Hinc illae lacrimae
Hinc illae lacrimae! ( Latin : “Hence the tears!”) is a popular word that is used when a cause or explanation for actions or behaviors that is not obvious is recognized, especially when a lower motive instead of an initially assumed higher motive for action can be made out.
In the comedy Andria (“The Girl of Andros”) by the Roman poet Terenz , Simo uses this to comment on the tears of his son Pamphilus at the funeral of a neighbor to Sosias. At first he was of the opinion that these were an expression of special sympathy and was pleased about it. But when he found out that the deceased's pretty sister also belonged to the funeral procession, he realized that his son's emotion was only faked in order to get closer: hinc illae lacrumae, haec illast misericordia. ("Hence his tears, that is the reason for his pity!").
The saying is transferred to other situations by Cicero , Pro Caelio 25.61, and Horace , Epistulae I , 19.41, and thus becomes a winged word.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels use the phrase several times. Friedrich Engels wrote in a letter of April 10, 1889 to Paul Lafargue : Hyndman said that the Possibilists feared that their own congress would pull them out, hinc illae lacrimae!