IN MANY cultures, Friday is considered an unlucky day. Is it not, after all, the day associated with the Crucifixion and also, we are told, the day on which Adam and Eve were expelled from Paradise? Even Friday's weather is undependable, as Chaucer tells us in The Knight's Tale, relating the sad story of the tragic love triangle of Palamon, Emily and Arcite:
Just like a Friday mornings truth to tell;
Shining one moment and then raining fast
Sochangey Venus loves to overcast
The hearts of all her folk;
she, like her day
Friday, is changeable -
and so are they.
Seldom is Friday like any other day.
But if any Friday is unlucky, a Friday coinciding with the Ides of March must surely be a day to stay in bed. Presumably because of Julius Caesar's unfortunate experience under Pompey's statue on the floor of the Roman Senate in 44 BC, the Ides of March, or the 15th day of that month, is also regarded by some as a day of great ill omen.
Its fame in this context derives from Shakespeare's tragedy, which is in turn based on Plutarch's version of the story: "A certain soothsayer forewarned Caesar of great danger which threatened him on the Ides of March. When the day was come, as he was going to the Senate House he called out to the soothsayer and said laughing: `The Ides of March bare come'; to which the soothsayer answered softly: `Yes, but they are not gone'." And we know what happened before the day was done.
The Romans were peculiar. Instead of counting the days of the month sensibly like we do, they reckoned their dates by counting backwards from (three fixed points in each month: the Kalends, the Nones and the Ides.
The Kalends was the first day of each month.
The Ides was roughly in the middle but varied from one month to another. In May, July and October, and in the present month of March, the Ides was the 15th, but it was the 13th day of all the others.
The Nones (from the Latin word for "nine") was always eight days before the Ides - or nine days if you count inclusively, as the Romans always did.
With these three anchors, the Romans could number all their days. St Patrick's Day, for example, March 17th, would have been known to the Romans as the 16th day (counting both the first and the last day) before the Kalends of April - or ante diem XVI Kal.Apr. for short.