‘Sic vos non vobis’ - The School Motto
The Roman poet Virgil coined the school's motto
John Richardson, Emeritus Professor of Classics, University of Edinburgh, discusses the Raglan Junior School motto: ‘‘Sic vos non vobis’:
The school’s motto, Sic vos non vobis, means ‘This you do, not for yourselves’. It comes from a story told about the great Roman poet Virgil, who wrote in the reign of the first Roman emperor, Augustus, and is chiefly know for his epic poem, the Aeneid, about the Trojan hero Aeneas, who escaped from the sack of Troy by the Greeks and (according to legend) came to Italy and became the founder of the Romans.
The story, found in a much later life of the poet, goes that Virgil wrote two lines of verse praising Augustus but did not add his name to the poem. When Augustus tried to discover who had written it, another poet, named Bathyllus, claimed that he had and was rewarded as a result. Virgil objected, and wrote down the words ‘sic vos non vobis’ (the first half of a line of hexameter poetry) four times. Augustus asked Bathyllus and others to complete the poem and, when none of them could, Virgil wrote down the following:
Hos ego versiculos feci, tulit alter honores.
Sic vos non vobis fertis aratra boves;
Sic vos non vobis mellificatis apes;
Sic vos non vobis vellera fertis oves;
Sic vos non vobis nidificatis aves.
I wrote these lines, another has gained the praise.
So you not for yourselves draw ploughs, you oxen;
So you not for yourselves make honey, bees;
So you not for yourselves bear fleeces, sheep;
So you not for yourselves build nests, O birds.
Virgil’s point (at least in the story) was not just that someone else had taken the credit for his poem but that unselfish work (‘by you, not just for you’) is itself praiseworthy. The Latin phrase has been widely used as a motto, both by individuals (such as Sir William Paterson, 1658-1719, Scottish merchant and founder of the Bank of England) and institutions (such as Van Mildert College in Durham University).