Which, taken at the flood leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.”
Julius Caesar Act 4, Scene 3, 218-224
Shakespeare is the source of many sayings that have entered our language and become household phrases, usually without our realizing any more where they came from. There is a story of the young woman who was taken to see Hamlet for the first time, and said:”But it’s so full of quotes!” After all, how many people know that it was Othello who first assumed a ‘foregone conclusion’ or Mercutio who went off on the first ‘wild-goose chase’?
There are several phrases that come from JC: “There is a tide in the affairs of men” comes when Cassius and Brutus are discussing tactics in their war with the forces of Octavian and Marcus Antonius. Cassius urges that they should group their forces, catch their breath and let the enemy seek them out. Brutus, however, argues they should head the enemy off at Philippi before Octavian can recruit more men, they should act now before the balance of power slips away from them. Power is a force that ebbs and flows; if the opportunity is missed (omitted), you’ll find yourself stranded in shallows.
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
Men at some time are masters of their fates;
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
Julius Caesar Act 1, Scene 2, 135-141
Here, Cassius is trying to draw Brutus into the plot against Caesar: his method is to inflate the threat of Caesar’s power, in contrast to the submissiveness, and therefore the dishonour of other patricians. It’s not the ‘fault’ of the ‘stars’ that Caesar is on top and Brutus and Cassius are underlings; the fault is in their own lack of resolve. Brutus has been trusting to fate to restrain his friend Caesar’s ambitions, but he needs to think about seizing fate for himself and be master of his fate.
But you have to be careful of attributing too much to Shakespeare: sometimes he was merely using phrases that were already popular in his time. You’ll remember the murmur of recognition in the audience when Casca said of a speech of Cicero’s that it “was Greek to me” – which is what we say when we have understood nothing. But this phrase is first found in a play from the year 1575, so yes, Shakespeare was indeed making a joke, using this well-known phrase about a speech that was truly in Greek.
