Tears of Things

A fun suggestion from on Twitter about the line lacrimae rerum  in The Aeneid. It could be construed as tears-within-things or the capacity of things in general to be melancholic as opposed to (human) tears-for-things. I'm pasting a relevant part of the Wikipedia page below. What do you think?

The context of the passage is as follows: Aeneas sees on the temple mural depictions of key figures in the Trojan War – the war from which he had been driven to the alien shores of Carthage as a refugee: the sons of Atreus (Agamemnon and Menelaus), Priam, and Achilles, who was savage to both sides in the war. He then cries out:

Sunt hic etiam sua praemia laudi;
sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt.
Solve metus; feret haec aliquam tibi fama salutem.

Here, too, the praiseworthy has its rewards;
there are tears for things and mortal things touch the mind.
Release your fear; this fame will bring you some safety.
Virgil, Aeneid, 1.461 ff.

A translation by Robert Fagles renders the quote as: "The world is a world of tears, and the burdens of mortality touch the heart."[3]

Robert Fitzgerald, meanwhile, translates it as: "They weep here / For how the world goes, and our life that passes \ Touches their hearts."[4]

In his television series Civilisation, episode 1, Kenneth Clark translated this line as "These men know the pathos of life, and mortal things touch their hearts."[5]

The poet Seamus Heaney rendered the first three words, "There are tears at the heart of things."[6]


The line is notable for being taken and used out of context (e.g. on war memorials) as a sad sentiment about the 'world of tears' (as Fagles translates). But ironically, in its context it is an expression of hope and optimism: this is the point at which Aeneas realises that he need not fear for his safety, because he is among people who have compassion and an understanding of human sorrow.