Forward, march

On the parade ground there is always a short break between the words ‘Forward’ and ‘march’. It moves ahead those who had been marking time. Eaton’s advertisements used to say that their March sale “uncrated the sun”. It began their pre-Easter merchandising campaign, as in the ancient world March opened both the year’s military adventures and its agricultural activity.

Like the red planet, this month was named for Mars, the Roman god of war. The Greeks called him Ares (Ar-ese). Rome had a ‘campus Martius’ and Athens had its ‘Areopagus’ (Hill of Ares or Mars Hill), a western spur of the Acropolis.

There was a time when March was the first month of the ‘kalendar’. In Roman reckoning the first day of each month was the ‘kalends’. The ‘nones’ fell variously between the fifth and the seventh day and the ‘ides’ between the 13th and the 15th.

Each day after the first one was said to be so many before either the nones or the ides of a given month. Days after the ‘ides’ were numbered as so many before the next ‘kalends’. Today, 4 March, is day IV before the nones of March. Note that the counting began with the current day. Thus, from Friday to the following Sunday was a three-day period.

March is certainly the first month of the year about which anybody in the northern hemisphere has a good word to say. We lengthen its daylight hours in order to prolong the coming days of spring and summer. That used to happen on the last Sunday of April.

In 1987 the change began to be made on the first weekend of that month and in 2007 it was moved forward to the second Sunday in March.

British Summer Time (BST) begins 28 March this year.

In the southerly parts of Europe the March weather can be pleasant, the fields green and the woodlands full of wild flowers. The depiction of this month in Les Très Riches Heures of the Duc de Berry shows peasants at work in the fields below his Chateau de Lusignan. One of the delights for visitors is to stroll through the March countryside around Assisi, hometown of St Francis, and that above Firenze which Fra Angelico knew so well. Both contrast pleasingly with the haughty triumphalism of Rome.

Northward, March can be less pleasant. Nicholas Breton (b. 1550) was an English writer of verse and pastoral essays. In one he says, “It is now March. Tender lips are masked for fear of chafing and fair hands must still not be ungloved. Now riseth the sun a pretty step to its fair height. Birds, fishes and frogs fall to their manner of generation. The air is sharp but the sun is comfortable and the day begins to lengthen. The forward gardens give a nosegay of violets for a lady. Now begins all nature to awaken out of sleep. The tree begins to bud and the grass to peep abroad. It is a time of much work”.

Although most March days fall within the Lenten season, the church calendar includes some noteworthy annual festivals and memorials.

The most prominent is that of the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary (‘Lady Day’) on the 25th. Nine months before Christmas, it recalls the announcement of the coming birth of Jesus.

The earliest Christian writings, those of Mark and Paul, mention neither the Annunciation nor the tradition of Mary’s virginity, though the importance of her relationship to her Son was never in doubt.

Matthew and Luke tell of the virgin birth, as does the Qur’an

Sura 19).

Few escape notice of St Patrick’s day on the 17th. There was already a Christian bishop, Palladius, in Ireland when Padraig arrived there but it was the younger man around whom the legends of shamrocks and the banishment of snakes grew.

March 19 commemorates St Joseph of Nazareth, “most chaste spouse” of Mary and guardian of the boy Jesus. Children of his previous marriage are thought to be the “brothers and sisters” mentioned in the Gospels.

The first day of March is St David’s day, the national day of Wales. ‘Dewi Sant’ is to be distinguished from the old Hebrew king whose Celtic name is Dafydd. There is no reliable biography of Dewi who lived in the Sixth Century A.D. What were once thought to be his relics have since been identified as those of a 12th Century monk who rejoiced in the name Caradog.

No poets write odes to March although one would think that its grey flannel clouds and equinoctial winds would fit well into a mystery novel. Could P.D. James or Peter Robinson not have Adam Dalgliesh or Alan Banks find themselves in some kind of a meteorological dilemma in one or other of the extremities of England at the time that spring arrives in the land? If Agatha Christie did so long ago, one has forgotten.

That old Missouri humorist, Mark Twain, once spoke to the New England Society in New York City.

He said, “There is a sumptuous variety of New England weather that compels the visitor’s attention – and regret. The weather is always doing something different up there, always trying new things on people to see how they will react.

But it gets up to more things in early spring than in any other season.

From March on I have counted 136 different kinds of weather in the space of four and twenty hours”.

Like the command “Forward, march”, the coming spring season - officially only a few days off – is a time for moving on, watching with satisfaction the slow retreat of winter and expecting that better days are “just down the road”.

The best thing about the promise of spring is that, unlike the fickle vows made in wine or passion, it will be kept.

On the other hand, while leaves sprout and bulbs bloom down along the shores of Lake Ontario, the next few weeks up here on the provincial rooftop can play at least a dozen of Twain’s variations on the ‘primavera’ theme. Ah, Dufferinshire!