Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes

A poisoned chalice (pronounced Da -na- he - gift ) is a suspicious gift that proves to be disastrous and detrimental stiftend for the recipient.

The term comes from Greek mythology. It is named in reference to the wooden Trojan horse, with the help of which ( in Homer a name for the Greeks / Hellenes at all) conquered " Danaans " the city of Troy.

The term has come from Latin into German. Virgil has the priest Laocoon in the Aeneid (Book II, verses 48-49 ) say: " [ ... ] equo ne credite, Teucri. . Quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentes " ( German :". Traut not the horse, Trojans Whatever it is, I fear the Danaans, even when they bring gifts " )

The English proverb Beware of Greeks bearing gifts ( German: Beware of Greeks bearing gifts ) goes back to the same verse in Virgil's Aeneid.

" Danaum fatal munus " (Latin, " a disastrous Greek gift " ): For standing idiom, a saying of Seneca's tragedy Agamemnon ( 624).

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