Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

Sic transit

Sic transit gloria mundi – “So passes the glory of the world.” This Latin observation pops up in all sorts of places. Few people, however, seem aware of where it comes from. Just about everyone, it seems, knows that Julius Caesar said veni, vidi, vici. Fewer are aware of Horace’s authorship of the equally famous carpe diem, but a substantial number do. But almost nobody knows where sic transit comes from, it seems. And yet, it’s almost as well known as the others.

We can certainly see why it would be remembered. The sentiment it expresses is a perennial truth. Authors have developed the theme for millennia. from the Bible’s Book of Ecclesiastes to Percy Shelley’s Ozymandias and beyond. But where does this particular striking expression of the idea originate?

Memento Mori

You might be surprised to know that it actually hasn’t been with us that long. At least, compared to the Classical Roman quotes above. The earliest record of Sic transit gloria mundi is from only 600 years ago. It appears in 1409, as part of the coronation ceremony for Pope Alexander V. It remained a feature of the coronation liturgy until Pope Paul VI’s installation in 1963. The master of ceremonies would kneel before the new pope three times. Each time he knelt he set a cloth on fire. As the cloth burned away to nothing he would intone: Pater sancte, sic transit gloria mundi (“Holy father, so passes the glory of the world”).

sic transit — **The Triumphs of Caesar IX***, by Andrea Mantegna, 1488 (detail)*

This is an echo, whether intentional or not, of the pre-Christian Roman Triumph. The Roman Senate would sometimes award a successful general, an imperator, a triumph. The triumphator (the triumphing general) would then parade through Rome with his troops. The triumph always followed the same route through the city (the Via Sacra, or “Sacred Way”), with a set ritual. The triumphator rode through the city in a special kind of chariot. He painted his face red and wore regalia that identified him with the god Jupiter.

Some of the other details, however, were of a different order. His troops sang mocking, often ribald songs about him to remind him that he was not really Jupiter. He remained a mere man. In case the triumphator didn’t get the hint, there was another, more explicit reminder. A slave stood behind him in the chariot. His job was to whisper a single short sentence repeatedly in the general’s ear. This was another now-famous quote: Memento mori. Remember that you will die.

Language Lessons

Aside from the moral content, this quote offers plenty of language lessons for the student of Latin.

Sic, thus. It often indicates that an adverbial clause of result with a verb in the subjunctive mood will follow. It becomes si, the word for “yes,” in Italian, Spanish, and (sometimes) French. It’s also an editorial notation in English. We enclose it in brackets and insert it into a quote to indicate that a spelling or grammar mistake is in the original source material. It is to say, “The person I’m quoting made the mistake, I didn’t!”

Transit, the 3rd person singular of the irregular word transeo. Trans (across) + eo, ire (go). A transition in English is a “going across,” whether literal of figurative. A “rapid transit” system goeas across town (rapidly, of course).

Gloria – this one is easy: glory, glorious, vainglorious, the woman’s name Gloria.

Mundi – the genitive of Mundus. The English mundane comes from this word. That is, “ordinary.” Of this world, as opposed to celestial, which comes from caelum, “heaven.” It also give us the Spanish el Mundo and the French le Monde.

A Quotable Quote

As for the sentiment it expresses, well, it’s universal. We see it everywhere, in every age. It’s an eminently quotable quote. It has therefore turned up in a wide variety of places over the centuries.

**The Sailors Progress. Sic transit gloria Mundi,** *by George Cruikshank, 1819. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons*

In the nineteenth century it featured in a famous print by George Cruikshank. Sic transit gloria mundi also appeared in the work of authors such as William Wordsworth, Leo Tolstoy, and Henrik Ibsen. It was the title and first line of Emily Dickenson’s first published poem. Dickenson’s poem, by the way, also includes memento mori, veni vidi vici, and numerous other allusions to quotable English expressions.

In the twentieth century it turns up in the work of authors as diverse as Catholic writer Robert Hugh Benson and science fiction author Robert Heinlein. Walter M. Miller, jr., who’s a little of both, includes it in his novel A Canticle for Lebowitz. It appears in a film adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death and in the movie comedy Foul Play.

There are many more examples. I’ll close with one of the most well-know, a take-off rather than an actual quote. When a last-minute deal averted a threatened New York City subway strike in 1979, the New York Daily News led the story with the following headline: