William Shakespeare’s 1623 tragedy, Antony and Cleopatra, is renowned for its depiction of a complex and fully developed female character in the person of one of its title figures.  Cleopatra, recalling the inexperience of her youth, exclaims, “My salad days, when I was green in judgment, cold in blood, to say as I said then.”  She had been, in other words, a novice at all things pertaining to life, which might not excuse past behavior, but it certainly explains it.  We have all had our salad days, dear listeners.  Cleopatra merely calls it what it is, and in doing so, reveals a level of self-awareness that is difficult not to admire.  The accumulated years do not escape her.  She knows her finitude.  She makes no effort to avoid it. 

I first encountered these lines as a graduate student in a class on Shakespeare.  I recall my professor – a man likely in his fifties at the time – pausing for a moment on what it meant to be so acutely aware of the passing of time and the sheer brevity of one’s life – a puff of smoke blown away quickly by successive years.  I may or may not have grasped the gravity of what was being considered at the time, but I certainly am able to grasp it now, being a man about to turn fifty-one.  Salad days.  When the years were green and the horizons wide and intoxicating.  Even the rays of the sun were somehow different then. 

The Bard, through his characterization of the historic Cleopatra, was undoubtedly prompting his audience to grapple with the meaning of their own lives – the accumulating years, the many, many memories stacked one upon another – what we are supposed to do with it all if anything.  Just experience it.  Feel it.  Reminisce.  This is a surface interpretation, which still passes muster.  However, we might also consider the larger context.  Cleopatra, after all, was a powerful woman known for her beauty.  This is more than just a character nodding toward her younger days.  This is a figure of some stature acknowledging that stature is not enough.  It is never enough.  Even flowers wilt.  Cleopatra is very much aware of this fact, which gives her character a much deeper layer, indeed. 

Youth, naivete, and idealism all seem to be common enough bedfellows.  I had my own ideals in my salad days, and if I am to be honest, I still cringe at the naivete I so boldly put on display before the world.  My ignorance was a spectacle.  I thank God for the many graces that were extended to me then and now.  Cleopatra’s line in this play, then, should be seen as an example of owning up to the reality of youth.  Being impetuous is a part of the landscape.  More to the point, when one is young, there is just life.  When one has accumulated some years, life naturally divides itself by eras, big and small.  One’s salad days are merely one era.  To see it as such is a sure sign of maturity.  To extend it beyond its proper borders is a sign of immaturity.  Nobody likes a forty-year-old adolescent. 

On that note, Cleopatra would be an outlier in the current age.  The postmodern condition has Tasmanian-devil-like gone after every tradition and common understanding formerly in place, and age was no exception.  While I submit that age really is only a number, some formerly agreed upon values should not have been shown the curb.  The aged do have something of value to offer.  There really is wisdom beneath the gray hairs.  The older should be heeded.  The young should sit quietly and listen.  This does not mean to refrain from questioning.  It means to give respect where it is due and to recognize one’s own salad days for what they are, for even the queen of Egypt was humble enough to do just that.