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Festina lente

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The emblem of the dolphin and anchor which has been used since Roman times to illustrate the adage. This example is the printer's mark of Aldus

Festina lente or σπεῦδε βραδέως (speûde bradéōs) is a classical adage and oxymoron meaning "make haste slowly" or "more haste, less speed". It has been used as the motto of many people including the emperors Augustus and Titus, the Medicis and the Onslows.

History

The Roman historian Suetonius, in De vita Caesarum, tells that Augustus deplored rashness in a military commander and so σπεῦδε βραδέως was one of his favourite sayings:[1]

Nihil autem minus perfecto duci quam festinationem temeritatemque convenire arbitrabatur. Crebro itaque illa iactabat: σπεῦδε βραδέως; ἀσφαλὴς γάρ ἐστ᾽ ἀμείνων ἢ θρασὺς στρατηλάτης; et: "sat celeriter fieri quidquid fiat satis bene."

(He thought nothing less becoming in a well-trained leader than haste and rashness, and, accordingly, favourite sayings of his were: "More haste, less speed"; "Better a safe commander than a bold"; and "That is done quickly enough which is done well enough.")

Gold coins were minted for Augustus which bore the image of a crab and a butterfly,[2] which was considered to be emblematic of the adage.[3] Other pairings used to illustrate the adage include a hare in a snail shell; a chameleon with a fish; a diamond ring entwined with foliage; and, especially, a dolphin entwined around an anchor.[4][5] Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany had festina lente as his motto and illustrated it with a tortoise with a sail upon its back.[6]

Erasmus praised the adage in his great work, Adagia, and used it especially to compliment his printer—"Aldus, making haste slowly, has acquired as much gold as he has reputation, and richly deserves both." Aldus used the corresponding symbol of the dolphin and anchor as his printer's mark. He showed Erasmus a Roman silver coin, given to him by Cardinal Bembo, which bore this symbol on the reverse side.[7][8]

The adage was popular in renaissance times and Shakespeare alluded to it repeatedly. In Love's Labour's Lost, he copied the crab and butterfly imagery with the characters Moth and Armado.[9]

The great Onslow family of Shropshire, have the adage as their motto. This is a pun upon the family name—on-slow.[10]

Meaning

The meaning of the phrase is that activities should be performed with a proper balance of urgency and diligence. If tasks are rushed too quickly then mistakes are made and good long-term results are not achieved. Work is best done in a state of flow in which one is fully engaged by the task and there is no sense of time passing.[11] "Slow is smooth, smooth is fast."[12]

Quoted in Gilbert and Sullivan's "Iolanthe": "As the ancient Romans said, festina lente" The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan...p.257, Modern Library, New York.

Allusions

The phrase is used in physics to describe the Strong Confinement Limit or Festina Lente Limit, which is a mode of an atom laser in which the frequency of emission of the Bose-Einstein condensate is less than the confinement frequency of the trap.[13]

Goethe refers to the proverb in his poem Hermann und Dorothea, translating it with the rhyming German phrase, Eile mit Weile:[14]

Laßt uns auch diesmal doch nur die Mittelstraße betreten! Eile mit Weile! das war selbst Kaiser Augustus' Devise.
(Let us this time take the middle course. Make haste slowly: that was Emperor Augustus' motto.)

Also used as both the name of a Corporation (the Festina Lente Corporation) as well as a greeting used often by a secret society in Robin Sloan's "Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore."

See also

References

  1. ^ Suetonius, John Carew Wolfe, "Lives of the Caesars", Suetonius, vol. 1, ISBN 978-0-674-99570-3
  2. ^ W. Deonna (1954), "The Crab and the Butterfly: A Study in Animal Symbolism", Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 17 (1/2), The Warburg Institute: 47–86, JSTOR 750132
  3. ^ Gabriele Simeoni (1559), Le Imprese Heroiche et Morali, ISBN 978-1-149-36798-8
  4. ^ Gary M. Bouchard (2000), "Colin Clout's "Stayed Steps"", ISBN 978-1-57591-044-4 http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=mnGUUZbWS40C&pg=PA68 {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Text "Colin's campus: Cambridge life and the English eclogue" ignored (help)
  5. ^ Aleta Alekbarova (20 juin 2010), "M. Durmius' Aureus", L'Age d'Or de la Poésie latine {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  6. ^ Hope B. Werness (2006), "Turtle", The Continuum encyclopedia of animal symbolism in art, ISBN 978-0-8264-1913-2
  7. ^ Desiderius Erasmus, William Watson Barker (2001), The adages of Erasmus, University of Toronto Press, ISBN 0-8020-4874-9
  8. ^ "Some rare or unpublished Roman gold coins", The Numismatic Chronicle and Journal of the Numismatic Society, 7–8, Royal Numismatic Society: 225
  9. ^ John McMichaels, "Allegories of Rhetoric and Dialectic in Shakespeare's Plays", Allegoria Paranoia
  10. ^ Mark Antony Lower (1860), "Onslow", Patronymica Britannica
  11. ^ Karlin Sloan, Lindsey Pollak, "Festina Lente", Smarter, faster, better
  12. ^ Anonymous, How do you interpert [sic] the quote Slow is smooth Smooth is fast?
  13. ^ Filip Floegel (2003), Optical Loading of a Bose–Einstein Condensate (PDF), retrieved 2010-09-16
  14. ^ Scottish notes and queries, D. Wyllie and son, 1895, p. 104
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