For a March theme, I had to include a March Hare, and have had the main picture for this shadowbox in mind for a long time. Of course, a March hare theme would not be complete without one of Tenniel's Alice in Wonderland woodcuts, the March Hare here seen dunking the poor dormouse into the pot. I also added a woodcut I found of the Vernal Equinox, which occurs on the 21st, the image here representing the equal hours of sunlight and darkness at this time. The bronze Roman coin, is a symbol of 'The ides of March', the name for the 15th March in the Roman Calendar. The term Ides of March is best known as the date that Julius Caesar was assassinated, as dramatized in Shakespeare's play, and the coin was commissioned by assassin Brutus after Caesar's death. Two green porcelain hare-shaped buttons and a bottle of pussy willow buds bring the nature theme back into focus, and a line from an ode by Victorian poet Algernon C. Swinburne, on a stained and torn scrap of paper, sum up the madness and chaos of the season.
"March, master of winds, bright minstrel and marshal of storms
that enkindle the season they smite."
Algernon C. Swinburne, March: An Ode
