Beware the Ides of March

History and legend tell us that in ancient Rome, 44 B.C., a soothsayer (fortune teller) warned the great military and political leader Julius Caesar, "Beware the Ides of March," predicting grave danger to the general and statesman on the fifteenth day of the month.  On March 15th, as Caesar traveled through the crowded streets of Rome, he spied the soothsayer and brazenly announced, "Well, the Ides of March have come."  The fortune teller ominously replied, "Aye, they have come, but they are not gone." Caesar mistakenly thought he was safe from harm: moments later, he was stabbed to death in the Roman Senate by political enemies. The soothsayer had spoken the truth.  Sooth, after all, is an Old English word meaning truth.
The meeting between Julius Caesar and the soothsayer is dramatized in William Shakespeare's famous play Julius Caesar.  With apologies to Shakespeare and to Caesar, Poetry on Parade proudly presents an original Ides of March performance:

Today's poem, from Ancient Rome: Modern Rhymes about Ancient Times by Susan Altman and Susan Lechner, shares a bit of Caesar's biography:

Julius Caesar (100-44 B.C.)

Caesar, Mighty Caesar, 

A hero to all Rome,

Conquered many foreign lands,

Impressing folks back home.

"Veni, Vidi, Vici,"

He said with great elation.

Or "I came, I saw, I conquered,"

(That's Latin in translation).

He fixed the Roman calendar,

The dates marked with precision.

One month-- July-- is named for him--

A tribute to his vision.

His enemies stabbed him to death,

A great catastrophe.

It happened on the Ides of March,

In 44 B.C.

For Julius Caesar, the Ides of March in 44 B.C. was indeed a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (with apologies to Judith Viorst's picture book Alexander, too!)