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The following verse appears in Book 1 of The Lusiads (William Mickle's translation, 1877 edition; emphasis mine):
So spoke high Jove: the gods in silence heard,
Then rising, each by turns his thoughts preferr’d
But chief was Bacchus of the adverse train;
Fearful he was, nor fear’d his pride in v...
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This passage is from The children's bach by Helen Garner
Over the back fence, nearer the
creek, lived an old couple whom Dexter and Athena had never seen but
whom they referred to as Mister and Missus F****n’. They drank, they
smashed things, they hawked and swore and vomited, they cursed each
o...
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Here's the latest installment in the regular best-of-quarter collections, intended to gather some particularly good Literature Q&A in order to get some easily available links to showcase our site.
One use for this post could be to gather links for promotion on Literature's community-run Twitter a...
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I remember a story about a king riding in a boat. His oarsman is complaining about rowing, and all the hard work he is doing. They get to where they are going, get ready to go to sleep, and a sound wakes everyone up. The king sends the oarsman to check. They are cats. The king asks a bunch of que...
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Krishna Sobti‘s short story Sikka Badal Gaya (literally, The Coin Has Changed, referring to a change of administration) is set in Partition-era Pakistan. The main character is an old Hindu woman named Shahni who has lived in a village in the newly-formed Pakistan for fifty years. She is the widow...
Fantasia Mathematica
is an anthology published in 1958 containing stories, humor, poems, etc., all on mathematical topics, compiled by Clifton Fadiman. A companion volume was published as The Mathematical Magpie (1962). The volume contains writing by authors including Robert Heinlein, Aldous Huxley, H. G. Wells, and Martin Gardner.
== Contents ==
"Introduction" by Clifton Fadiman
=== Odd numbers ===
"Young Archimedes" by Aldous Huxley
"Pythagoras and the Psychoanalyst" by Arthur Koestler
"Mother and the Decimal Point" by Richard Llewellyn
"Jurgen Proves It by Mathematics" by James Branch Cabell...
The Mathematical Magpie is an anthology published in 1962, compiled by Clifton Fadiman as a companion volume to his Fantasia Mathematica (1958). The volume contains stories, cartoons, essays, rhymes, music, anecdotes, aphorisms, and other oddments. Authors include Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Mark Twain, Lewis Carroll, and many other renowned figures. A revised edition was issued in 1981 and again in 1997. Although out of print, it is recommended for undergraduate mathematics libraries by the Mathematical Association of America as part of their Basic Library List.
== Contents ==
"Cartoon" by...
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In Redwall (first book of its eponymous series), before even the little scene-setting snippet of text that precedes Book 1, a poem appears:
Who says that I am dead
Knows nought at all.
I—am that is,
Two mice within Redwall.
The Warrior sleeps
'Twixt Hall and Cavern Hole.
I—am that is,
Take on my...
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In Glimpses of Bengal, a selection of Rabindranath Tagore's letters included in The Definitive Tagore (Rupa Publications, 2017), Tagore summarises the following story (letter from 24 June 1894):
There is a Persian story which I was greatly taken with when I read it as a boy—I think I understood,...
