In the editorial (“This is Going to Hurt”, 5-7-25), the writer ends his assertion that the first 100 Days of the Trump administration has been successful and triumphant with a quote from Shakespeare:
”there is a tide in the affairs of men
Which taken at its flood, leads on to fortune;
Omittted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and miseries.”
from, “Julius Caesar”, Act VI, Scene III
This play is one of my favorites of Shakespeare’s scrips. I have attended at least half a dozen productions since my first Shakespeare play (“Richard III” at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, OR) at age 16. If you have not attended a performance, I suggest keeping an eye for one. The American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, VA, The Shakespeare Theatre, and Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. are all good venues. The Shenandoah University, and JMU in Winchester and Harrisonburg are likely to do productions in their training programs. And, even our neighbors over in Clarksburg have The Rustic Mechanicals, who perform various Shakespeare plays and would do justice to the roles. If you want to know Shakespeare’s source material, read Plutarch’s “Lives”, both his life of Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony. Shakespeare more or less took Plutarch’s outline of history and added dialogue and action to the scenes.
If you are not familiar with the plot, it is full of ambition, adulation, envy, fear, conspiring, assassination, promise of vengeance, civil war and justice. Juicy stuff. Briefly, Caesar returns from victorious military campaigns; the public admires him and grants him more and more political power; some Senators want to reign him in and eventually scheme to stab him to death; they carry out his murder; this starts a civil war; Mark Anthony and his allies, along with some mobs, seek out and kill those they believe were involved in the plot, unfortunately killing others along the way, as mobs are prone to doing; and ultimately the last of the conspirators, Cassius and Brutus, are caught at the Battle of Philippi and fall on their swords.
As inspiring quotes are prone to doing, as well as the actions that they imply are justified, this one is taken out of context. The editor appears to be saying that the all-out actions of the first 100 Days is justified in order to take advantage of a “high tide” of public support (still just less that 50% on election day), and by the super majorities of the MAGA brand controlling both houses of Congress, the acquiescent Supreme Court, and limping opposition from.. what is that other party’s name?
But, first, read the full line that Brutus says:
”Under your pardon. — You must note beside,
That we have tried the utmost of our friends, The enemy Increases every day;
We, at the height, are ready to decline.”
Brutus is telling Cassius that the tide is high, but turning to their disadvantage. At this point of the play, they have killed Caesar, they are loosing supports left and right (notice that Trump’s support is dropping off and opinion polls are below 45%.). They have started a civil war. Their time is up. Thus, he says those lines above which is a desperate plea to strike now before we have totally lost. He concludes:
”On such a full sea are we now afloat;
and we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.”
Act V, which follows this scene seals their fates. And by their action the Roman Republic falls, the oppressive Roman Empire is ushered in by Caesar’s nephew, Augustus. Jesus, what comes next? A few more centuries of Roman Empire expansion until the whole, bloated thing collapses into Medieval tribalism. But, meanwhile, during the Census of Bethlehem, a betrothed couple comes to be counted by that Empire and pay taxes.
Of this John will write in his Gospel, 10:10
”A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy; I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.”. I encourage the readers to do their homework; read the context of John 10… better yet… read all of the Gospel of John. It will be enlightening. Then, go sell your possessions (eg those 28 excess dolls in the toy chest), take care of not only your own, but widows, orphans, and foreigners in your land. Prosperity occurs when we give to others, not accumulate for ourselves.
Oscar Larson
Baker, WV
