Beware the Ides of March
“Beware the Ides of March” is a superb quote. It’s short, has an ominous tone and also a sense of the supernatural. However, it is also greatly misunderstood. Most people know it’s related somehow to Shakespeare. But what the heck is an Ide anyway, and where can I buy one?
So here’s a primer: — The quote arises from Act I, Scene 2 of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” as the Roman leader stands amid a crowd and hears a warning from the seer. Here’s the exchange:
Caesar: Who is it in the press that calls on me?
I hear a tongue shriller than all the music
Cry “Caesar!” Speak, Caesar is turn’d to hear.
Soothsayer: Beware the ides of March.
– How much does it portend? It is a day in 44 B.C. that Caesar is going to be assassinated by conspirators including Brutus and Cassius. Caesar shrugs off the warning and heads off on his political business. If only recliners, TVs and DVDs had been invented then.
– So what’s an Ide? It is a term of the ancient Roman calendar, signifying a division depending on the moon’s phases. It falls in the 15th of March, May, July and October, but in the 13th with the other months.
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