GAUDIUM SUB SOLE
Joy / Delight / Pleasure Beneath The Sun
A storage space for sundial inscriptions, and for the less sophisticated category of mottos:
I am a sundial, and I make a botch
Of what is done far better by a watch
Hilaire Belloc
The title for this blog came to me while I was considering how best to make use of a growing store of photos of medieval and other sundials. I checked my Latin, checked that the phrase is unique online, and pressed on.
I MARK THE PASSING HOUR AS THE SHADOWS COME AND GO
SHERBORNE . DORSET
HORAS NON NUMERO NISI SERENAS
Sundial House . Marine parade . Lyme Regis . Dorset
Gatty has a long entry (115) on this motto. Her translation is I only reckon the bright hours. She notes its use as a popular inscription, giving a dozen other locations where it can be found: the motto is too good to be uncommon. The earliest example of its use dates to c1500.
Full post HERE
WATCH AND PRAY : TIME STEALS AWAY
WATCH AND PRAY . REDEEME THE TIMES
St Mary . Stocklinch . Somerset
The words WATCH AND PRAY are inscribed above the dial face. Erosion and lichen have made it hard to see. Below the dial are the words REDEEME THE TIMES, with the final S fitted in above the line. The numerals – damaged LHS – are Arabic.
ST MARY . PENZANCE . CORNWALL
Solem quis dicere falsum audeat Who would dare to call the sun false (Virgil)
Tempus edax rerum Time the consumer of all things (Ovid
An unusual pairing of two classical quotations – full post HERE
HORAS TIBI SERENAS
Basilica of St Anthony . Padua . Veneto
MORNING GLORY
A simple mass-produced dial at a pub on Cerne Abbas, Dorset. A rather charming motto, and not one I had noticed before.
BUT ONLY IN TIME CAN THE MOMENT IN THE ROSE-GARDEN BE REMEMBERED
T.S. Eliot (modified from a passage in Burnt Norton, first of the Four Quartets) FULL POST HERE
SET ME RIGHT AND USE ME WELL
AND I YE TIME TO YOU WILL TELL*
This attractive garden dial, hard to date but not old. The dial design suggests a generic pattern rather than uniqueness. The motto seems to be very rare but is of course in Margaret Gatty’s voluminous work (as expanded 1900). Her entry for the motto GATTY Ref 1144 relates to a specific pocket watch only (she also cites a report of the wording on a similar watch):
Engraved is a ring of brass… and has, moving in a groove in its circumference, a narrower ring with a boss, pierced by a small hole to admit a ray of light. The latter ring is made moveable to allow for the varying declination of the sun in the several months of the year, and the initials of these are marked in ascending and descending scale on the larger ring which bears the motto. The hours are lined and numbered in the opposite concavity.”
SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MUNDI
THUS PASSES THE GLORY OF THE WORLD
Christ’s College Cambridge. Full post HERE
SOUVIENS TOI DE VIVRE
Rustic and rusty balcony dial, Morzine, France. Full details HERE
It is easier to gain agreement among philosophers than among timepieces
Magdalene College Cambridge
PALUD (Courmeyer) . ITALY
EMPUDIUM / EMPUDIVIM / EMPUDI VIM – DEO CASTRUM CAPTA
A charming rustic dial on the side of a farmhouse on the boundary of France and Italy. The motto is unique and a mystery. The overall meaning probably denotes the power of God symbolised by the capture of a stronghold, but Empudium or Empudi Vim is obscure. It doesn’t exist as a Latin word as such, but vim means ‘strength’ and fits in with the general notion.
PEREUNT ET IMPUTANTUR HORAE 1721
THE HOURS PASS AWAY AND ARE RECKONED
The motto is not unusual, and is taken epigrammatically from Martial. The generally encountered form is simply Pereunt et imputantur (eg Exeter Cathedral), generally translated as meaning something like they pass away and are accounted for / reckoned. There are variations on the theme in GATTY and elsewhere.
The version below – less commonly found – gives an additional dimension with the added word Horae which makes it clear that ‘they’ stands for hours / the passage of time.
NIL NISI NOBIS
NOTHING EXISTS WITHOUT US
Detailed post HERE
GO ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS
ST PETER & ST PAUL. CLARE . SUFFOLK 1790
LIFE’S BUT A WALKING SHADOW
MALMESBURY HOUSE . THE CLOSE . SALISBURY 1749
Detailed post HERE
LIFE PAS’S LIKE A SHADOW
The motto uses Suffolk dialect. Full details about this dial HERE
TEMPORA SERVIO
Hard to distinguish the exact detail, but this – or something similar – means ‘I serve the Times’
FUGIT HORA ORA
THE BOOK OF SUN-DIALS
MDCCC
ORIGINALLY COMPILED BY THE LATE MRS ALFRED GATTY
NOW ENLARGED AND RE-EDITED BY H. K. F. EDEN AND ELEANOR LLOYD
NON NISI COELESTI RADIO
The drawing of a dial on the cover of the Cambridge edition of The Book of Sun-Dials by Mrs Margaret Gatty, featured in the Dial Book section HERE. The rather strange-seeming motto (it is very rare to see the word ‘radio’ in its original usage) in archaic translation is Nought save by a ray from Heaven. The location of the dial is given as Haydon Bridge, Northumberland).
LUX POST UMBRAM
KIRKANDREWS-on-ESK . CUMBRIA
Commemorative dial on church tower, replacing clock – FULL POST HERE
UT UMBRA SIC VITA
ALL SAINTS . DEWLISH . DORSET
TEMPUS FUGIT
BRATTON . WILTS . ST JAMES THE GREAT 1801
The date is split by the motto: 18 ….. 01
UT VITA FINIS VITA
CHELSEA OLD CHURCH . LONDON
The dial below is, strictly, a modern dial. However it is a faithful restoration of the original of 1692. The church was flattened by bombs in 1941. My parents were married here the previous year. The neatly-rhyming motto Ut Vita Finis Ita seems (pace MG but mis-dated) to be unique:
| 1539. | UT VITA FINIS ITA. 1652. As the life is so is its end.On the tower of Chelsea Old Church. The dial has lately been repaired, and also the brick tower. Sir Thomas More lies buried in the church. |
Let Others Tell of Storms and Showers
I Only Count Your Sunny Hours
This is a modern mass-produced dial in various finishes, with an historic link to 1767. The motto, well-known in this or slightly different forms, reads Let Others Tell of Storms and Showers : I Only Count Your Sunny Hours. It’s a perfectly serviceable dial and doubtless gives pleasure to many as a garden feature. I have seen it listed online as if genuinely from 1767 (and at a competitive price).
COM MES SOL FA MES BE ESCRIC
VILLEFRANCHE-DE-CONFLENT: DOUBLE DIAL
Catalan, meaning roughly When it is sunny, I write (show the time) well. This rather charming inscription was apparently added around 2000 by the village pastor.
DE LABOR SOLARIS
TOURETTE LEVENS, FRANCE
Tourette Levens, a village near Nice. Undated but modern – lacking only an MM to be a millennial dial. Plain, simple, with letters / numbers presumably (and if so, pleasingly) cut by hand. A slightly bent gnomon. Sadly, behind bars when I saw it.
‘From the Sun’s Labour’. Variations of this motto exist, the closest being Pope John Paul II’s ‘De Labore Solis’. There are various religious speculations attached to this phrase and similar phrases, but not pursued by me
SOL VENIT
TANT ICI PASSERENT . LE TEMPS PASSE . NOUS PASSONS
SAINT GEORGES DE BOSCHERVILLE . NORMANDY
One of several sundials at this fine Church. It translates roughly as So much (time) has passed here. Time passes . We pass. but sounds better in the original.
CORNUBIAE HORTOS AMABANT
A charming memorial sundial in a lovely setting: A Couple (who) Loved Gardens
TYME PASETH
ST MARY . BUCKNELL . SHROPS
1712 seems unlikely, and the motto – as spelled – is not found elsewhere (and not in the comprehensive MG list). A pleasing design and nice coloration.
OUR DAYS ON THE EARTH ARE BUT A SHADOW
ST PETER AD VINCULA . BROAD HINTON . WILTS
The dial with its rather sombre motto was presumably placed on the porch during late C19 restoration. It is slightly angled for accuracy.
TIME LIKE AN EVER ROLLING STREAM
Millennium Dial . Fulham Road . London
SOL NOS ALIOS UMBRA
SÉES . NORMANDY . FRANCE
A modern dial on the facade of the Musée départemental d’Art Religieux. A somewhat selfish motto Sol nos alios umbra: ‘Pour nous le soleil, pour les autres l’ombre’ / For us, sunshine; for everyone else, shade.
CARPE DIEM
YVOIRE . LAC LÉMAN . FRANCE
VIGILATE ET ORATE
ST STEPHEN . CHARLTON MUSGROVE . SOMERSET
A dial dated 1916 set into the apex of the porch with the inscription Vigilate et Orate (Watch and Pray). The dial stone is slightly canted and the footing of the gnomon is on the 11 line for accuracy.
MULIER AMICTA SOLE
A modern tableau of 5 dials from medieval to modern. The inscription on the central dial MULIER AMICTER SOLE means ‘Woman Clothed by the Sun’ and references an account in the Book of Revelations. You can find out more HERE
GAUDIUM SUB SOLE . SUNDIALS . MEDIEVAL TO MODERN 