A strong trend. The ocean’s tides have been transferred to the flow of events and feelings since Shakespeare’s day. Indeed, Shakespeare wrote, “There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune” (Julius Caesar, 4.3). A strong upward trend, as signified by the cliché, may refer to public support, as in Benjamin Jewett’s statement (The Dialogues of Plato, 1875), “He would stem the rising tide of revolution.”