Hi! Welcome to “Dusty Phrases.” You will find below an ancient phrase in one language or another, along with its English translation. You may also find the power to inspire your friends or provoke dread among your enemies.
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Latin:
Sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt
English:
There are tears for [or ‘of’] things and mortal things touch the mind
This is a quote from Virgil’s Aeneid, the poet’s tale of the mythological founding of Rome. At this particular part in the story, Aeneas is in Carthage, looking at a murals in a temple dedicated to Juno. The murals depict scenes from the siege of Troy. Aeneas is thus looking upon murals depicting the deaths of many of his friends.
What is not entirely clear within the translation is what exactly it means. (via wiki)
Lacrimae rerum (Latin: [ˈlakrɪmae̯ ˈreːrũː]) is the Latin phrase for “tears of things.” It derives from Book I, line 462 of the Aeneid (c. 29–19 BC), by Roman poet Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro) (70–19 BC). Some recent quotations have included rerum lacrimae sunt or sunt lacrimae rerum meaning “there are tears of (or for) things.”
Background
In this passage, Aeneas gazes at a mural found in a Carthaginian temple dedicated to Juno that depicts battles of the Trojan War and the deaths of his friends and countrymen. Aeneas is moved to tears and says “sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt” (“There are tears for [or ‘of’] things and mortal things touch the mind.”)
Two interpretations
The genitive “rerum” can be construed as “objective” or “subjective.” The scholar David Wharton observes that the “semantic and referential indeterminacy is both intentional and poetically productive, lending it an implicational richness most readers find attractive.” In English, however, a translator must choose either one or the other, and interpretation has varied. Those who take the genitive as subjective translate the phrase as meaning that things feel sorrow for the sufferings of humanity: the universe feels our pain. Others translate the passage to show that the burden human beings must bear, ever-present frailty and suffering, is what defines the essence of human experience. Yet in the next line, Aeneas says: “Release (your) fear; this fame will bring you some deliverance.” Those who take the genitive as objective understand the phrase as meaning that there are tears for things (in particular, the things Aeneas has endured) evinced in the mural: i.e., the paintings show Aeneas that he finds himself in a place where he can expect compassion and safety.
Context and translations
The context of the passage is as follows. Aeneas sees on the temple mural depictions of key figures in the Trojan War, the war from which he had been driven to the alien shores of Carthage as a refugee: the sons of Atreus (Agamemnon and Menelaus), Priam, and Achilles, who was savage to both sides in the war. He then cries out:
“Sunt hic etiam sua praemia laudi;
sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt.
Solve metus; feret haec aliquam tibi fama salutem.”
“Here, too, the praiseworthy has its rewards;
there are tears for things and mortal things touch the mind.
Release your fear; this fame will bring you some safety.”
Virgil, Aeneid, 1.461 ff.
A translation by Robert Fagles renders the quote as: “The world is a world of tears, and the burdens of mortality touch the heart.”
Robert Fitzgerald, meanwhile, translates it as: “They weep here / For how the world goes, and our life that passes / Touches their hearts.”
In his television series Civilisation, episode 1, Kenneth Clark translated this line as “These men know the pathos of life, and mortal things touch their hearts.”
The poet Seamus Heaney rendered the first three words, “There are tears at the heart of things.”
Usage
The phrase is sometimes taken out of context, on war memorials for example, as a sad sentiment about life’s inescapable sorrows. In the poem the phrase appears as Aeneas realizes that he need not fear for his safety, because he is among people who have compassion and an understanding of human sorrow.
In popular culture
“Sunt Lacrimae rerum” is the fifth piece in Franz Liszt‘s third and last volume of his Years of Pilgrimage (Années de pèlerinage).
David Mitchell uses the phrase as the last sign-off in the letters from Robert Frobisher to his friend Sixsmith in the penultimate section of his novel Cloud Atlas.
W. H. Auden uses the phrase in his poem ‘A Walk after Dark’.
In the introductory video of his YouTube series The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, John Koenig uses the phrase, and sentiment, to introduce his compendium of invented words that aims to fill holes in the English language—to give a name to ’emotions we all feel but don’t have a word for’.
The line was cited by Pope Francis in the 2020 papal encyclical Fratelli tutti, “On fraternity and social friendship,” in reference to the COVID-19 pandemic.
First thought, time travel would be most useful to ask historical figures “now what did you mean when you said this”. Second thought, I suppose it actually doesn’t matter what they meant, it means whatever it means to the reader.
I guess if you go back and alert the writer to the lack of clarity, maybe he or she writes it differently such that it means to the reader what was intended by the writer. But obviously then you’ve created a time paradox in the process. Maybe it’s best to let sleeping confusion lie.
It seemed to me that the original Latin was probably quite clear to the original audience, because they would have accepted the ambiguity as part of the truth. It annoys me when poets are ambiguous because they can’t make up their minds, but it’s amazing when the truth itself is ambiguous.
I suppose we’ll never really know, given the current limits of time travel. lol. I do agree though. Ambiguity as the answer, as opposed to ambiguity as a means of avoidance, can make a world of difference. It seems to me that the avoidant use of ambiguity often believes itself to be giving a truth, though.
An ancient Roman wouldn’t be better at translating their own poem into English than we would, but I do admit when I was an editor I often asked journalists what they meant by a sentence and we often used their explanation instead of the original attempt.