The University Motto

Summary

The Elizabethan Statutes (following those of King Edward VI) begin with the words Deum timeto: regem honorato: virtutem colito: disciplinis bonis operam dato. But the University gradually adopted as its motto, the emblem first used by John Legate, appointed Printer to the University in the year 1588. The well-known figure of Alma Mater Cantabrigiensis surrounded by the motto Hinc Lucem et Pocula Sacra was first used by that printer in a volume issued in 1600; and has since been employed in a variety of forms by the University Press. Michael Drayton, in his Polyolbion (1622) has the following lines, in the twenty-first song:

O noble Cambridge then, my most beloved town,

In glory flourish still, to heighten thy renown;

In woman's perfect shape, still be thy emblem right,

Whose one hand holds a cup, the other bears a light.

It is usually said that the origin of the motto Hinc Lucem et Pocula Sacra is unknown; but at least it may be stated that the phrase is frequently quoted by Archbishop Robert Leighton in an expanded form, and that on one occasion (see his sermon on Psalm xxxii) he gives the translation

Hence light we draw, and fill the sacred cup,

which suggests that the original hexameter ran:

Hinc lucem haurire est et pocula sacra replere.