Talk:To a Mouse

article

I love the works of Burns but I don't think that this article is any good at the moment. If it was a critical discussion of the poem that would be fine; even if it was an example of something that would be okay; but a straight copy of the poem has no place in this project. After all it's supposed to be an encyclopedia not a poetry book. This should be moved to WikiSource -- Derek Ross 19:24, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

This was wikisourced back in April 2005, and the article deleted. As such I am assuming it is a candidate for Speedy Deletion as recreated content and I'm tagging it as such. Soundguy99 15:35, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Saw it on the log just now, but you beat me to it. --Dmcdevit 20:04, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• I came looking for 'the mouse poem by Robert Burns' and found this page off the RB page. It's vital to that page. I don't find the page in wikisource, so this page shouldn't go till it's there and isn't going to be arbitrarily deleted 'cos it's uninteresting or not part of a complete set. --

I found this article from the Burns Supper article. Please do not delete it! But I do feel that the meaning as written here is way off. What Burns actually seems to be saying is that mice (and all of nature other than man) often find that life brings grief and pain, but the little mouse at least experiences only the pain of the moment whereas man remembers his pain of the past and worries about the grief and pain that the future may bring. Gandydancer (talk) 13:35, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

• I like the idea that the poem is here. It helped me find it; I searched for the "of mice and men" quote not knowing the title of the poem. I don't think that it takes up much space but I think that it could be moved to the bottom of the article, after the External Links section. The Reception and other sections get lost following the poem. --Bruce Hall (talk) 04:08, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

To a Mouse name?

I was taught the name of this poem was To A Mouse, On Turning Her Up in her Nest, With the Plough, November, 1785  ? Traslaen 23:01, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

That's how I've always known and recited it too. Checking various Burns sites confirms that the title begins "To a Mouse" and not "Tae a Moose". Changing. Sleety Dribble (talk) 21:15, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

References in popular culture?

Might want to include some notable references in popular culture. F'rinstance, I remember on Batman the Bookworm corrected Batman's recitation "The best-laid plans of mice and men..." (This is OR and should be researched and cited if it's to be added to the main page.) --Davecampbell 23:10, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Poem text

I was able to get a copy of the poem onto the site, but dont have enough time to format it properly. Anyone with some experience with html should clean it up a bit.

Gas-Can

If you look at the page history, you will see that several people have already tried to put a copy of the poem onto the site, and it has always been taken off again. There is a reason for this: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and is a place for articles about the poem, not for copies of the poem itself. Copies of the poem itself belong on Wikisource; as you can see, there is a link at the bottom of the article to the page on Wikisource that has the text of "To a Mouse". --Paul A 02:00, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

full text not needed

This is what the wikisource box is for. The text is far, far too long and unnecessary. Spanglej (talk) 04:12, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I commented above that I think it is good to keep the poem but move its location to the end. Many people, myself included, come to the article by searching for a known phrase. But it does break up the article too much.--Bruce Hall (talk) 04:10, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

first Robert Burns I've read- Luv it!

It wakes my mind to Hx! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.200.94.27 (talk) 15:24, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Romanticism reference correct?

I assume that the reference to "the main romantic idea of experiencing something through nature" in final paragraph of the Reception section is a reference to Romanticism and so I added an internal link. Correct it if I am wrong. --Bruce Hall (talk) 04:08, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Should the poem be at the top, at the bottom or removed?

There is discussion above, including my comments, about whether to keep the poem where it is, to move the poem to the end (my suggestion), or to remove the poem entirely. I've created this section of the Discussion page to give one place to comment. Also, since making my comments, I have checked the history and noticed that edits to both the article and the Discussion page are rare. So, I am decided to go ahead and implement my suggestion of moving it. How do you vote - at the top, at the bottom, completely remove to other site? We'll see if there is much discussion or a consensus. Given the low frequency of comments that might take a while. --Bruce Hall (talk) 04:18, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Move the poem to Wikiquote and give a link in the article. Policy says we should minimise quote length. Span (talk) 12:15, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

In fact, I see the poem is already in Wikiquote. Span (talk) 12:17, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

• I've removed it. There are several easy free sources for the text already provided. --John (talk) 19:35, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Well, I've put it back in, with the translation. I think it's good to have the text and a translation here. It's not very long. I often come to this page to show people what Scots is like, and it's more convenient to have the text and the translation. Just now I wanted to show the poem to someone, and she went to another site where there was no translation. She thought the word "wi" meant "wee"! Eric Kvaalen (talk) 10:28, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Having a translation is nice, but I think the translation in its current form (as of the day I posted this) changes far more words than necessary. Modern English speakers don't know the meaning of the word "wee" (as in "wee hours of the morning")? "Strew" needs to be changed to "scatter"? And why change "mousie" to "mouse" (and mess up the meter)? People can't figure that word out? (Better not ask "how much is that doggie in the window?") Then there's changing all the second person familiar (thee, thou) to you, which screws up the rhyme in line 5. It may be outdated, but still "correct" English. Anyone looking up old poetry or Shakespeare should presumably know these, maybe not well enough to use them correctly, but at least to understand them when seen.

If you must do it this way, at least call the translation "Modern English Translation" -- as it is, if I didn't know better, I'd think thee and thou are unique to Scottish. KevinBTheobald (talk) 01:00, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Text of poem does not match original

The text of the poem in the article has many differences from the 1786 original in spelling and punctuation. The text hear appears to follow later editions, which have been "cleaned up" or edited. Shouldn't the article follow the original? See Reference 2 which shows the original. There's been a lot of discussion on this Talk page about whether the text should appear at all, and part of the justification for keeping it is that it provides a good sample of the Scots language. To an "improved" version of the text, and not the original, seems to undermine that objective. I'd fix it myself if I had the time. Omc (talk) 17:22, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

"Holding a plow" controversy created by Norton Anthology

Norton's Anthology apparently over-simplified or mis-interpreted creating controversy --probably for generations of readers-- where there is none. Perhaps the confusion comes from modern farming method, where one no longer has to physically hold the plow behind a team. When Burns was "holding the plow" he was indeed actively plowing. It is like composing a poem while driving your car - it's done in your head and when you are finished you write it down.

"John Blane," says Mr Chambers, "who was farm- servant at Mossgiel at the time of its composition, still lives at Kilmarnock. He stated to me that he recollected tho incident perfectly. Burns was holding the plough, with Blane for his driver, when the little creature was observed running off across the field. Blane, having the pettle, or plough- cleaning utensil, in his hand at the moment, was thoughtlessly running after it, to kill it, when Burns checked him, but not angrily, asking what ill the poor mouse had ever done him. The poet then seemed to his driver to grow very thoughtful, and, during the remainder of the afternoon, he spoke not. In the night time he awoke Blane, who slept with him, and, reading the poem which had in the mean time been composed, asked what he thought of the mousie now."

Linzzay (talk) 12:56, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Seems like some of that last paragraph should be incorporated into the main article, at least the part about chasing the mouse, since it gives context to the first stanza. KevinBTheobald (talk) 01:03, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Someone altered the first line of the Scots version. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:30A:2EBE:CB00:C472:9AD5:A01D:3E87 (talk) 21:36, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

References

xlation

The translation we have is unsourced and poor in places.

This translation by Stewart Everett is good, a true translation, rendering the poem into modern idiomatic English (e.g. "little guy" instead of "small beast" etc.) But can't use that cos it is copyrighted, also anyway people would lose their shit if I tried to use it. And anyway Everett, while clearly nobody's fool, has no literary credentials.

The Robert Burns World Foundation/Club has this transcription which is a good deal better than what we have. But it's copyrighted and they are apparently quite fierce on that.

There's this -- copyrighted. There's this, by Michael Burch -- doesn't claim copyright but doesn't realease it either, just says nothing; but I don't like the translation anyway. Burch is super dedicated to this sort of thing but appears to be a self-taught amateur, FWIW. Burch's translation is mirrored all over the place so if you're looking for a source watch for that. I couldn't find any free sources right off, altho I suppose they might be out there somewhere.

However, even if legal, it's not excellent and maybe not allowed to paste someones entire work into an article. It'd be plagiarism. (Translations are considered to be works of original art, separate from the material translated.) And I mean, unless the translator has some standing to make the translation -- academician or whatever -- it'd be no better a source than us.

We'd be justified in translating the poem ourselves into more modern and understandable English. Cos, like it or not, we can translate material on our own dime. Same as we do for writing anything in our own words, which is always except for quotes. Because of course. I've translated scores of articles (from Russian) and if I needed to use a source -- an existing translation of the article into English -- well, I never would, and if I did, copyright or not, I'd be pasting someone else's work under my name which is not allowed.

Would our translation have to keep the rhyme scheme? No, it wouldn't. When you translate a poem, you have to decide if you're going to keep the rhyme scheme, and the meter. The meter's easy, the rhyme scheme is really hard, consequently poem translations usually drop the rhyme scheme (for none). Rhyme and meter, as well as wording, are all fair game for translation in the literary world.

But... I'm gonna guess that getting rid of the archaically worded translations (like the one we usee now) might run into a "How dare you offer an alternative to my sacred King James Bible" type thing. So, heavy lifting.

Anyway... what I'm gonna do for now is change two words only. "Paddle" I'll replace with "plowstaff". That breaks the rhyme there, but what am I supposed to do? There are no canoes or table tennis equipment in this poem. "Coulter" I replaced with "plowblade" as it doesn't change the rhyme scheme or meaning and dispenses with an archaic term that nobody knows and has to leave the page to see what it means.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. Herostratus (talk) 05:28, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

As to the question of using "plowblade" or "plowshare" or something else, I mean it's debatable. My take on the arguments is:

• Use "plowshare" cos
  • It's a real English word found in dictionaries, and "plowblade" isn't.
  • It's not just a real word, but is currently in use (altho mostly as a technical term amongst people professionally concerned with plows.)

vs.

• Use "plowblade" cos:
  • It's a properly formed nonce word of type which is allowed in English particularly in poetry. I am confident If I need a two-syllable word to say "top of the dresser" in my poem I can say "dressertop" and it's fine.
  • It's very clear what we're talking about -- the blade of a plow. The "share" of a plow is not a thing, and "plowshare" is (except for farmers etc) mostly known from the ancient phrase about swords into plowshares. Plowshare and plowblade are essentially synonyms, unless you want to get into the weeds about details of plow construction.
  • Our number one remit is to serve the reader, not Mrs. Grundy. Most readers will be able to figure out what "plowshare" means, but making the reader figure out things is not excellent.

vs.

• "plow" -- nope, breaks the meter
• "coulter" -- nope, a highly technical term which nobody knows and the reader would have to go off the page to see what it is (or we could make a footnote).
• "plow blade" -- these are in the dictionary, but my guess is that the space breaks the meter -- but maybe not, I don't know poetry
• other? I don't know. Herostratus (talk) 06:17, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

Okay, most readers won't recognize the word "coulter" and will need to investigate it if they want to know exactly what part of the plough Burns was referring to. So? This is the information age, and knowledge has never been more readily available. There is no reason to substitute a made-up or inaccurate word for the correct one. A footnote would be preferable, but this seems superfluous given that the reader can obtain a definition of "coulter" simply by hovering over the blue link (a matter of seconds BTW). Zacwill (talk) 13:20, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

Well... I don't agree, but it's not worth a big discussion, so OK. (I will say which part of the plow is involved is unimportant to worry about, this is not a technical article describing plow construction but a poem, and even if it mattered, "poetic license" is a thing. (BTW I guess we should use "Plough" if we use the term at all, as that is the British spelling aparantly.)) Herostratus (talk) 11:08, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

Literary reference of Marketing

Is the reference to the title of Sheldon's novel—Best Laid Plans— really enough to merit its mention on the page? It does not seem to carry forward the themes of the poem so much as benefit from its notoriety. Mthibode (talk) 12:15, 2 June 2026 (UTC)