against the wall.