Latin Proverb for |
The voice of the people, the voice of God
This is one of the best-known Latin mottos and whose particular translation is proverbial in all the European languages: it proclaims the veracity of gossip derived from the public sphere or, at least, insists that an opinion which is shared by all cannot be false. This formulation is actually medieval: it appears for the first time in Alcuin (Capitulare Admonitionis ad Carolum IX [1.376 Baluzio]): for other attestations, cf. Sutphen 78; 229, Weyman 277. In the classical era, the same concept was already gnomic, beginning with Hesiod (Works and Days, 763 f.: φήμη δ' οὔ τις πάμπαν ἀπόλλυται, ἥν τινα πολλοί / λαοίφημίξωι · θεός νύ τίς ἐστι καὶ αὐτή , "gossip, which many people propagate, never dies away completely: actually she too is a goddess"); see also Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 938 and above all Seneca the Elder, Controversiae, 1.1 Sacra populi lingua est , "the speech of the people is sacred." This was the basis for the conception of all-powerful Fama as a divinity (for attestations, see W.J. Verdenius, Entretiens Hardt VII 153, and M.L. West, Hesiod. Works and Days, Oxford 1978, 345 f.). The lapidary version which is now so widespread, however, was probably influenced, in its formal construction, by the Vulgate of Isaiah, 66:6, where - in a series of invocations, thus lacking any gnomic meaning - vox populi appears side by side with vox Domini. A distant version might be seen in the anonymous Haud semper errat fama, "rumor is not always wrong" (Supplementum Morelianum, p. 36 Traina-Bini), which can be found in Tacitus (Life of Agricola, 9.8) and which has various corresponding forms in modern languages, from the Italian Pubblica fama non sempre vana and Non si grida al lupo che non sia can bigio, to the English Common fame is seldom to blame (which has its own particular equivalent in German; cf. also Arthaber 409). Finally, there are also many recurrences of Vox populi, vox Dei in modern literature: in particular, recall its appearance in La Fontaine (8.26) and a citation in Promessi Sposi (38.41).