As part of our relocation to the Boston area, we bought an old Victorian style house that was built in 1900. It has been a learning experience, because houses of that age have entire histories of construction, renovation, upkeep, and decline.

The fireplace in the living room has old tilework around it, which is original to the house. During prior renovations, the line of previous owners thankfully left this unique bit unchanged. At the top center of the tilework are winged cherubs holding a banner that reads, tempus fugit.

We looked up this phrase with the help of Google, and we found that it is translated as “time flies.” It originates with Virgil, in his Georgics, as tempus inreparabile fugit, or “it escapes, irretrievable time.” Wikipedia has an entire page for this phrase (link).