# Labor omnia vincit improbus



## gred

this is from Virgil, and please help / correct the English translation:

work conquers everything inferior

thanks


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## Fred_C

"Labor improbus" : hard work
"hard work conquers everything"


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## gred

Thanks for the clarification - gred


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## Stoicorum_simia

It shouldn't be 'vincit' (present) but 'vicit' (perfect) - only a few inferior manuscripts have 'vincit'. With 'vincit', you have a nice, edifying motto as Fred_C has given it, and this is indeed a very familiar form. But in context, Virgil was writing about a particular time, the decline from the Golden Age, and why, in contrast to then, we now have to work. It's a complicated passage balancing optimism and pessimism - like the whole of the Georgics - but the immediate meaning is more like 'loathsome drudgery overcame everything'.


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## gred

That's very interesting and helpful.  My source was a book's section on refranes and proverbs from the Libro de Buen Amor - 14th c. Spain.  The author, from early 20th c., gave this quote of Virgil as related to the Spanish refrane "steadfast toil overcomes all things" (translated to English).  The "toil" and your "drudgery" are close to the same.


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## gred

Stoicorum_simia - could you share what work of Virgil this is found in?

I just found another refran in the Spanish work that refers to this quote of Virgil - in English - "steadfast toil overcomes all things" - equal to the first but in a different section of the book.


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## Stoicorum_simia

It's Georgics 1.145-6: labor omnia vicit/improbus et duris urgens in rebus egestas ('loathsome toil, and poverty, pressing in harsh circumstances, prevailed over everything' - sorry that's not a very nice translation, but I think conveys the meaning)
Mynors in his comm. reviews the evidence for the sense of 'improbus' and concludes that here 'labor is a bad thing...pitiless, unrelenting toil'. He goes on to say '_Labor omnia vincit _[note present tense], however, is a saying dear to all generous hearts, especially those engaged in education (Erasmus, _Adagia_ 1.5.22, 2,2,53) and it is not surprising that _vincit_ should appear in the text here at least as early as the late fourth century when Jerome cites it in the preface to his version of Daniel; so too Macrobius, _Saturnalia_ 5.16.7'.


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## gred

Thanks - much appreciated.  It is interesting that both R. Willis in translating the Spanish refran and Mynors in his comentary chose the word "toil" in English.


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