A Brazilian Way to Say “What’s Done is Done”

In Portuguese there is an expression used to say that in some situations, there's no point taking further action. The sentence is “Agora é tarde, a Inês é morta”. That means, “Now it's late, Inês is killed.” In English, this is similar to “What’s done is done.”

This expression is about Inês de Castro (1320-1355) who was the mistress of Portugal’s Prince Dom Pedro (1320-1367), with whom she had three children.

Prince Dom Pedro’s father, Dom Afonso, wasn’t in favor of this romance and had her beheaded. When Dom Pedro became the eighth king of Portugal, he posthumously granted Inês the title of queen. This honor was obviously worthless to Inês who had already been dead for many years. Thus, the expression "A Inês é morta" refers to actions that are useless because they are taken too late. 

But in fact, the future in full of possibilities. The famous Brazilian medium Chico Xavier had a notorious saying,  "Nobody can go back and make a new start. But anyone can start over and make a new end." 

Time passes and sometimes windows of opportunity are lost. When we see that we did not do what should have done we think, “Agora é tarde, a Inês é morta”. But in fact, for some projects, it’s never too late to take an effective action, and new projects can arise and our paths can open up.

It’s important to know which saying applies to your situation. Can you think of times in your life when the sayings “Inês é morta” or “make a new end” applied? Tell me in the comments.