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Although it is sometimes translated "Reach for the Skies", caelum certe patet actually means "the sky at least stands open". These are the words of Daedalus in Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book VIII, when he is contemplating a means of escape from Crete and determines that the sky is the only path open to him:


"Terras licet" inquit "et undas obstruat; et caelum certe patet; ibimus illac."


"Though he [Minos] may barricade the earth and the waves", he said, "the sky at least stands open; we will go that way."


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Stu Feldt

Lvl 8
15y ago

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