Housefly
In literature

The Impertinent Insect is a group of five fables, sometimes ascribed to Aesop, concerning an insect, in one version a fly, which puffs itself up to seem important. In the Biblical fourth plague of Egypt, flies represent death and decay, while the Philistine god Beelzebub 's name may mean "lord of the flies". In Greek mythology, Myiagros was a god who chased away flies during the sacrifices to Zeus and Athena; Zeus sent a fly to bite Pegasus, causing Bellerophon to fall back to Earth when he attempted to ride the winged steed to Mount Olympus. In the traditional Navajo religion, Big Fly is an important spirit being.

William Blake 's 1794 poem "The Fly", part of his collection Songs of Experience, deals with the insect's mortality, subject to uncontrollable circumstances, just like humans. Emily Dickinson 's 1855 poem "I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died" speaks of flies in the context of death. In William Golding 's 1954 novel Lord of the Flies, the fly is, however, a symbol of the children involved.

Ogden Nash 's humorous two-line 1942 poem "God in His wisdom made the fly/And then forgot to tell us why." indicates the debate about the value of biodiversity, given that even those considered by humans as pests have their place in the world's ecosystems.
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