Roman Calendar refresher taken from my in-box this morning, from "Wordsmith" (wsmith@wordsmith.org):
"Beware the Ides of March," the soothsayer warned Julius Caesar. Caesar didn't heed the warning and we all know his fate. At least that is what history tells us. I've a feeling Caesar did mind the date but he simply got lost in the hopelessly complex Roman calendar and confused the D-day. Ides are only one of the ingredients of the Roman calendar. The other two are calends (or kalends) and nones. The calends are straightforward -- they always fall on the first of every month. Nones on the fifth or the seventh, and ides on the thirteenth or the fifteenth. All dates are counted backwards from the nearest nones, calends, or ides.
Here's a little rhyme to help you remember the dates:
March, July, October, and May
The nones are on the seventh day.
And ides fall eight days after the Nones.
The word calendar derives from Latin calendarium (account book) since it was used to keep track of the date when debts were due.
ides (eyedz) noun: The 15th day of March, May, July, or October, and the 13th day of the other months in the ancient Roman calendar.
[From Middle English, from Old French, from Latin idus.]
Note: I'm guessing the Ides were made popular by our English friend, William Shakespeare, rather than being made popular by any history book. And then by the public school system that had us commit "Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Lend me your ears..." in the 10th grade. At least in my neck of the woods.
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3 comments:
A nice point about Ol' Will being the/a conduit for Roman civilization to many in the last now lost centuries. However, until its decision to linguistically cut itself off from its History, I think the Whore of Rome [as the Irish Dogg might say], with Latin as the primary official language, was the mainstay in keeping alive the culture and works of that great, if ancient, civilization.
Will, and the WOR, are fading fast in the postmodern disintegration of the West. I find very very few under the age of, say, 30, who have read their Will or studied in any sense the intellectual history of our fated culture. And outside the West there are almost none who give a ff at all.
Sic Transit Gloria, et Totus Cado in Nox noctis
AA, there is at least one glimmer in the Harry Potter/MTV/Instant-Orgy postmodern world. The friend I spoke of in a post below (the one who was knocked out this past Saturday for using a most vulgar word) has, among other works of the Western Canon, digested all of Shakespeare in the last 2-to-3 years while in his flat in Ulaan Bataar, Mongolia.
I've taken in a few Shakespearean works (the Hamlet, Caesar, and Romeo and Juliet), but it has been a while. I have his remaining works and a biography sitting on the shelf, just staring at me, waiting, waiting, waiting. I need to get through a couple more primary source travel narratives of the 19th-century American West before I can get back to William.
With that said, because our 19th-century American predecessors were versed in Ancient history and Classical literature requires any historian today to be versed in their world, as well as the previous Ancient and Classical worlds they studied. ...at least that's going to be in the opening paragraph of a paper I prepare for the next history conference I attend.
Note: the Irish Dogg would admit Shakespeare was brilliant (his father, afterall, is English), but denounce him on the grounds that he was likely immoral, or a heathen, or an Infidel, or whatever. He tried calling me the other day. I'll have to ring him later this week.
Back to Life Archaic on the upper Plains.
Ides of August Update (apparently they are upon northeastern North Dakota!).
From the National Weather Service on 08/13/07:
A TORNADO WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 330 PM CDT FOR WESTERN
GRAND FORKS...NORTHEASTERN NELSON AND SOUTH CENTRAL WALSH COUNTIES...
AT 250 PM CDT...WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED A SEVERE
THUNDERSTORM CAPABLE OF PRODUCING A TORNADO. THE TORNADO WAS LOCATED
5 MILES SOUTHEAST OF WHITMAN...OR 36 MILES SOUTHWEST OF GRAFTON... MOVING TO THE SOUTHEAST AT 35 MPH. SPOTTERS HAVE SEEN ROTATION WITH THE STORM 5 MILES NORTH OF MICHIGAN [North Dakota].
* THE TORNADO WILL BE NEAR [all North Dakota or northern Minnesota cities]...
PETERSBURG BY 300 PM CDT...
NIAGARA BY 310 PM CDT...
MCCANNA BY 315 PM CDT...
LARIMORE AND 8 MILES NORTHEAST OF LOGAN CENTER BY 330 PM CDT...
IF YOU ARE IN THE PATH OF THIS TORNADO ABANDON CARS AND MOBILE HOMES FOR A STURDY BUILDING.
A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 400 PM CDT MONDAY AFTERNOON FOR EASTERN NORTH DAKOTA. A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH ALSO REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 1000 PM CDT MONDAY EVENING FOR NORTHWESTERN MINNESOTA.
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