Long ago the King of Benares loved the sound of his own voice. He talked from morning till night, and no one else in the court could finish a sentence. His wise minister waited patiently for the right moment to teach him a gentle lesson. One day, the lesson fell out of the sky — into the palace courtyard itself. This is how it happened.
In a pond in the Himalayan hills lived a tortoise who simply could not stop talking. Two young wild geese who came to feed at the pond became his friends, and one day they said, "Friend tortoise, our home on Mount Beautiful is lovelier than this pond. Come and live with us!" "But I cannot fly," sighed the tortoise. The geese smiled. "We can carry you — if you can keep your mouth shut and say not a word to anybody." "Of course I can!" cried the tortoise. "Take me with you."
So the geese held a stout stick between them, the tortoise gripped the middle of it with his teeth, and up they soared over hills and fields. Down below, some village children looked up and shouted, "Look! Two geese carrying a tortoise on a stick! What a funny sight!" The tortoise burned to answer them. He held on. But the children kept laughing, and at last he could bear it no longer. "And what business is it of yours, you noisy —" The moment he opened his mouth, he lost his hold on the stick and fell down, down, down — straight into the open courtyard of the palace of Benares, where his shell cracked upon the stones, and that, sadly, was the end of the talkative tortoise.
The king and his court hurried out. "Wise minister," asked the king, "how did a tortoise come to fall from the sky?" The minister saw that his moment had come. "O great king, this tortoise had friends to carry him to a beautiful home. He needed only to stay silent a little while — but he could not hold his tongue, and so he fell. Truly, one who talks too much comes to grief." The king understood that the words were meant for him. From that day he spoke less, listened more, and became a wiser ruler.
When the Buddha finished this story, he said, "In that life, the wise minister was I myself."