A Motto Fit for Aeneas, but Not, Perhaps, for the Bronx

August 26, 2012, 11:00 am

By SAM ROBERTS

Virgil never visited the Bronx, but his legacy endures there as the borough's official slogan, a proverb that seems to have been honored lately more in the breach than in the observance.

Exactly why the Bronx or its namesake, the Bronck family, adopted “Ne cede malis” as their motto has been lost to history. But given the litany of public officials who have run afoul of the law in recent years, perhaps Bronxites should consider a slogan more within reach.

“Do not yield to evil” doesn't seem to have worked very well. At least not in Latin.

The maxim â€" from Book 6 of the Aeneid, “The Descent to the Underworld” - was emblazoned on the borough's flag and seal in 1912. It was enshrined in the city's Administrative Code by the City Council in 1970, not long before corruption scandals toppled, among others, the Bronx borough president, two congressmen and the former Democratic county leader.

More recently, State Senators. Guy J. Velella, Israel Ruiz Jr., Efrain Gonzalez Jr. and Pedro Espado Jr. and City Councilman Larry B. Seabrook were convicted of illegalities. And in recent weeks, Assemblywoman Naomi Rivera has taken her turn in the hot seat, with ethics officials reported to be looking into claims that she put ex-lovers on the public payroll and siphoned money off a nonprofit she ran.

The advice to Aeneas about evil was imparted by an oracle, the Sibyl, who delivered it as Aeneas embarked on a tour of the underworld. The warning was immediately followed by an equally self-help oriented, but more positive prescription - “follow boldly wither fortune calls” - which, given all the charges of graft pending o r already proven, might make for a more relevant slogan.

The only other borough with a motto validated in the Administrative Code is Brooklyn. Its “Eendraght Maeckt Maght” was inspired by the credo of the United Dutch Provinces and means “unity makes strength” - an apparent reference to the merger of the borough's towns and villages, rather than to Brooklyn's subjugation in the 1898 consolidation that created Greater New York.

Lloyd Ultan, the Bronx borough historian, attributes the Bronx seal to August W. Schlemmer, a clerk in the borough president's office.

“It was the height of the progressive era, and everyone was looking for good government and it seemed like an appropriate motto for the time,” Mr. Ultan said.

The design and maxim were derived from the coat of arms of the family of Jonas Bronck, the Swede or Dane who sailed from the Netherlands in 1639 and pronounced the borough that would bear his family's name “a veritable parad ise.”

Mr. Ultan is skeptical, though, that the Bronck family crest is that old. “Bronck was of no noble character at all,” he said, “and in the 19th century people put on airs.”

Scholars are divided, too, over just what Virgil meant.

“The puzzle is that Virgil represents the Sibyl as speaking ambiguously and misleadingly; most of what she says is contradicted later, often by herself,” said Frederick M. Ahl, a classics professor at Cornell.

So what might be a more fitting model?

David Wilson-Kamaura, an English professor at East Carolina University, suggested that one translation - “Don't give in to wicked men”- would make “a good motto for an Eliot Ness-era T-man.” He suggested instead another verse from the “Aeneid”: “Learn manliness from me, boy, and the true meaning of labor. But for good luck, study someone else.”

“That would fit some politicians we know,” Professor Wilson-Kamaura said.

But Rober t Klein, the Bronx-born comedian, proposed rejecting Virgil altogether. He suggested a credo that capitalizes on the Bronx's unique geographical status among the boroughs. “How about, ‘No man is a mainland,'” Mr. Klein quipped.

Mark D. Naison, professor of African American studies and history at Fordham, agreed that the Bronx needed a new new motto - “one that reflects the borough's resiliency in the face of disinvestment, arson, fiscal crises, political corruption, white and middle class flight.

“The Bronx has been substantially rebuilt since the fires that swept through it in the late 60's and the 70's and is filled with new groups of immigrants, West Africans, Dominicans, Mexicans, South Asians who flock to the Bronx as the last affordable place to live in New York City,” Prof. Naison said. “‘Do not give in to evil' does not, for me capture the Bronx's unique history in the last five years. ‘Where the cultures of the globe come together' is t o me a much better reflection of the Bronx's current reality.”

But, few officials in the Bronx seem ready to reject Virgil.

“It's been around for 100 years and has served very well for a guide,” said Mr. Ultan. “If anybody breaks that particular motto he could be said to oppose the entire reason for government and could be put on trial, which proves it's a motto that should be followed.”

Ruben Diaz Jr., the borough president, invoked the motto in his 2009 inaugural address as, he recalled, “an inspiration for the future growth of our borough in the face of adversity. With that said,” he added, “it would be disrespectful to Jonas Bronck and his memory to replace this motto, and my office has no plans to push for such a change.”

One of his predecessors, Fernando Ferrer, agrees. He remembers that when he became borough president in 1987, after the incumbent was ensnared in the corruption scandals, “I brought the motto and coat of arms back to use.”

“It worked for a while,” Mr. Ferrer added.