up my eccentricities / the Ides of March
“The Death of Caesar“ (1798)
___________
in looking up a requiem to commemorate
the Ides of March, today, a date imprinted
on our collective consciousness since
Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”, act l,
scene ll –
Soothsayer: Beware the Ides of March.
Julius Caesar: What man is that?
Marcus Brutus: A soothsayer bids you beware the Ides of March.
Julius Caesar Set him before me, let me see his face.
Cassius: Fellow, come from the throng, look upon Caesar.
Julius Caesar: What say’st thou to me now? Speak once again.
Soothsayer: Beware the Ides of March.
Julius Caesar: He is a dreamer, let us leave him. Pass.
– I found an entirely appropriate work,
though with more contemporary, and
consequently more immediate,
associations
but first, let me say more about both
Julius Caesar and Shakespeare
Caesar died on the Ides of March,
notoriously, and ignominiously –
though ruthless in his own way,
not to mention also flamboyant,
Caesar had been a ruler conscious
of his constituency, and therefore
socially responsive, giving, for
instance, citizenship to residents
from far away, a contentious issue
still nowadays, and support for
veterans, another hot political
topic
he was also the lover of Cleopatra,
among apparently many other trysts,
not to mention, it has been suggested,
of King Nicomedes lV of Bithynia
regardless, he is the template for
modern rulers, eclipsing Alexander
the Great by a long shot, who else
has a very month, July, named after
him, apart from Augustus, Caesar‘s
heir and successor
his complete literary works have only
recently come out in English, an
apparently, and most undoubtedly,
significant enterprise, Caesar would
be, of course, subjective, therefore
probably indifferent to, or more
unforthcoming about, his less savoury
excesses – he’d apparently cut off the
hands of soldiers he had conquered,
something he never mentioned
should we consider the impunity of our
own 21st-Century autocrats – who will
blithely destroy communities with
lethal chemical agents, and even, in
like manner, specifically target
individuals – with less condemnation
and horror
nobody cared, by the way, about the
Ides of March, until Shakespeare
suggested, for all time, that we
should beware of it
and we’ve been doing so ever since
March 11th, 2011, was the date of the
Japanese tsunami, the earth shook,
thousands died, the devastation was
unimaginable, including nuclear
radioactive explosions
Tōru Takemitsu‘s “Requiem“, written
in 1957, though not specifically
related to that national tragedy, is
not at all unrelated to their agony
and through the power of music to
bring souls together, manifestly,
here and now, his thoughtful
evocation, however dissonant,
however arhythmic, however
unhinged from Western Classical
musical precepts, which might
very well, I remark, be the point,
brings souls, if you’ll listen,
demonstrably together
R ! chard
psst: did I mention that the words
“Tsar” and “Kaiser” are
derivations of the name
Caesar
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