''Festina lente'' () or ''speûde bradéōs'' (, ) is a classical

adage An adage (; Latin: adagium) is a memorable and usually philosophical aphorism that communicates an important truth derived from experience, custom, or both, and that many people consider true and credible because of its longeval tradition, i.e. ...

and

oxymoron An oxymoron (usual plural oxymorons, more rarely oxymora) is a figure of speech that juxtaposes concepts with opposing meanings within a word or phrase that creates an ostensible self-contradiction. An oxymoron can be used as a rhetorical devi ...

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 Pri ...

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 Muge ...

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 Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (), commonly referred to as Suetonius ( ; c. AD 69 – after AD 122), was a Roman historian who wrote during the early Imperial era of the Roman Empire. His most important surviving work is a set of biographies ...

, in ''

De vita Caesarum ''De vita Caesarum'' (Latin; "About the Life of the Caesars"), commonly known as ''The Twelve Caesars'', is a set of twelve biographies of Julius Caesar and the first 11 emperors of the Roman Empire written by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus. The g ...

'', 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 Buffa ...

s minted for Augustus bore images of a

crab Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura, which typically have a very short projecting "tail" (abdomen) ( el, βραχύς , translit=brachys = short, / = tail), usually hidden entirely under the thorax. They live in all the ...

and a

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

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

hare Hares and jackrabbits are mammals belonging to the genus ''Lepus''. They are herbivores, and live solitarily or in pairs. They nest in slight depressions called forms, and their young are able to fend for themselves shortly after birth. The ge ...

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 Chameleons or chamaeleons (family Chamaeleonidae) are a distinctive and highly specialized clade of Old World lizards with 202 species described as of June 2015. The members of this family are best known for their distinct range of colors, bein ...

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 li ...

; 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 ἄγ ...

Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany Cosimo I de' Medici (12 June 1519 – 21 April 1574) was the second Duke of Florence from 1537 until 1569, when he became the first Grand Duke of Tuscany, a title he held until his death. Life Rise to power Cosimo was born in Florence on 12 ...

took ''festina lente'' as his motto and symbolised it with a

sail A sail is a tensile structure—which is made from fabric or other membrane materials—that uses wind power to propel sailing craft, including sailing ships, sailboats, windsurfers, ice boats, and even sail-powered land vehicles. Sails may ...

-backed

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

. This emblem appears repeatedly throughout his

Palazzo Vecchio The Palazzo Vecchio ( "Old Palace") is the City hall, town hall of Florence, Italy. It overlooks the Piazza della Signoria, which holds a copy of Michelangelo's ''David (Michelangelo), David'' statue, and the gallery of statues in the adjacent ...

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, Sculpt ...

. 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 Aldus Pius Manutius (; it, Aldo Pio Manuzio; 6 February 1515) was an Italian printer and humanist who founded the Aldine Press. Manutius devoted the later part of his life to publishing and disseminating rare texts. His interest in and preserv ...

adopted the symbol of the dolphin and anchor as his

printer's mark A printer's mark, device, emblem or insignia is a symbol that was used as a trademark by early printers starting in the 15th century. The first printer's mark is found in the 1457 Mainz Psalter by Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer. One of the mos ...

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'' wa ...

(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 monumen ...

'' 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 Reverse or reversing may refer to: Arts and media * ''Reverse'' (Eldritch album), 2001 * ''Reverse'' (2009 film), a Polish comedy-drama film * ''Reverse'' (2019 film), an Iranian crime-drama film * ''Reverse'' (Morandi album), 2005 * ''Reverse'' ...

side. The adage was popular in the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

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 nation ...

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 Nicolas or Nicolás may refer to: People Given name * Nicolas (given name) Mononym * Nicolas (footballer, born 1999), Brazilian footballer * Nicolas (footballer, born 2000), Brazilian footballer Surname Nicolas * Dafydd Nicolas (c.1705–1774), ...

, 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 Jean de La Fontaine (, , ; 8 July 162113 April 1695) was a French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He is known above all for his ''Fables'', which provided a model for subsequent fabulists across Euro ...

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 th ...

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 Sir Matthew Hale (1 November 1609 – 25 December 1676) was an influential English barrister, judge and jurist most noted for his treatise ''Historia Placitorum Coronæ'', or ''The History of the Pleas of the Crown''. Born to a barrister and ...

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 An atom laser is a coherent state of propagating atoms. They are created out of a Bose–Einstein condensate of atoms that are output coupled using various techniques. Much like an optical laser, an atom laser is a coherent beam that behaves like ...

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 −459.67&n ...

is less than the confinement frequency of the trap. Composer

Arvo Pärt Arvo Pärt (; born 11 September 1935) is an Estonian composer of contemporary classical music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs tintinnabuli, a compositional technique he invented. Pärt's music is in pa ...

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 treat ...

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 ''Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore'' is a 2012 novel by American writer Robin Sloan. It was chosen as one of the best 100 books of 2012 by the ''San Francisco Chronicle'', was a ''New York Times'' Editor's Choice, and was on the New York Times Har ...

'' by

Robin Sloan Robin Sloan is an American author. His debut novel, '' Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore'', was published in 2012. Early life Sloan was born to a home economics teacher and an appliance salesman. He grew up in Troy, Michigan, where he attended ...

involves a

secret society A secret society is a club or an organization whose activities, events, inner functioning, or membership are concealed. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence a ...

devoted to

, 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 Gabriele is both a given name and a surname. Notable people with the name include: Given name Surname * Al Gabriele, American comic book artist *Angel Gabriele (1956–2016), American comic book artist * Corrado Gabriele (born 1966), Italian poli ...

, 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 Gilbert Burnet (18 September 1643 – 17 March 1715) was a Scottish philosopher and historian, and Bishop of Salisbury. He was fluent in Dutch, French, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Burnet was highly respected as a cleric, a preacher, an academic, ...

, 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