The Ides of March

We have all, at one time or another, heard the phase “beware the Ides of March.” It slipped into our consciousness through William Shakespeare’s play, "Julius Caesar." When Julius Caesar was dictator of Rome, he was stabbed to death in the Roman Senate on March 15, in an event planned by 60 conspirators and led by Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus. The day later became infamous as the Ides of March. The phrase is popular, yet how many of us know what it means?

The dates Shakespeare was referencing in his play was March 15. In history it is, in fact, one of the ancient markers marking our relation to lunar phases. It seems the “ides” referred to the first new moon that appeared in the month, and in March that usually fell between the 13th and the 15th. At one point, I have learned, the ides signified a new year, which meant celebrations and rejoicing.

Most months have a national holiday that include ceremonies, props of one sort of another, festivals and gatherings. March is the month that slips between February, with Valentine’s Day, Presidents' Day and school holidays and April, when we usually celebrate Passover and Easter. T.S. Eliot, in his poem "The Wasteland," described April as the “cruelest” month, yet it is usually the time when fickle spring, teasing us through March, finally makes an appearance. Small, green shoots, even if there are still snowbanks, begin to push up through soil in patches of earth next to the house.

March is also a planning month. Enough time has passed that we begin to think of those “lazy, hazy” days of summer. We begin to make plans. Or at least, we begin to dream about making plans.

I’m already looking at the schedules for the New Hampshire Music Festival, the Winnipesauke Playhouse and the Colonial Theater. There is always a trip to Franconia and Sugar Hill for pancakes at Polly’s and a poetry program at the Frost Farm. This summer I’ll try and plan a trip to Star Island to spend the day, recalling a birding trip with Eric Masterson. Harrisville is one of my favorite places to visit. There is lunch at the town café followed by a few hours at the Harrisville Designs Retail Store studying new knitting patterns and purchasing yarn.

We do celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in March. Tomorrow, March 17, commemorates the arrival St. Patrick and Christianity in Ireland, and the heritage and culture of Ireland. My grandfather James Millar, my mother’s father, grew up in North Ireland and came to the United States when he was a young man in his 20s. We have family there and it is, of all the many places I have visited, one of the most enchanting. There is something about the green, rolling hills and the love of language, especially poetry, that makes one feel there really are “little people,” or “good people,” or other supernatural spirits of one sort or another living underground in an invisible world. I celebrate St. Patrick’s Day reading Irish fairy tales and thinking of walking through the fields at Marl Villa, where my Grampa Millar grew up. I search my memory to remember walking into Killyleagh, where there is a castle at the head of the town.

March is the month that provides us with time to take a pause and reflect.

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Elizabeth Howard is the host of the Short Fuse Podcast, found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or through the Arts Fuse. She is a journalist, columnist, and communications consultant. Ned O’Gorman: A Glance Back, a book she edited, was published in May 2016. She is the author of A Day with Bonefish Joe (David R. Godine, 2015). Her articles have appeared in publications in the United States and internationally. You can send her a note at: eh@elizabethhoward.com.