THE IDES OF MARCH

Here's another one I wrote for the community magazine. They did publish it, but with a bit of de-personalization. Well, that's o.k. This rhyme is one that has stuck with me for all the year since I first learned it - and that's over sixty years ago. It's amazing how poems or phrases, even advertising jingles, stick in our minds for ages. 

“In March, July, October and May, the ides fall on the fifteenth day.” That little ditty is courtesy of my high school Latin teacher, Mr. Matthews. Later, I was told by one of the magazine editors that the full rhyme is

"In March, July, October, May,
The Ides are on the fifteenth day,
The Nones the seventh; but all besides
Have two days less for Nones and Ides."

In this day and age, we occasionally hear references to the ides of a month. What really are ides? Or, what is ides: the word can be both singular and plural. The ides were one of the Roman ways to keep track of the days of the month. From their name for the first day of any month, kalends, we get our word calendar. The Romans went along with a more ancient way of calculating the days, and that was basically a lunar system. They had “full,” or 31-day months, and “hollow” months that were less than full. That makes some sense. In Latin, the word for full is plenas. The word for hollow is cavas. From the Roman plenas and plenum, and the like, we get our word plenary. From cavas, cavus, and cavum and the like we get our words cavity, and cave.

They used the word nones to designate a day within the month, usually the seventh or fifth day, if the month was full or hollow. (Ecclesiastically, nones are the fifth or seventh canonical hours, usually the ninth hour of the medieval day that started at sunrise.) The nones were nine days before the ides. The ides were the day before the middle of the month. Got that? They didn’t seem to be too interested in the rest of any month, though they did mark their calendars to know on which days certain activities like assemblies or the initiating of law suits were permissible, or which were public holidays. In times before that, the distinction of the phases of the moon and the months and days were certainly important for plowing, planting, and harvesting.

In Shakespeare’s tragedy, Julius Caesar, Caesar is told by a soothsayer to “beware the ides of March.” An ominous and ambiguous warning if there ever was one, but emphatic and fitting for the drama nevertheless. That sayer of sooth should have said “Caesar, your buddies are out to do you in.” There were, of course, other reasons for Caesar’s pals to do him in, but perhaps one of the causes of their discontent that he messed with tradition and moved the New Year celebration from March 15 to January 1.

So now you’ve increased your trove of trivial information – aye, the ‘ides’ have it.