VIDEO: 'Beware The Ides of March!' Shakespeare's Legendary Warning For March 15th

The role of the Soothsayer has but nine lines in Shakespeare's JULIUS CAESAR, but numbers two and three rank up there with "Friends, Romans, Countrymen..." and "Et tu, Brute?"

Those are the two times the character pronounces the cryptic warning, "Beware the ides of March."

March 15th, in the vernacular.

In the Roman calendar, the ides of each month was determined by the occurrence of the full moon. It was on this day in 44BC that Caesar's friend Brutus, under the influence of the crafty Cassius, plunged his dagger into the Roman leader, along with dozens of other members of the senate.

Click the photo below for the scene from Joseph L. Mankiewicz's 1953 film version of JULIUS CAESAR, with Louis Calhern as Caesar, James Mason as Brutus, John Gielgud as Cassius, Greer Garson as Calpurnia, Marlon Brando as Mark Antony and Richard Hale as the Soothsayer.

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