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alis grave nil

Latin Phrases
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Nothing is heavy to those who have wings; love or spirit makes all burdens light.

Detailed Definition
Alis grave nil is attributed to the tradition of Cupid, expressing the idea that winged love renders all hardships trivial. In poetry, it appears in love verse and devotional poetry where the transformative power of eros or spiritual elevation removes the weight of earthly suffering. The image of wings overcoming gravity is a powerful metaphor for poetic inspiration itself, suggesting that the imagination lifts the poet and reader above the mundane.
Example
Example in poetry:
The myth of Cupid carrying his arrows effortlessly illustrates alis grave nil — the winged god finds nothing heavy because love itself provides the lifting force; Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind" expresses a longing for alis grave nil — the poet asking to be lifted by the wind's force so that his dead thoughts might quicken into new life; A love poem might employ alis grave nil to describe how the beloved's presence removes the weight of grief, anxiety, and mortal care from the speaker; Rumi's poetry is saturated with alis grave nil — the soul's wings, once spread by divine love, make all earthly suffering light and bearable; A student writing a poem about artistic inspiration might invoke alis grave nil — the moment when the poem takes wing and the labor of composition becomes effortless joy
Additional Notes
Alis grave nil is associated with the iconography of Cupid and appears in the tradition of love emblems — illustrated books of moral and amorous mottos that were enormously popular in the Renaissance and that profoundly influenced the imagery of love poetry. The phrase participates in the long tradition of wings as a metaphor for poetic inspiration, from Plato's image of the winged soul in the Phaedrus through the Renaissance conceit of the winged pen. Students should note that the phrase operates on two levels: literally, wings make weight irrelevant; metaphorically, love or inspiration makes the weight of suffering, duty, or mortality feel light. Related concepts include the Neoplatonic ascent of the soul on the wings of love, the image of the winged poet, and the contrast between the grounded body (grave) and the liberated spirit (nil grave).
Also Known As
nothing is heavy to those with wings love makes all things light
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