Talk:The Mountain in Labour

Edit to The Mountain in Labour

 * About your comment "quotations are not changed", what Horace actually recommended, as quoted unchanged, was:
 * Nec sic incipies, ut scriptor cyclicus olim:
 * "Fortunam Priami cantabo et nobile bellum".
 * Quid dignum tanto feret hic promissor hiatu?
 * Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.
 * in Latin, and when quoting it here, it must perforce be "changed", i.e. translated into English, and, of the last line, "The mountains are in labour, a ridiculous mouse will be born" is a more accurate translation than "Mountains will labour: what’s born? A ridiculous mouse!". I was learning Latin for several years in a grammar school in my teenage years. "Parturient" is present tense, "nascetur" is future tense. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 04:22, 8 June 2017 (UTC)


 * I did not make myself clear. When a reference is cited on Wikipedia, as in this case, the guidelines are that one may not change the wording of that quotation. You will also notice that beside the reference to the literary translation quoted, which is from an authoritative source and has other stylistic concerns that mere literalness, there is another that takes you to a correct but rather flat Loeb translation. Both approaches are covered, therefore. But in any case the article is about the fable to which Horace is referring, and the main emphasis should stay there. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 07:16, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Treasure Island
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson references this fable in Section IX, "Powder and Arms". (The Project Gutenberg version is here.) I'm noting it on this talk page, because I'm unsure about whether it should be in the article proper. Mgnbar (talk) 14:59, 9 May 2024 (UTC)