ab ovo

The expression ab ovo (Latin for " from the egg " ) is an allusion to one of the two eggs of Leda and the swan transformed as Zeus, slipped out of the Helena. Leda Had not laid the egg, Helen would not have been born and Paris had not kidnapped (→ See kidnapping ). Consequently, there had never been the Trojan War.

The use of ab ovo comes from Horace's Ars poetica ago, in which he describes an ideal epic poet as someone who is not with the Zwillingsei starts the Trojan War (Lat.: nec gemino bellum Troianum orditur ab ovo ), but the reader equal in medias res ( in the middle of the action ) leads (147 f).

Ab ovo is thus for " the (very distant ) beginning / origin of ".

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