Meaning
A warning that an enemy's offer of help or generosity is probably a trap - that presents from adversaries deserve suspicion rather than gratitude. It is quoted whenever a rival's sudden goodwill needs explaining. Quotation-register, usually with a smile; the geeks-bearing-gifs pun is now the programmer's standard joke on it. Regional use: General English; classical origin.
Origin
The line is Laocoon's, in Book II of Virgil's Aeneid (19 BC), as the Trojans debate the wooden horse: 'Do not trust the horse, Trojans! Whatever it is, I fear the Danaans, even when bringing gifts' - timeo Danaos et dona ferentes in the familiar form, though most printed texts read ferentis. Laocoon hurls his spear into the horse, and is promptly strangled by sea serpents, which the Trojans take as judgement on him; Troy falls that night. The idea is older than Virgil - Sophocles' Ajax had already said that foes' gifts are no gifts and bring no profit - and the English proverb descends through Dryden's rendering, 'Trust not their presents, nor admit the horse'. The Phrase Finder notes the line is now less quoted as the classics recede, and records the 1990s programmers' pun 'beware of geeks bearing gifs'. Wikipedia's trail of uses runs from Dumas's Three Musketeers (1844) to Yes Minister, which aired a whole scene on its slightly inaccurate translation.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- a Greek bearing gifts
- fear the Greeks even when they bring gifts
- Greeks bearing gifts
Usage Examples
- When the rival firm offered to co-author the standards paper, the lab director muttered about Greeks bearing gifts.
- The free audit from our biggest competitor struck the board as Greeks bearing gifts, and they declined it.
- Beware of Greeks bearing gifts, the old warning runs, and the council should have heeded it before accepting the bridge loan.