Hope and Fail

Veep ‘quotes’ classic ‘Greek’ poet

Joe Biden was the warm-up act for the president at two health care events — the bill signing and a speech later.

Biden now-famously let the expletives fly at the earlier event.

Not to be outdone by himself, Biden also let his lack of knowledge of poetry fly, too. At both events Biden quoted what he said was the poet Virgil as saying, “The greatest wealth is health.”

At the second event, Biden said Virgil was a “classic Greek poet:”

As I said just before the President signed the health care bill, I quoted Virgil, the classic Greek poet, who once said, “The greatest wealth is health.” The greatest wealth is health. Mr. President, you’ve made us a nobler and wealthier nation by providing for the health of your fellow citizens.

Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States of America, Barack Obama.

But Virgil wasn’t from Greece, as the LA Times notes:

Virgil wasn’t Greek. He was Roman. Very Roman. So Roman, in fact, that the author (70 BC-19 BC) of the “Aeneid,” among other famous works, is buried in Naples.

As in Napoli, as a graduate of Syracuse (Siracusa in Sicily) might know. But, hey, Biden’s boss thought Canada had a president and they speak Austrian in Austria. And he went to Harvard.

What’s more, Virgil probably never said “The greatest wealth is health.”

From the Weekly Standard back in December 2009:

In multiple speeches, he has credited “the poet Virgil” with the aphorism “the greatest wealth is health.” And sure enough, Virgil is credited with the quote in thousands of Google hits, QuoteGarden.com, and even boxer shorts for sale on Amazon.com. But good luck finding the phrase anywhere in the Latin poet’s actual writings. A search of the phrase (or even similar terms)–in English and Latin–in databases of Virgil’s poetry yields nothing. Richard Tarrant, a professor of Latin at Harvard, says: “I’m not familiar with the quote (which sounds like something my mother used to say), and offhand I would doubt that it comes from Virgil.” Two classicists at Cornell, while unable to prove that the poet never said anything like it, “doubt whether this quote comes from Virgil.” One, Barry Strauss, adds: “It sounds more like a fortune cookie than a poet.”

So Biden’s repeating a boxer-shorts quote and getting the supposed poet’s nationality wrong.

Save/Share: