Fiction as truth

Some people don't like fiction.  I don't understand it, but there it is.  Something to do with "waste of time."  However, there are few things as profitable as reading a good story.  Through stories hidden things are revealed; we see, whereas before our eyes were covered.  A good story teaches, through characters that do not exist, some truth, either a new truth or one that we already knew but needed to see afresh.

Once there was a great man who committed adultery with a gorgeous woman, and subsequently had her husband killed to hide his deed. Then a storyteller, knowing about this deed and wanting to reveal it to him, came up to the man and told him the following story.  There was a poor man with one lamb, and he loved the lamb dearly.  He cared for it, fed it, and it was his joy and delight.  Then a rich ruler, who had many lambs of his own, took the beloved lamb from the poor man to use at a feast for his guests, leaving the poor man desolate.  The great man fomented at this story, and exclaimed that the ruler ought to pay four lambs for the lamb that he took.  The storyteller, realizing that the great man was a bit obtuse and needed more prodding, said, That ruler is you.  And the great man, seeing what he had done, wept.