Explore "The Mountain in Labour" by Jean de La Fontaine on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
A mountain was in travail pang; / The country with her clamour rang. / Out ran the people all, to see, / Supposing that the birth would be / A city, or at least a house. / It was a mouse!
In thinking of this fable, / Of story feign'd and false, / But meaning veritable, / My mind the image calls / Of one who writes, "The war I sing / Which Titans waged against the Thunder-king. "[1] / As on the sounding verses ring, / What will be brought to birth? / Why, dearth.[2]
[1]: _The War, &c._ -- The war of the Gods and Titans (sons of Heaven and Earth); _vide_ Hesiod, _Theogony_, I. 1083, Bohn's ed.
[2]: Phaedrus, IV. 22.