Memory Alpha
Register
Advertisement
Memory Alpha

Julius Caesar was a play written by William Shakespeare, generally considered a classic of Human literature, based on the life of Gaius Julius Caesar, a military and political leader of the Roman Republic of ancient Earth. Other characters featured included Brutus.

In 2293, General Chang quoted lines from the play including "If you have tears, prepare to shed them now."; "Cry 'havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war!"; and "I am as constant as the northern star" while his Bird-of-Prey attacked the USS Enterprise-A over Khitomer. (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country) In 2381, a later Klingon Captain, Dorg, also quoted "Cry 'havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war!" to convey his eagerness to disrupt Federation-Klingon relations and start a new war. (LD: "wej Duj")

Julian Bashir introduced Elim Garak to the play in 2371. Garak first claimed to find it farcical, telling Bashir he didn't "see the value" of Shakespeare's work, as well as claiming to know that Brutus "...was going to betray Caesar in the first act, but Caesar didn't figure it out until the knife was in his back." (DS9: "Improbable Cause")

A short time later, however, Garak had apparently revised his opinion at least somewhat, when choosing to paraphrase a passage from the play to Enabran Tain in effort to explain the failure of a joint Obsidian Order-Tal Shiar task force to anticipate the Dominion surprise counter-attack that subsequently destroyed it: "I'm afraid the fault, dear Tain, is not in our stars... but in ourselves. Something I learned from Doctor Bashir." (DS9: "The Die is Cast")

Together with several other works by William Shakespeare and his edition of The Globe Illustrated Shakespeare: The Complete Works, retired admiral Jean-Luc Picard kept a copy of the play in his section of the quantum archive at the Starfleet Archive Museum. (PIC: "Remembrance")

In 2402, Jean-Luc Picard quoted the play when called upon to propose a toast to gathered colleagues, saying "There is a tide in the affairs of men 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 where it serves or lose our ventures." (PIC: "The Last Generation")

The titles of the books seen in Picard's quantum archive were not legible in the episode, the bundle of books was seen up close in TRR: "Remembrance", however.
The titles of the episodes "The Dogs of War" and "There Is A Tide..." derive from quotes from Julius Caesar.

External links[]

Advertisement