In Wine There Is Truth

Word Spinning

The most celebrated duel in recent Western films wasn’t fought with guns or bowie knives, but words: in 1993’s Tombstone, Val Kilmer’s “Doc” Holliday and Michael Biehn’s John Ringo face off in the Oriental Saloon and exchange slings and arrows in Latin. Here, for those who slept through Latin class, is a translation and analysis of the confrontation.

- Allen Barra

Doc Holliday has just finished insulting John Ringo by saying that he reminds him of himself. Trying to avoid trouble, Wyatt Earp (Kurt Russell), his hand on a sawed-off swivel shotgun under the faro table, says to Ringo, “He’s drunk.”

Holliday smirks, gulps a slug of whiskey and says, “In vino veritas,” or “In wine there is truth,” an aphorism which supposedly reflected the Romans’ belief that what a man said while drunk was what he truly felt, but would not say under usual circumstances.

Ringo surprises Holliday with an aphorism of his own: “Age quod agis,” or “Do what you do.” Ringo’s precise meaning is unclear, presumably he is challenging Holliday to “Cut the talk and do what you do best.”

Holliday smiles and says, “Credat Judaeus Apella, non ego.” This line is from the Roman poet Horace, specifically from his Satire Five in Satires: Book One. Horace and his Greek friend Heliodorus are visiting a town where the locals try to convince them miracles occur at their sacred shrines. In the Modern Library translation by classical scholar Casper J. Kraemer Jr., the line reads “Apella the Jew may believe this. I don’t.” In other words, “Tell someone else. I ain’t buying it.”