''Festina lente'' () or ''speûde bradéōs'' (, ) is a classical adage and oxymoron meaning "make haste slowly" (sometimes rendered in English as "more haste, less speed"). It has been adopted as a

motto A motto (derived from the Latin , 'mutter', by way of Italian , 'word' or 'sentence') is a sentence or phrase expressing a belief or purpose, or the general motivation or intention of an individual, family, social group, or organisation. Mot ...

numerous times, particularly by the emperors

Augustus Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pr ...

and

Titus Titus Caesar Vespasianus ( ; 30 December 39 – 13 September 81 AD) was Roman emperor from 79 to 81. A member of the Flavian dynasty, Titus succeeded his father Vespasian upon his death. Before becoming emperor, Titus gained renown as a mili ...

, the

Medici The House of Medici ( , ) was an Italian banking family and political dynasty that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici, in the Republic of Florence during the first half of the 15th century. The family originated in the Mu ...

s and the Onslows. The original form of the saying, ''speũde bradéōs'', is

Classical Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

, of which ''festina lente'' is the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

translation. The words and ''festina'' are second-person-singular present active imperatives, meaning "make haste", while and ''lente'' are adverbs, meaning "slowly".

History

The Roman historian Suetonius, in '' De vita Caesarum'', tells that Augustus deplored rashness in a military commander, thus "" was one of his favourite sayings: Certain

gold coin A gold coin is a coin that is made mostly or entirely of gold. Most gold coins minted since 1800 are 90–92% gold (22karat), while most of today's gold bullion coins are pure gold, such as the Britannia, Canadian Maple Leaf, and American Buf ...

s minted for Augustus bore images of a crab and a

butterfly Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group comprise ...

to attempt an emblem for the adage. Other such visualizations include a hare in a

snail shell The gastropod shell is part of the body of a Gastropoda, gastropod or snail, a kind of mollusc. The shell is an exoskeleton, which protects from predators, mechanical damage, and dehydration, but also serves for muscle attachment and calcium s ...

; a chameleon with a

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of ...

; a diamond ring entwined with

foliage A leaf ( : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, s ...

; and perhaps most recognizably, a

dolphin A dolphin is an aquatic mammal within the infraorder Cetacea. Dolphin species belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontoporiidae (the ...

entwined around an

anchor An anchor is a device, normally made of metal , used to secure a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the craft from drifting due to wind or current. The word derives from Latin ''ancora'', which itself comes from the Greek ἄ� ...

. Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany took ''festina lente'' as his motto and symbolised it with a sail-backed

tortoise Tortoises () are reptiles of the family Testudinidae of the order Testudines (Latin: ''tortoise''). Like other turtles, tortoises have a shell to protect from predation and other threats. The shell in tortoises is generally hard, and like oth ...

. This emblem appears repeatedly throughout his Palazzo Vecchio where it was painted by the artist

Giorgio Vasari Giorgio Vasari (, also , ; 30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574) was an Italian Renaissance Master, who worked as a painter, architect, engineer, writer, and historian, who is best known for his work '' The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculp ...

. There are about 100 instances in the palace decorations and frescos and there are now tours with the object of finding them all. The Renaissance printer Aldus Manutius adopted the symbol of the dolphin and anchor as his printer's mark.

Erasmus Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (; ; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus;''Erasmus'' was his baptismal name, given after St. Erasmus of Formiae. ''Desiderius'' was an adopted additional name, which he used from 1496. The ''Roterodamus'' w ...

(whose books were published by Manutius) featured the phrase in his ''

Adagia ''Adagia'' (singular ''adagium'') is the title of an annotated collection of Greek and Latin proverbs, compiled during the Renaissance by Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus. Erasmus' collection of proverbs is "one of the most monume ...

'' and used it to compliment his printer: "Aldus, making haste slowly, has acquired as much gold as he has reputation, and richly deserves both." Manutius showed Erasmus a Roman silver coin, given to him by Cardinal Bembo, which bore the dolphin-and-anchor symbol on the reverse side. The adage was popular in the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

era and

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

alluded to it repeatedly. In '' Love's Labour's Lost'', he copied the crab and butterfly imagery with the characters Moth and Armado. The French poet and critic Nicolas Boileau, in his ''Art poétique (The Art of Poetry)'' (1674) applied the dictum specifically to the work of the writer, whom he advised in those words: Jean de la Fontaine alluded to the motto in his famous fable of "The Hare and the Tortoise" (''

Fables Fable is a literary genre: a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or leads to a particular moral ...

'', 1668–94), writing that the tortoise "with a prudent wisdom hastens slowly". The Onslow family of

Shropshire Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to ...

has the adage as its motto, generating a

pun A pun, also known as paronomasia, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use of homophoni ...

upon the family name: "on-slow". The adage was a favourite of the influential judge, Sir Matthew Hale,

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.

Allusions

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

, the name "Festina Lente Limit" has been applied to the Strong Confinement Limit, which is a mode of an atom laser in which the frequency of emission of the

Bose–Einstein condensate In condensed matter physics, a Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) is a state of matter that is typically formed when a gas of bosons at very low densities is cooled to temperatures very close to absolute zero (−273.15 °C or −459.6 ...

is less than the confinement frequency of the trap. Composer Arvo Pärt wrote ''Festina lente'' for strings and harp, in which some instruments play the melody at half-speed while others play it at double-speed, so the music is both fast and slow.

Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as tr ...

refers to both the proverb and Augustus' adoption of it in his poem '' Hermann und Dorothea'' (helpfully for poetry, the German rendition itself rhymes—"''Eile mit Weile''"): The Lord Chancellor uses the phrase in W S Gilbert's '' Iolanthe'': "Recollect yourself I pray, and be careful what you say — as the ancient Romans said, ''festina lente''." In Bram Stoker's 1897 novel ''Dracula'', Dr. Van Helsing says of Count Dracula, "He has all along, since his coming, been trying his power, slowly but surely; that big child-brain of his is working. Well for us, it is, as yet, a child brain; for had he dared, at the first, to attempt certain things he would long ago have been beyond our power. However, he means to succeed, and a man who has centuries before him can afford to wait and to go slow. ''Festina lente'' may well be his motto."Stoker, Bram. ''Dracula.'' London: Arcturus Publishing, 1897. pages 282-283. Print. The novel '' Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore'' by Robin Sloan involves a secret society devoted to Aldus Manutius, whose members use "Festina lente" as a motto/greeting.

References

{{reflist, refs= {{citation , title=Suetonius , volume=1 , chapter=Lives of the Caesars , author=Suetonius, John Carew Wolfe , year=1998 , isbn=978-0-674-99570-3 {{citation , chapter-url=http://golden-age.over-blog.com/article-m-durmius-aureus-52629759.html , title=L'Age d'Or de la Poésie latine , date= 20 June 2010 , chapter=M. Durmius’ Aureus , author=Aleta Alekbarova {{citation , title=Some rare or unpublished Roman gold coins , journal=The Numismatic Chronicle and Journal of the Numismatic Society , volume=7-8 , publisher=

Royal Numismatic Society The Royal Numismatic Society (RNS) is a learned society and charity based in London, United Kingdom which promotes research into all branches of numismatics. Its patron was Queen Elizabeth II. Membership Foremost collectors and researchers, bo ...

, page=225 {{citation , author=C. Suetonius Tranquillus, translated by Alexander Thomson , title=The Live of the Twelve Caesars , url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/6400/6400-h/6400-h.htm#link2H_4_0003 , publisher=Project Gutenberg , ref=Thomson {{citation , title=The Crab and the Butterfly: A Study in Animal Symbolism , author=W. Deonna , journal=Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes , volume=17 , number=1/2 , year=1954 , pages=47–86 , publisher=The Warburg Institute , doi=10.2307/750132 , jstor=750132, s2cid=192413638 {{citation , title=Le Imprese Heroiche et Morali , author= Gabriele Simeoni , isbn=978-1-149-36798-8 , year=1559 {{citation , title=Colin's campus: Cambridge life and the English eclogue , author=Gary M. Bouchard , chapter=Colin Clout's "Stayed Steps" , year=2000 , isbn=978-1-57591-044-4 {{citation , title=The Continuum Encyclopedia of Animal Symbolism in Art , author=Hope B. Werness , chapter=Turtle , year=2006 , isbn=978-0-8264-1913-2 {{citation , author=Desiderius Erasmus, William Watson Barker , title=The adages of Erasmus , isbn=0-8020-4874-9 , publisher=University of Toronto Press , year=2001 {{citation , chapter-url=http://allegoriaparanoia.com/shakespeare/balklogic/appendix2.html , chapter=Allegories of Rhetoric and Dialectic in Shakespeare's Plays , title=Allegoria Paranoia , author=John McMichaels {{citation , editor=Charles Dudley Warner , title=A Library of the World's Best Literature , volume=V , location=New York , publisher=The International Society , year=1896 , page=2144 , quote=The translator originally chose "Gently make haste", here turned back to "Slowly make haste", which is more faithful to the French "lentement" {{citation , author=Jean de la Fontaine , title=The Fables of La Fontaine , translator=Elizur Wright Jr. , location=London , publisher=William Smith , year=1842 , page=36 {{citation , title=Patronymica Britannica , author=Mark Antony Lower , chapter=Onslow , year=1860 {{citation , title=The Life and Death of Sir Matthew Hale , page=86 , author= Gilbert Burnet , year=1681 , publisher=William Shrowsbery {{citation , page=91 , title=Smarter, faster, better , author=Karlin Sloan, Lindsey Pollak , chapter=Festina Lente {{citation , url=https://medium.com/@stef/makefulness-737559ecb440 , title=Makefulness , author=Stef Lewandowski , date=5 August 2013 , publisher=Medium {{citation , url=http://deposit.ddb.de/cgi-bin/dokserv?idn=970681119&dok_var=d1&dok_ext=pdf&filename=970681119.pdf , title=Optical Loading of a Bose–Einstein Condensate , author=Filip Floegel , year=2003 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120225022525/http://deposit.ddb.de/cgi-bin/dokserv?idn=970681119&dok_var=d1&dok_ext=pdf&filename=970681119.pdf , archive-date=2012-02-25 , url-status=dead {{citation , url=https://thelistenersclub.com/2017/08/16/festina-lente-three-pieces-which-alter-our-perception-of-speed-and-time/ , title=Festina Lente: Three Pieces Which Alter Our Perception of Speed and Time , date=16 August 2017 , author=Timothy Judd , quote=The result is music which is both fast and slow {{citation , title=Scottish notes and queries , publisher=D. Wyllie and son , year=1895 , page=104 {{citation , pages=392–3 , title=The Complete Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan , editor=Ian C. Bradley , publisher=Oxford University Press , year=2001 , isbn=9780198167105 {{citation , url=https://www.motherjones.com/media/2012/11/robin-sloan-interview-penumbra-24-hour-bookstore/ , journal=Mother Jones , title=Robin Sloan's Low-Tech Triumph , date=14 November 2012 , quote=This phrase that’s repeated in the novel—''festina lente''—what’s that all about? {{citation , author=Marcia Feuerstein , title=Camillo Sitte's winged snail – ''Festina lente'' and escargot , pages=131–140 , year=2017 , work=Confabulations , isbn=978-1-4724-6932-8 , publisher=Routledge {{citation , url=https://musefirenze.it/en/attivita/favola-della-tartaruga-con-la-vela/ , title=The story of the turtle and the sail , publisher=Associazione MUS.E Adages Latin mottos Latin philosophical phrases

History

Meaning

Allusions

See also

References