Hinc illae lacrimae

"Hinc illae lacrimae" is a line from the comedy Andria, by the Roman poet Terence. The phrase has, since the era of the Roman Republic, been appropriated for use as a popular saying or quotation, to be employed when a previously-obscured reason or explanation—for some action or behavior—is recognized; and, especially, when a baser motivation is thereby identified, contra an nobler one.

Background

In line 126 of the comedy Andria, Terence has character Simo comment—to interlocutor Sosias—upon the tears of his son, Pamphilus, at the funeral of a neighbor. At first, Simo assumes that the display is an indication of his son's deep sympathy for the departed, and is pleased that Pamphilus is so evidently noble-hearted; but, upon seeing that the funeral procession includes the deceased's pretty younger sister—and thereby realizing that his son's "grief" is only feigned, as a pretext for becoming closer to the girl—Simo erupts with: Hinc illae lacrimae, haec illast misericordia!

Use in literature

The phrase was borrowed as early as 56 BC, by Cicero in his speech Pro Caelio, and was used again in 20 BC by Horace, in the first book of his Epistulae. This relatively early appropriation by eminent Roman authors, along with the initial and enduring popularity of the play itself, has led to the phrase becoming a familiar quotation within the Western cultural sphere.
Notable uses of or allusions to the phrase also occur, more recently, in the letters of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and—in a play on the original —in Trollope's 1882 novel ''Phineas Redux.''