The Ides of March

In Competition No. 2486 you were invited to submit a retrospective verse comment from the other world on the assassination by Caesar or by one of the conspirators. Most of you chose to put yourself in Caesar’s bloodied sandals, consigning the conspirators to the sidelines, which they would have hated. Adam Campbell was pithy and to the point:

Talk about being stabbed in the back!Nasty way of getting the sack.The prizewinners, printed below, scoop £25 each. The extra fiver goes to D.A Prince, who used some nice half rhymes. I particularly liked ‘whine’ with ‘Elysium’, the rhyme and the meaning working together in a very satisfying way. A commendation to Ray Kelley, whose Caesar, vanity undented by millennia of self-reflection, laments being played by Louis Calhern rather than by Olivier in Joseph Mankiewicz’s monochrome masterpiece.

So Death, the necessary end, comes quick

In Fate’s conspiracy. I now could bearThe cutting thrust of bloody Senate bladesAnd manifesting of Calpurnia’s dream,Did not the needle of the Soothsayer’s whineEcho through all Elysium. I toldYou so. A gnat in life, he’ll buzz old newsTo slow, ear-stinging death. The Ides of March —Beware, the Ides of March! A speaking clockCould commandeer more notice and respectThan this shrill-squeaking calendar. PerchanceWhen Brutus sands are run, we’ll face to face,Re-knife, and hunt him down — I told you soNo more — till all the thronging gods combineTo laud the Roman freedoms and an endOf petty Sooth. We’ll hit him with a swat.D.A. Prince

Tip-offs the batting wicket would be sticky;

Calpurnia urging me to take a sickie;Dreams of my statue gushing gore; a priestHaruspically construing a heartless beast;Foreboders boding, grim soothsayers sooth-ing:To stay home would have been the smart-to-do-thing.But when the ace spin-doctor of the RomansMade fine-sign auguries out of look-doom omensI chose to go, and — well, you know the rest.There were a few screen versions; in the bestGielgud played Cassius, Brando Antony,James Mason Brutus; but unhappilyLouis Calhern played me, and all admitThe fellow simply wasn’t up to it.Why didn’t casting pay the price to getOlivier? That’s the one thing I regret.Ray Kelley

I met yestreen in the Elysian Fields

One Kennedy, who, just like me, was felledBy an assassin’s hand. The tale he toldNo man would e’er believe! But in returnI told him all the parts Will Shakespeare leftUnsaid — how I and Brutus, long before,In a taverna made a pact that IShould rule at first, and he should holdThe privy purse awhile, till on the IdesOf March I would resign, and he have Rome.But he believed me not, and plotted withThe rest to lay me low, for fear that IWould stay to firm my place in historyBy waging war upon the Persians! YetHe held but for a tiny space my throne,And by the populace was soon o’erthrown.Brian Murdoch

I nearly pulled it off, I did. I all but fooled the lot:

Fleeced Caesar, Cassius, the Bard, and others like as not.‘The noblest Roman of them all’? Oh no! A saint I ain’t —Just good at playing innocent and acting like a saint.Call me sly, a sneak, a cad — I’ll take it on the chin,I couldn’t wait to bring him down and put the dagger in.‘Et tu Brute?’ The pompous ass, as if I wouldn’t dare!I never really liked the fool. Why shouldn’t I be there?But sucking up to Antony? That was my big mistake,Agreeing he could have a say to give the guy a break.‘Friends, Romans, countrymen ...blah-blah.’ Now that was truly snide,He knew a thing or two to get the rabble on his side!No crown, no laurel wreath for me, and worse was still to come,Letting Strato hold my sword! How could I be so dumb?I thought he’d bottle out and run away, or hoped he would.He didn’t run — he ran me through, and now I’m done for good.Alan Millard

In the faces of men I discerned no traitor:

To search out hate you must know your hater.That scroll, with the murderers listed clear,Was found, still sealed, in my garments later.

I should have respected Calpurnia’s fear,

Dream-born in the dark; given serious earTo the entrails’ message the priests were reading,Of doom ineluctable drawing near.

Now, crouching dog-like, a client is pleading;

The throng presses thick, to my blind unheeding,And many have noted the curious factThat at Pompey’s statue my body falls bleeding.

With how many wounds was I butchered and hacked?

Authorities differ. The odds were stackedAgainst one great man who would yet be greaterWhat quality was it I fatally lacked?Godfrey Bullard

Et tu, Brute! he said to me. Et tu!

And crucified me as he spoke my name.He knew I was the one who’d feel the shame,Unlike the rest of that expedient crew.A great man. But the greater that he grewThe greater the necessity became,So, though my life would never be the same,I acted as I felt I had to do.Mark Antony performed the funeral riteAnd preached a rabble-rousing sermon on it.I knew at once that I had had my day.I fled in haste abroad out of his lightAnd fashioned this anachronistic sonnet;Perhaps someday someone will write the play.Noel PettyNo. 2489: Speed limitYou are invited to submit a poem (16 lines maximum) with the title ‘In Praise of Slow’. Entries to ‘Competition 2489’ by 5 April, or email to lucy@spectator.co.uk.