Book V: The Mountain in Labour
A mountain was in travail pang;The country with her clamour rang.Out ran the people all, to see,Supposing that the birth would beA 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 callsOf one who writes, "The war I singWhich Titans waged against the Thunder-king."As on the sounding verses ring,What will be brought to birth?Why, dearth.
Words in this poem
- clamour n.
- A great outcry or vociferation; loud and continued shouting or exclamation. [OF. clamour, clamur, F. clameur, fr. L. clamor, fr. clamare to cry out. See Claim.]
- veritable a.
- Agreeable to truth or to fact; actual; real; true; genuine. [F. véritable. See Verity.]
- dearth n.
- Scarcity which renders dear; want; lack; specifically, lack of food on account of failure of crops; famine. [OE. derthe, fr. dere. See Dear.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Book V: The Mountain in Labour is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Fables of La Fontaine, Project Gutenberg ebook #7241, the Elizur Wright translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Jean de La Fontaine, Book V: The Mountain in Labour, in The Fables of La Fontaine (1841), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #7241, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/la-fontaine-fables/5-10.html, id L28302.
Form and metre
Book V: The Mountain in Labour is 15 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AABBCC pangA · rangA · seeB · beB · houseC · mouseC
- 2 ----AAABB fable · false · veritable · calls · singA · kingA · ringA · birthB · dearthB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| A mountain was in travail pang; | 8 | ·/˘··˘/· |
| The country with her clamour rang. | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Out ran the people all, to see, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Supposing that the birth would be | 8 | ˘/˘····· |
| A city, or at least a house. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| It was a mouse! | 4 | ···· |
| In thinking of this fable, | 7 | ·/˘··/˘ |
| Of story feign'd and false, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| But meaning veritable, | 7 | ·/˘/˘˘˘ |
| My mind the image calls | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Of one who writes, "The war I sing | 8 | ········ |
| Which Titans waged against the Thunder-king." | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| As on the sounding verses ring, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| What will be brought to birth? | 6 | ······ |
| Why, dearth. | 2 | ·· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.