Parva puella quaerit ubi fons sub colle lateat; hortulana ei viam monstrat.

Because both words describe the same person and must agree with each other.

• puella is nominative singular feminine: girl
• parva is also nominative singular feminine: small / little

In Latin, adjectives usually agree with the nouns they describe in gender, number, and case. So parva puella means the little girl.

Quaerit is:

• 3rd person singular
• present tense
• active voice
• indicative mood

It comes from quaerere, meaning to seek, ask, inquire, look for.

So parva puella quaerit means the little girl asks or the little girl looks for / seeks, depending on context. Here, with ubi..., it is best understood as asks or wants to know.

Because ubi fons sub colle lateat is an indirect question: where the spring is hidden.

In Latin, indirect questions normally use the subjunctive, not the indicative. So:

• direct question: Ubi fons sub colle latet? = Where is the spring hidden beneath the hill?
• indirect question: quaerit ubi... lateat = she asks where... it may be hidden / where... it is hidden

So lateat is subjunctive because it is inside the indirect question introduced by ubi.

Lateat is the 3rd person singular present active subjunctive of latere, meaning to lie hidden, to be concealed, or to escape notice.

So fons lateat means something like:

• the spring is hidden
• the spring lies concealed

The subjunctive here does not necessarily make the meaning doubtful in English; it is mainly there because Latin uses the subjunctive in indirect questions.

Fons is nominative singular and is the subject of lateat.

So in ubi fons sub colle lateat, the spring is the thing that is hidden.

Its dictionary form is:

• fons, fontis = spring, fountain, source

Because sub can take either the ablative or the accusative, depending on the meaning.

• sub + ablative = under/beneath in a static location
• sub + accusative = to a position under/beneath with motion toward

Here the spring is simply beneath the hill, not moving there, so Latin uses the ablative:

• sub colle = beneath the hill

If there were motion, you might expect sub collem.

Colle is the ablative singular of collis, collis, meaning hill.

It is in the ablative because it follows sub in a sense of location:

• sub colle = under the hill / beneath the hill

Hortulana means female gardener or garden-woman.

It is feminine because the word itself is feminine in form, and the sentence is talking about a woman. It is the subject of monstrat, so it is in the nominative singular.

Compare:

• hortulanus = male gardener
• hortulana = female gardener

Ei is dative singular, meaning to her or for her here.

It refers back to the little girl. So:

• hortulana ei viam monstrat = the gardener shows the way to her

This is a very common Latin pattern:

• someone
  • shows/gives/tells
    • something in the accusative + to someone in the dative

So:

• viam = the thing shown
• ei = the person to whom it is shown

Because viam is the direct object of monstrat.

The gardener is showing the way, so way is the thing directly affected by the verb:

• viam monstrat = shows the way

Its dictionary form is via, viae, meaning road, path, way.
Here viam is accusative singular.

Because the verb monstrare often works with:

• an accusative for the thing shown
• a dative for the person shown to

So Latin can simply say:

• ei viam monstrat = shows the way to her

English often needs to, but Latin can express that relationship just with the dative case.

Latin word order is much more flexible than English word order because Latin uses case endings to show each word’s job in the sentence.

So Latin does not need to rely as heavily on position. In this sentence:

• Parva puella is the subject of quaerit
• fons is the subject of lateat
• hortulana is the subject of monstrat
• ei is dative
• viam is accusative

Because those endings make the grammar clear, Latin can place words in an order that sounds natural, emphasizes certain ideas, or creates a good rhythm.

The semicolon separates two closely connected parts:

1. Parva puella quaerit ubi fons sub colle lateat
2. hortulana ei viam monstrat

These are two related clauses:

• first, the girl is asking where the spring is
• then, the gardener shows her the way

A semicolon helps show that the thoughts are connected but still distinct.

Yes, ubi can sometimes mean when, depending on context. But here it clearly means where, because it introduces a question about location:

• ubi fons sub colle lateat = where the spring is hidden beneath the hill

So in this sentence it is a question word of place.

It can suggest either idea, and that is part of the richness of quaerere.

Depending on context, quaerere can mean:

• to ask
• to inquire
• to seek
• to look for

Here, because it is followed by an indirect question with ubi, the most natural understanding is:

• she asks where the spring is hidden
• or she seeks to know where the spring is hidden

So asks is probably the clearest English choice, but seeks to know is also close to the Latin sense.

Not a strict grammatical one. Latin often puts an adjective before the noun, especially a simple descriptive adjective like parva.

So:

• parva puella
• puella parva

both can mean little girl.

However, word order in Latin can create slight differences in emphasis or style. In a simple sentence like this, parva puella is just a natural, straightforward order.

You know mainly from the sense of the sentence.

The little girl is the person who wants to know where the spring is, and then the gardener shows her the way. So ei most naturally refers to puella.

Grammatically, ei could mean to him, to her, or to it, but context makes to her the right choice here.