Non plus ultra , also nec plus ultra [1] (from lat. - “No further than the limits; nowhere to go”) is a Latin saying that has become stable, according to legend written on the pillars of Hercules as a warning to sailors, a sign that they have reached the border of the world.
After the reconquest was completed and Spain entered the Strait of Gibraltar, Ferdinand of Aragon added to the Spanish coat of arms a symbolic image of the Hercules pillars in the form of two columns of the Corinthian order , entwined with a ribbon with the inscription “non plus ultra”, which his grandson Charles V changed to Plus Ultra (from Latin - “Further, beyond limits”), dropping the negative particle “non”.
In its original form, the motto is presented on the coat of arms and flag of Melilla - the autonomous city of Spain, separated from the main territory of the country by the Strait of Gibraltar [2] .
In a figurative sense, an expression means an extreme limit, the highest degree of something:
It was really not legs, but nec plus ultra beautiful legs
- Edgar Poe. The man who was chopped into pieces [3]
The imagination of the future minister broke out to "nec plus ultra
- Nekrasov N.A. Makar Osipovich Random [4]
Notes
- ↑ Dictionary of Latin Expressions
- ↑ Escudo de Melilla (Spanish)
- ↑ Complete Collection of Stories, St. Petersburg: Crystal, 1999, p. 237.
- ↑ Selected Prose, Moscow: Pravda, 1985, p. 27.