Per aspera ad astra is a popular Latin phrase meaning "To the stars, through hardship." What is the origin of the phrase?
Virgil wrote in Aeneid Book 9: Macte nova virtute, sic itur ad astra. (Blessings on your young courage, boy; that's the way to the stars.) The motto of The Royal Air Force is "Per Ardua ad Astra", from the phrase "Sicictar ad Astra", in the Virgilian texts. They expanded on this with the phrase "Per Ardua ad Astra", which he translated as, "Through Struggles to the Stars." In a book called "People of the Mist" by Sir Henry Rider Haggard, the first chapter has the passage, "To his right were two stately gates of iron fantastically wrought, ...and banners inscribed with the device 'Per Ardua ad Astra'". It s possible Sir Rider Haggard obtained this phrase from a knowledge of the Irish family of Mulway who had used it as their family motto for hundreds of years and translated it as "Through Struggles to the Stars."
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