Beware of the Ides of March

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Meaning:

Beware of the Ides of March is a warning that something bad might happen on March 15th.

"Ooh, beware the ides of March!"

Origin:

So, what are the Ides of March, and why do I need to beware of them? Well, the Ides is an old Roman name for a day used in their calendar system. They used different words to help them divide and arrange their calendars. Months of the Roman calendar were arranged around three named marker days - the Kalends, the Nones, and the Ides - and these were reference points from which the other (unnamed) days were calculated.

Kalends (1st day of the month).
Nones (the 7th day in March, May, July, and October; the 5th in the other months).
Ides (the 15th day in March, May, July, and October; the 13th in the other months).

Now we know what the Ides are. Why do we have to 'Beware the Ides of March'? It comes from the historical fact that Julius Caesar was murdered by a group of Roman senators on the Ides of March In 44 BCE.

Exactly a month earlier, Caesar had visited a soothsayer named Spurinna. Who predicted that his life would be in danger for the next 30 days. How do we know this because it was recorded by the Roman poet called Terence? Translated into English, it reads:

For Spurinna beinge a southsayer hadde warned Cesar before to beware of the Ides of Marche, for he shulde be slayne as that daye, and soo he was.

Umm, creepy.

In 1601 William Shakespeare used this information to write his play, Julius Caesar; he wrote:

Soothsayer: Beware the ides of March.
Caesar: What man is that?
Brutus: A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March.

Example:

Today we do not use the saying “Beware of the Ides of Mach” unless we are seeing or acting in Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar, but if we were to bring it back, here is an example sentence:

“Our math teacher is in a bad mood today; he gave us four big homework assignments, beware; beware of the Ides of March.”

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