Close to where I live, there is a building with the Latin inscription omnia vincit labor. On the surface, it doesn’t seem very remarkable: “work conquers all” is something any good Protestant would subscribe to. This phrase, or the more common variant labor omnia vincit, can be found on several buildings and is used as a motto by cities, states, and organizations all over the Latin-influenced parts of the world.
However, there is a somewhat darker meaning hiding underneath the surface. The phrase was taken from Vergil’s Georgica, a long poem (four books) about agriculture, where it concludes a little theodicy section: a section that explains why the gods allow the world to be as hostile and painful as it is.
In the following I quote sentences from the original passage in the first book, followed by short English summaries. If you trust me, you can skip the Latin text.
[…] Pater ipse colendi
haud facilem esse viam voluit, primusque per artem
movit agros, curis acuens mortalia corda,
nec torpere gravi passus sua regna veterno.
“The father”1 himself didn’t want farming to be easy. He was the first to (skillfully) work the fields, making the people care2, so they wouldn’t get lethargic.
Ante Iovem nulli subigebant arva coloni:
ne signare quidem aut partiri limite campum
fas erat; in medium quaerebant, ipsaque tellus
omnia liberius nullo poscente ferebat.
Before Jupiter, there was no concept of property, and Earth3 provided what people needed without them even asking.
Ille malum virus serpentibus addidit atris,
praedarique lupos iussit pontumque moveri,
mellaque decussit foliis, ignemque removit,
et passim rivis currentia vina repressit,
ut varias usus meditando extunderet artes
paulatim, et sulcis frumenti quaereret herbam,
et silicis venis abstrusum excuderet ignem.
Then Jupiter destroyed this paradise4 and thereby forced them to learn various skills to survive.
Tunc alnos primum fluvii sensere cavatas;
navita tum stellis numeros et nomina fecit,
Pleiadas, Hyadas claramque Lycaonis Arcton;
tum laqueis captare feras et fallere visco
inventum, et magnos canibus circumdare saltus;
atque alius latum funda iam verberat amnem
alta petens, pelagoque alius trahit umida lina;
tum ferri rigor atque argutae lamina serrae
(nam primi cuneis scindebant fissile lignum);
tum variae venere artes. […]
People started observing the stars, hunting, fishing, forging, … and thus
[…] Labor omnia vicit
improbus et duris urgens in rebus egestas.
everything was conquered5 by relentless toil6 and dire need.
I’m not sure whether colendī belongs to pater or viam, to be honest. I’m going with colendī viam here, but “the father of agriculture” would also make sense.↩︎
or worry, with an alternative, less positive sense of cūra↩︎
tellūs, feminine↩︎
I’m calling it paradise. The word doesn’t appear in the text.↩︎
Note that in the original we have vīcit (perfect), not vincit (present). So this describes something that was completed, not some general truth.↩︎
The adjective improbus clearly adds a negative spin to labor, so “toil” is a more accurate translation than just “work”.↩︎