Tom Stoppard’s plays have been described as “plays of ideas,” philosophical deliberations made entertaining by their wordplay, wit, innuendo and sense of fun. Arcadia provides an abundance of delicously fun intellectual banter. Here are a few examples to whet your appetite. Enjoy!

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… on Fermat’s Last Theorem: A mathematical theorem that is simple in form but difficult to prove. The first accepted proof, utilizing ellipitic curves, did not appear until 1994, over 300 years after Fermat first proposed his theorem.

Septimus: I thought you were finding a proof for Fermat’s last theorem.
Thomasina: It is very difficult, Septimus. You will have to show me how.
Septimus: If I knew how, there would be no need to ask you. Fermat’s last theorem
has kept people busy for a hundred and fifty years …

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… on Lord Byron, Lady Caroline Lamb, and battling academics: Byron was a leading figure of Romanticism, and is famous also for his sensational lifestyle, including love affairs with a number of men and women, extremes of wealth and debt, running guns for the Greek revolution, and a generally roguish character. He was famously described by Lady Caroline Lamb (his mistress) as “mad, bad, and dangerous to know”

Bernard: The book!—the book is a revelation! To see Caroline Lamb through your
eyes is really like seeing her for the first time.

Hannah: All the academics who reviewed my book patronized it.
Bernard: Surely not.
Hannah: Surely yes. The Byron gang unzipped their flies and patronized all over it.

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… on “the attraction that Newton left out.”

Lady Croom: It is a defect of God’s humour that he directs our hearts everywhere but
to those who have a right to them.

Chloë: No, it’s all because of sex.
Valentine: Really?
Chloë: That’s what I think. The universe is deterministic all right, just like Newton said,
I mean it’s trying to be, but the only thing going wrong is people fancying people who
aren’t supposed to be in that part of the plan.

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… on translating Latin and cheating: The Latin assigned Thomasina to translate is
from the historian Plutarch. Septimus’ “translation” is in fact Shakespeare, who used the Plutarch as the basis for a famous scene in Antony and Cleopatra.

Thomasina: Regina reclinabat … the queen—was reclining—praeter descriptionem—
indescribably—in a golden tent … like Venus and yet more—
Septimus: Try to put some poetry into it.
Thomasina: How can I if there is none in the Latin?
Septimus: Oh, a critic!

Septimus: Let me see if I can attempt a free translation for you. At Harrow I was
better at this than Lord Byron. Yes—‘The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne …
burned on the water … the—something—the poop was beaten gold, purple the sails,
and—what’s this?—oh, yes, —so perfumed that—
Thomasina: Cheat!

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… on translating Latin (again)and dramatic irony: The phrase Et in Arcadia ego most famously appears in two paintings by Nicholas Poussin. Both paintings depict shepherds in Arcadia clustered around a tomb bearing the inscription, which is generally accepted to be spoken by Death personified, establishing his presence even in paradise.

Lady Croom: … it is nature as God intended, and I can say with the painter, “Et in
Arcadia ego!” “Here I am in Arcadia.”

Septimus: A calendar of slaughter. “Even in Arcadia, there am I!”
Thomasina: Oh, phooey to Death!

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… on the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics: The total entropy (disorder) of any system naturally increases over time. Eventually, by this law, the universe will achieve total entropy or “heat death”—where all the energy in the universe is in the form of heat.

Thomasina: You cannot stir things apart.
Septimus: No more you can, time must needs run backward, and since it will not, we
must stir our way onward mixing as we go, disorder out of disorder into disorder …

Septiums: So the Improved Newtonian Universe must cease and grow cold. Dear me.
Valentine: The heat goes into the mix.
Thomasina: Yes, we must hurry if we are going to dance.
Valentine: And everything is mixing the same way, all the time, irreversibly …
Septimus: Oh, we have time, I think.
Valentine: … till there’s no time left. That’s what time means
Septiums: When we have found all the mysteries and lost all the meaning, we will be
alone, on an empty shore.
Thomasina: Then we will dance.

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