Editing Arcadia (play) (section)

==Title==
[[File:Cole Thomas The Course of Empire The Arcadian or Pastoral State 1836.jpg|thumb|The title ''Arcadia'' alludes to a pastoral ideal.]]
[[File:Nicolas Poussin - Et in Arcadia ego (deuxième version).jpg|thumb|''[[Et in Arcadia ego (Poussin)|Et in Arcadia ego]]'' is most known as the title of this painting by [[Nicolas Poussin]], also known as ''Les bergers d'Arcadie'' ("The Arcadian Shepherds")]]
The play's title is abbreviated from its initial version: ''Et in Arcadia ego''.{{sfn|Fleming|2008|pp=57–58}}  ''Arcadia'' refers to the pastoral ideal; the phrase literally translates, "and in Arcadia I am".  The tradition of placing a tomb in a pastoral idyll can be traced to Virgil's ''Eclogues'', while the phrase first appears in [[Et in Arcadia ego (Guercino)|Guercino's painting]] dated in 1618-1622. Both the image and the motto are commonly considered a ''[[memento mori]]'', with the phrase being spoken by Death: "I, too, am in Arcadia". But the enigmatic phrase remains a subject of much academic discussion.<ref>{{cite book | last=Cohen | first=J.M. | author-link=J. M. Cohen |author2=Cohen, M.J. | title=The Penguin Dictionary of Quotations | publisher=Penguin Books | year=1960 | location=Harmondsworth, England }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last=Panofsky | first=Erwin | author-link=Erwin Panofsky | others=quoted in Knowles, Elizabeth (Ed.) | title=The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations:Arcadia | publisher=Oxford University Press | year=2004 }}</ref>

Lady Croom, enthusing about paintings of pretty landscapes, translates the phrase as "Here I am in Arcadia!" Thomasina drily comments, "Yes Mama, if you would have it so". Septimus notices; later, suspecting his pupil will appreciate the motto's true meaning, he offers the translation "Even in Arcadia, there am I". He is right – "Oh, phooey to Death!" she exclaims.{{sfn|Stoppard|1993|p=13}} Although these brief exchanges are the only direct references in the play to its title, they presage the two main characters' fates: Thomasina's early death, and Septimus's voluntary exile from life.{{sfn|Fleming|2008|pp=57–58}} Stoppard originally wanted to make this connection more explicit by using ''Et in Arcadia Ego'' for the title, but "box office sense prevailed".{{sfn|Fleming|2008|pp=57–58}}

In a more obvious sense, the title also invokes the ideal of nature as an ordered paradise, while the estate's landscape steadily evolves into a more irregular form. This provides a recurring image of the different ways in which "true nature" can be understood, and a homely parallel to Thomasina's theoretical description of the natural world's structure and [[entropy|entropic decline]] using mathematics.{{sfn|Fleming|2008|pp=57–58}}