Uva uvam vivendo varia fit

Readers who love Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove -- and you can count me among them -- often wonder what the celebrated motto Uva uvam vivendo varia fit means. Augustus McCrae had seen it somewhere and scratched it into the Hat Creek outfit's sign (along with the cautionary "We don't rent pigs"), resulting in an exchange along these lines with Woodrow Call:

"What does it mean?"

"It's a motto. It just says itself."

Call was quick to see the point. "You don't know what it means. It could be telling someone to rob us."

"That would be fine with me. Just once I'd like to trade shots with an educated bandit."

(This is from memory, so the actual exchange is somewhat different. This is the gist, though.)

McMurtry never translates the motto, letting it stand as a symbol of the cowboys' illiteracy even as they conduct a life-changing epic cattle drive from the Rio Grande to Montana. It's McMurtry's way of contrasting the Hat Creek outfit's lack of school learning with the education in living that they pick up on the journey north.

I once asked a friend of my son, a friend who studied Latin through high school, what it meant. He studied it curiously, informed that it didn't make any formal sense, then took it to his teacher. They parsed it out as best they could and came up with this:

Each man finds happiness in his own way.

This dovetails nicely with the novel's theme of the wisdom of avoiding the pursuit of obsessions in favor of appreciating the adventure of everyday living.

The Witliff Collections at Texas State University offers a different, if related interpretation:

A grape changes color [ripens] when it sees another grape.

In other words,

the phrase serves as a metaphor for the group's journey, as many of the story's characters go through a process of personal maturation and development. Much like grapes ripen in the presence of others.

As to why McMurty chose to garble the actual Latin, your guess is as good as mine. I like to think that it's a private joke at the expense of Augustus McCrae, who otherwise generally has the upper hand in the novel.

My favorite supporting character in Lonesome Dove is the top hand, Dish Boggett. His obsession with Lorena leads him to defend her honor at every turn and to love her in spite of her dismissal of him. At odds with the demanding Woodrow Call at the beginning of the book, Dish’s regard for the captain increases at the same time that Call grows to respect Dish’s abilities. Eventually, he becomes Call’s trusted lieutenant. Dish, of course, does not perceive that gaining Call’s regard is a greater triumph – a more certain one , at least– than attaining the love of someone who doesn’t want him. After all, as Gus McCrae observes, the problem with wanting something too badly is that it lets you down once you have it.

If you haven't read Lonesome Dove, move it to the top of your reading list. I've read it five times and I have no doubt that I’ll read it again. There's humor and wisdom on every page of the simple and oft told tale of a cattle drive. As the characters grow and mature, they become beloved. Not many books can claim that...

I believe when I fall in love this time it will be forever....

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My wife and Claude Monet...

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