tempus judex rerum
I am thinking about a good way of saying “Time Judged All” in Latin. Curiously, the literal formulation appears not to be attested in literature until its late 18th century use by August Ludwig von Schlözer: “Judex rerum omnium tempus, diligensque Tuorum ministrorum inquisitio, multa inopinata, quae adhuc latent, modo Deus intersit, nobis aperient.” The traditional way of expressing the underlying thought is the Greek “Χρόνος τὰ κρυπτὰ πάντα πρὸς τὸ φῶς ἄγει”, time brings to light all hidden things, of Menandri Sententiae 592, or the more concise “πάντ' ἀναπτύσσει χρόνος”, time reveals all, of Sophocles’ Fragment 301. In Latin, this thought is rendered by Aulus Gellius in Attic Nights, XII.11, as “Veritas temporis filia”, truth is the daughter of time. Erasmus cites a paraphrase of this thought, “Tempus omnia revelat”, time reveals all things, as Adagia II.iv.17. Francis Bacon amplifies the formulation of Aulus Gellius as “Recte enim Veritas Temporis filia dicitur, non Authoritatis”, truth is rightly called the daughter of time, not of authority, in Novum Organum I.84. Thomas Nashe paraphrases it in English: “Veritas temporis filia, it is only time that revealeth all things.” Shakespeare is more prolix in The Rape of Lucrece 990-1010:Time’s glory is to calm contending kings,
To unmask falsehood and bring truth to light,
To stamp the seal of time in aged things,
To wake the morn of sentinel the night,
To wrong the wronger till he render right,
To ruinate proud buildings with thy hour
And smear with dust their glittering golden towers;
To fill with worm-holes stately monuments,
To feed oblivion with decay of things,
To blot old books and alter their contents,
To pluck the quills from ancient ravens’ wings,
To dry the old oak’s sap and cherish springs,
To spoil antiquities of hammer’d steel,
And turn the giddy round of Fortune’s wheel;
To show the beldam daughters of her daughter,
To make the child a man, the man a child,
To slay the tiger that doth live by slaughter,
To tame the unicorn and lion wild,
To mock the subtle in themselves beguiled,
To cheer the ploughman with increaseful crops,
And waste huge stones with little water drops.
Few mortal judges enjoy such abounding authority.
A more ominous sense of judging is captured by Ovid in Metamorphoses XV.234-236:Tempus edax rerum, tuque, invidiosa vetustas,
omnia destruitis, vitiataque dentibus aevi
paulatim lenta consumitis omnia morte.
As rendered by Arthur Golding in 1567:Thou tyme the eater up of things, and age of spyghtfull teene,
Destroy all things. And when that long continuance hath them bit,
You leysurely by lingring death consume them every whit.
“Tempus edax rerum” is proverbial, e.g. as employed in the slogan “le temps détruit tout” at the portentous ending of the movie Irreversible by Gaspar Noé.
To unmask falsehood and bring truth to light,
To stamp the seal of time in aged things,
To wake the morn of sentinel the night,
To wrong the wronger till he render right,
To ruinate proud buildings with thy hour
And smear with dust their glittering golden towers;
To fill with worm-holes stately monuments,
To feed oblivion with decay of things,
To blot old books and alter their contents,
To pluck the quills from ancient ravens’ wings,
To dry the old oak’s sap and cherish springs,
To spoil antiquities of hammer’d steel,
And turn the giddy round of Fortune’s wheel;
To show the beldam daughters of her daughter,
To make the child a man, the man a child,
To slay the tiger that doth live by slaughter,
To tame the unicorn and lion wild,
To mock the subtle in themselves beguiled,
To cheer the ploughman with increaseful crops,
And waste huge stones with little water drops.
Few mortal judges enjoy such abounding authority.
A more ominous sense of judging is captured by Ovid in Metamorphoses XV.234-236:Tempus edax rerum, tuque, invidiosa vetustas,
omnia destruitis, vitiataque dentibus aevi
paulatim lenta consumitis omnia morte.
As rendered by Arthur Golding in 1567:Thou tyme the eater up of things, and age of spyghtfull teene,
Destroy all things. And when that long continuance hath them bit,
You leysurely by lingring death consume them every whit.
“Tempus edax rerum” is proverbial, e.g. as employed in the slogan “le temps détruit tout” at the portentous ending of the movie Irreversible by Gaspar Noé.