Isaac Asimov didn’t know exactly when he was born. As he wrote in his autobiography:
The date of my birth, as I celebrate it, was January 2, 1920. It could not have been later than that. It might, however, have been earlier. Allowing for the uncertainties of the times, of the lack of records, of the Jewish and Julian calendars, it might have been as early as October 4, 1919. There is, however, no way of finding out. My parents were always uncertain and it really doesn’t matter.
I celebrate January 2, 1920, so let it be.
I thought I’d take today to publish an excerpt from Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare.
In his guide, Asimov wasn’t concerned about interpreting the poetry and explicating the meaning of Shakespeare’s plays; rather he confined himself for the most part to describing the historical background of the dramas and delving into the meaning and etymology of the words the Bard used.
Here is how he begins his essay on Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar:
The first Plutarchian play written by Shakespeare (probably in 1599) concerned the time four and a half centuries after Coriolanus. Rome had survived the Gallic sack and the onslaught of Hannibal of Carthage. It had spread itself west and east over the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and now all those shores were either Roman territory or under the control of some Roman puppet king.
But Rome’s troubles were coming from within. There was no longer any serious question of conquest from without. That was impossible and would remain impossible for several centuries. Now, however, there had come an inner struggle. For half a century there had been a sputtering string of conflicts between generals for control, and the play opens when the conflict seems to have been decided.
The victor is the greatest Roman of them all–Julius Caesar.
The events of the first scene, in the streets of the city of Rome, are those of October 45 B.C. Caesar has just returned from Spain, where he defeated the last armies of those adversaries that had stood out against him.
He was now undisputed master of all the Roman realm, from end to end of the Mediterranean Sea. It seemed Rome was ready now to experience a rich and prosperous period of peace under the great Julius.
Not all of Rome is delighted by this turn of events, however. Those who had opposed Caesar and his policies might have been beaten into silence, but not into approval–and not even always into silence.
Caesar stood for an utter and thoroughgoing reform of the political system of the Roman Republic, which in the last century had fallen into decay and corruption. In this, he was supported chiefly by the commons and opposed chiefly by the senators and the aristocratic families.
In the first scene, though, Shakespeare pictures not the aristocratic opposition, but that of a pair of tribunes, Flavius and Marullus. This is odd, for the office of tribune was originally established to protect the commons against the aristocrats (an event which is at the core of the events in Coriolanus). One would have thought they would be more likely to support Caesar than oppose him.
Actually, however, the matter of the tribunes is borrowed by Shakespeare from Plutarch, but is moved earlier in time. If the incident had been left in its Plutarchian place, it would have seemed more apt.
At any rate, in Shakespeare’s version the populace is swarming out to greet the homecoming Caesar, when they are met by the tribunes. One of them, Flavius, cries out:
Hence! Home, you idle creatures, get you home!
–Act I, scene i, line 1
Then skipping ahead a few pages:
The populace disbands and leaves the stage, presumably returning to their houses in guilt. The tribune, Flavius, then suggests that they tear down the decorations intended for the triumph. Marullus hesitates, for it may be sacrilege. He says:
May we do so?
You know it is the feast of Lupercal.–-Act I, scene i, lines 69-70
The Lupercalian festival was an ancient fertility rite whose origins are lost in antiquity and probably predate civilization. It involved the ritual sacrifice of goats, which were noted for being ruttish animals.
Strips of the skin of the sacrificed goats were cut off by the priests in charge.
They then ran about the Palatine Hill, striking out with those thongs. Anyone struck would be rendered fertile, supposedly, and sterile women therefore so placed themselves at the rites as to make sure they would be struck.
The “feast of Lupercal” was held each year on February 15 and this was not the day of Caesar’s last triumph at all (as would appear from the play), but four months later. Shakespeare, however, commonly compresses time in his historical plays (a compression that is a dramatic necessity, and even a dramatic virtue), and here he lets the four months pass between the driving off of the populace and the next speech of the tribunes. There is no further talk of the triumph.
One would suppose from this first scene that the triumph was somehow aborted and never took place. It did take place, of course. The chief point of the scene is to show that there is opposition to Caesar.
And a few pages later still:
And then a voice calls Caesar’s name. It is a soothsayer, a man who foresees the future. This time his message is a simple one:
Beware the ides of March.
–Act I, scene ii, line 18
To understand the matter of “the ides” we must consider the Roman calendar, which must set some sort of record for inconvenience.
Each of the Roman months has three key dates and the other days are defined as “so many days before the such-and-such key date.” Nor are the key dates regularly spaced or quite the same from month to month.
The first day of each month is the “calends” of that month.
Not long after the calends come the “nones.” The nones fall on the fifth day of January, February, April, June, August, September, November, and December, and on the seventh day of March, May, July, and October.
The word “nones” means “nine” because it falls nine days before the third key date, the “ides,” where the nine days count the day of the ides itself. The ides, therefore, fall on the fifteenth day of March, May, July, and October, and on the thirteenth day of the other months.
From all this we gather that the “ides of March” is what we could call March 15 today. The Lupercalian festival, which falls on February 15, is not, however, on the “ides of February,” for that date would be what we now call February 13.
And finally:
Calmly, Caesar ignores the mystic warning and passes on to the festival. The incident of the soothsayer is not a Shakespearean invention, but is referred to in Plutarch.
That, of course, does not necessarily make it authentic. The event of the ides of March was so dramatic and so clearly a turning point of history that numerous fables arose afterward of all sorts of supernatural omens and forebodings preceding it. The incident of the soothsayer is only the most restrained and dramatically satisfying one of them.
After Caesar and his party pass on, two men remain behind: Brutus and Cassius. Cassius asks if Brutus intends to watch the festival and Brutus says he won’t, for:
I am not gamesome: I do lack some part
Of that quick spirit that is in Antony.–-Act 1, scene ii, lines 28-29
No, he is not gamesome (that is, “merry” or “gay”). The Romans, somehow, usually aren’t in literature. They are generally presented as grave, portentous, dignified men, given to declamations in high-sounding phrases, and that is exactly how Brutus is presented.
He is Marcus Junius Brutus, born in 85 B.C., and therefore just past forty at this time.
Brutus was the “Republican” most idealized by later historians, but he was by no means an admirable character in real life.
To begin with, he was a nephew of Cato, one of Caesar’s most obdurate and steadfast enemies. It is not surprising, then, that Brutus was also an enemy of Caesar’s to begin with. Indeed, he fought on Pompey’s side in Greece and was taken prisoner when Pompey was defeated.
Caesar, however, followed a consistent policy of leniency toward his enemies, feeling, perhaps, that in this way he converted them to friends and healed the wounds inflicted by civil war. So Brutus was pardoned and set free.
