Beware the Ides of March March 15th

shows an image of Brutus stabbing Caesar with 'funny'  bubbles:
Caesar says 'Brutus, whats that loud pelting noise on the roof' and Brutus replies,  about to stab Julius Caesar 'Hail, Caesar'
The Ides of March – With Apologies. From Facebook

SOOTHSAYER: Caesar!
CAESAR: Ha! Who calls?
CASCA: Bid every noise be still; peace yet again!
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 turned to hear.
SOOTHSAYER: Beware the ides of March.
CAESAR: What man is that?
BRUTUS: A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March.
CAESAR: Set him before me; let me see his face.
CASSIUS: Fellow, come from the throng; look upon Caesar.
CAESAR: What sayst thou to me now? Speak once again.
SOOTHSAYER: Beware the Ides of March.
CAESAR: He is a dreamer. Let us leave him. Pass.

Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare

Julius Caesar and the Ides of March

The Ides of March is the 15th of March. Julius Caesar didn’t take the warning that might have saved his life. You might suggest he got what was coming to first populist. But any study of Roman History will find many precursors in Roman and Greek History. Among populists, I rank Caesar with Napoleon as one of the Dictators who was, personally, an intelligent, reasonable man. They, in some ways, ruled ‘wisely’ but were nonetheless willing to sacrifice millions of people for their own personal ambition.

Today, the world is faced with the populists who are geniuses only in their own minds. I know, we as humans, might think, if only X would drop dead, how much better it would be? Brutus, being an honourable man, took action upon his thought. But, as often is the case, what seemed the ‘right thing’ to do, turned out to be a disaster. The plotters were trying to save the Roman Republic, but their murder destroyed the Republic. So, still those assassinary thoughts, read this article in ‘History Today’ about the impact of Julius Caesar’s murder. Do everything you can but use democratic means to defeat egotists to whom truth means nothing. In my opinion this is the major problem for humanity, it seems we do not know how to stop homicidal maniacs causing war without needing to fight a war to stop them. We do not have a method of peaceful mass rebellion. Perhaps Gandhi came closest but then he was working against a system that was not a dictatorship.

Ides of March

Now, what the heck are or indeed is the Ides of March?

A Roman month was divided into three, first the Kalends, then the Nones and finally the Ides. These three days were the important days of the month. The Kalends is the 1st of the Month. The Nones the 7th of the Month, And the Ides the Fifteenth. It is said to go back to the early days of Rome and a lunar calendar. The Kalends being the first tiny sliver of a crescent moon a couple of days after the New Moon. The Nones the first quarter of the Moon and the Ides was the full moon. To me, as a way of dividing a month it is very lopsided. The cycle of the moon is 29 days not 15. So the tripartite division divides up the first half of the month, and leave the second half undivided.

Debts were supposed to be paid on the Kalends and that is where we get our word calendar from. These public calendars were called Fasti. This is the name of Ovid’s great Almanac Poem, the Fasti, which I often quote from.

This is a very bad photograph of a drawing by Herbert E Duncan Jr of a 1st Century Calendar
This is a very bad photograph of a drawing by Herbert E Duncan Jr of a 1st Century Calendar

How was it used? When talking about a day in the future month you might say I’ll meet you on the 5th day before the Kalends. I’ve never really understood this system, despite a few attempts, until I saw this drawing of a Roman Calendar. You’ll have to read this closely. The first column, on the left, with the letters from D to H then A – H. This is a recurring cycle of 8 market days, running in tandem with Kalends, Nones etc.. This gives an 8 day week.

Now reading across the top line DKMARTNP. So the D is the 4 day of the 8 day ‘market week’. The second column begins with the Letter K for Kalends, then MART for March. So it’s the Kalends of March. Then NP which means this day is a day for public festivals.

Back to the second column. Below the K for Kalends, the days are counted down to the upcoming Nones. So the next one after Kalends is VI, meaning the 6th day before the March Nones. Then V, IIII, III. There is no II because PR means the day before Nones. Below and to the right of the PR are the letters NON which is, as you might hope, is short for Nones.

In the second column below this is the number VIII which means the next day is the 8th day before the Ides of March. The fragment of stone from which this drawing comes does not continue down to the Ides, unfortunately.

Complicated, huh? It gets worse. The third column has a series of letters in it: F C C C NP NON F C C. We already know that the NON is short for Nones, The F means it’s a fastus, a permissible day when legal action can be taken. (the plural of Fastus is Fasti.) The C means C comitialis which on fasti days the Roman people could hold assemblies. (see my post for more on the curiae). We have already seen that NP marks days for public festivals. An N would mean days when political and judicial actions were prohibited, although there is not one here. The small unreadable text to the right is information, I believe, about holidays and historic events to be marked in the calendar. This is, in fact, a Roman Stone Almanac.

This confusing system survived Caesar’s major calendrical reforms. He transformed the Roman calendar, which was rotten at the core. He re-aligned with an almost accurate calculation of the time the Sun takes to circle the earth. (or the other way around!) This is known as the Julian Calendar.

But the Kalends, Nones, and Ides he left intact until Constantine the Great got rid of them. They were replaced with the familiar 4 fold division of the month. So, for the first time, you could work 24/7.

For more about Constantine’s Weeks look at my post here

For Caesar’s Calendrical reforms look at this post

2024 Revised March 2025

Winter Song by William Shakespeare December 4th

When icicles hang by the wall,
    And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
    And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipp’d and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
                Tu-whit;
Tu-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,
    And coughing drowns the parson’s saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
    And Marion’s nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
                Tu-whit;
Tu-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

William Shakespeare - Love's Labours Lost

William Shakespeare – Love’s Labours Lost (LLL V.ii.901)

The poem is near the end of the play, by way of a conclusion, two works are composed for the King of Navarro in praise of the Cuckoo and the Owl, one read by a representation of the Spring and the other, shown above, by ‘Hiems’ the representation of winter.

Is it very Shakespearean?  No, not if you are expecting ‘sweet and honeyed words’ but it brings us deep into the heart of cold winter, what with the icicles on the wall, the fouled muddy roads, the cold wind, the nip in the air, and the outbreak of winter colds.

The focus is either from a working-class point of view or from a member of the gentry looking at his servants.  Each part of the poem is ended with the owl and Greasy Joan cooking the food; roasted crabs are crab apples which would have been heated in the oven then thrown into a dish of beer where they would hiss.  So there is a hint of winter conviviality.

The nail means warming your fingers by blowing on them, alternatively it means twiddling your fingers. Greasy Joan is probably a cook or kitchen maid, and she is cooling the pot by stirring it.   But some suggest that ‘Greasy Joan’ might refer to a prostitute.  But it doesn’t really fit the poem? Although the spring part of the poem, narrated by Cuckoo refers to cuckolding. Tu-whit, tu-whoo is, in fact, two tawny owls calling to each other, the female calling first and the male answering. John Lyly first used the call in 1595. Some say it could also be read ‘To it, to who?’ In Shakespeare’s day, to go ‘to it’ was a sexual reference, but then he also uses that phrase mostly innocently. The parson’s saw means the parson’s sermon, which cannot be heard because of all the coughing in the cold nave.

Here it is set to music by Ralph Vaughan Williams

‘New’ Portrait of Shakespeare on sale for £10m?

Robert Peake Portrait of a Man aged 44 in 1608
Robert Peake Portrait of a Man aged 44 in 1608

It’s not a ‘new’ portrait as it has been known about for many years, but it is in the news as it is about to be sold. Evidence for it being our main man, include:

  • In 1608 Shakespeare was 44 (as inscribed on the top of the painting)
  • He is balding
  • He has a long nose
  • He has a fold of the skin to the left of his left eye
  • The two had convincing connections (people and places) in common
  • The Peake family printed the Droeshout Portrait used in the First Folio
  • Testing shows it is not a forgery

However, it doesn’t really look like the two Shakespeare portraits we can trust to be him (the Droeshout and the bust on his memorial in Holy Trinity Stratford where he was buried). But if someone pays £10m maybe we will change our minds?

For more information follow this link.

https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/heritage-and-retro/heritage/william-shakespeare-only-signed-and-dated-image-of-famous-playwright-hung-in-yorkshire-stately-home-3919872