Julius Caesar
Nietzsche says that this play should be called "Marcus Brutus," and Bloom agrees that the focus of the play is Brutus, though he says it's not unusual that Shakespeare should name the play for the greater historical figure in it. Whatever the case, here we may begin discussing it... (Keep an eye on those Plebians.)
Slippery Joaquin's Photos
thanks-be for JAG's Clif Notes
i've been far from Shakespeare land due to travel and visitors, but i'm trying to get into it now. thanks-be for JAG's Clif Notes. damn, sorry i missed this one since i think i would've loved it. particularly the theme you mentioned: "What is the difference between nobility and commonness, between senators and plebians". those do feel politically apropos, and still resonate for me with The Remains of the Day.
i've got a gift certificate in hand to my neighborhood used book store, and hope to jump in at whatever you're reading next, but maybe i'll come back to Caesar anyway... for now, on to all those comedies... nice work, JAGson.
Shoot
Shoot, man, you don't have to feel like you missed anything. I have been busy lately and will be a little while longer, but read Caesar anyway, and comment as you will. I will soon be attending even as I wrestle the Bard and Bloom elsewhere. In any case, thanks for the encouragement. I have made a task of Shakespeare indeed--but I don't yet feel like I am doing anything but playing--these "Clif Notes," as you aptly call them, being only the beginning of some greater project perhaps. Of course, you can come along with me too. I am two days behind my schedule (now in Twelfth Night, which is a lot of fun), but I am hoping to catch up tomorrow. We'll see.
just a guy is Joey D
Acts IV and V
And so we come to the final two Acts, in which Brutus and Cassius lead troops against Mark Antony and Octavius. History, of course, knows the outcome, and I, for lack of time, will not give these Acts the same treatment I gave the three that came before. What's most clear is that Brutus retains all sense of honor to the end (in fact, he gains much of his reputation in Act IV as he deals with Cassius--see below) and Antony comes to resemble much of what Brutus feared Caesar would become, ambitious, manipulative, even tyrannical or, at least, power hungry. And hence, without question, the plot is tragic, as the greatest natures in it die at the hands of lesser natures. Did this constitute something of a subversion on Shakespeare's part, whose contemporaries, the same as ours, generally laud Caesar and the Roman Empire? Hmmm.
In Act IV, scene ii, Brutus confronts Cassius, the change in whom gives Brutus "some worthy cause to wish/ Things done undone." The two are angry with each other. Brutus says to an emissary he sent to Cassius: "Ever note, Lucilius,/ When love begins to sicken and decay/ It useth an enforced ceremony./ There are no tricks in plain and simple faith;/ But hollow men, like horses hot at hand,/ Make gallant show and promise f their mettle;/ [Low march within (--a rare stage direction from Shakespeare here)]/ But when they should endure the bloody spur,/ They fall their crests, and like deceitful jades/ Sink in the trial."
The difference between Brutus and Cassius, two men united in action as well as in defeat, is now placed on the stage.
Apparently, Brutus asked Cassius for money to raise and pay troops, which Cassius witheld. And worse, Cassius, obviously distressed and flabbergasted, raised money or troops in unlawful or ignoble ways. Brutus chides: "What, shall one of us,/ That struck the foremost man of all this world/ But for supporting robbers--shall we now/ Contaminate our fingers with base bribes,/ And sell the mighty space of our large honors/ For so much trash as may be grasped thus?/ I had rather be a dog and bay at the moon/ Than such a Roman."
Cassius responds in physical threats, which Brutus uptakes and mocks: "Go show your slaves how choleric you are/ and make your bondmen tremble. Must I budge?/ Must I observe you? Must I stand and crouch/ under your testy humor? By the gods,/ You shall digest the venom of your spleen,/ though it do split you; for from this day forth/ I'll use you for my mirth, yea, for my laughter,/ When you are waspish."
Cassius warns Brutus again: "Do not presume too much upon my love./ I may do that I shall be sorry for." Brutus rejoins: "You have done that you should be sorry for./ There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats;/ For I am armed so strong in honesty/ That they pass by me as the idle wind,/ Which I respect not." And then Brutus continues to chide: "By heaven, I had rather coin my heart/ And drop my blood for drachmas than to wring/ From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash/ By any indiscretion."
Cassius responds: "Brutus hath rived my heart./ A friend should bear his friend's infirmities,/ But Brutus makes mine greater than they are." Brutus protests: "I do not, till you practice them on me." Cassius: "You love me not." Brutus: "I do not like your faults." Cassius: "A friendly eye could not see such faults." Brutus: "A flatterer's would not, though they do appear/ As huge as high Olympus."
Eventually, Cassius' rage, that "shows a hasty spark", quickly subsides and "is cold again." The two make up. Cassius asks, "Have you not love enough to bear with me/ When that rash humor which my mother gave me/ Makes me forgetful?" Brutus answers, "Yes, Cassius; and from henceforth,/ When you are over-earnest with your Brutus,/ he'll think your mother chides, and leave you so." (Interesting that the rage and the chiding here is the mother's work.)
Then the poet comes in, and he is quickly dismissed by Brutus, as I said before.
And then Brutus reveals, that despite his Stoic philosophy he is in grief: "Portia is dead." Apparently, Portia "fell distract" and then deliberately choked herself with a burning coal. Ouch!
Brutus, most stoically, turns to the subject at hand, the war. He advises Cassius to come with him to fight Antony and Octavius where they are amassed, at Philippi. Cassius does not think it is best, but again Brutus' reason prevails: "There is a tide in the affairs of men/ Which, taken at the flood, leads onto fortune;/ Omitted, all the voyage of their life/ Is bound in shallows and in miseries./ On such a full sea are we now afloat,/ And we must take the current when it serves/ Or lose our ventures."
The two go to rest and prepare for battle in the early morning. Brutus asks his servant to play music for him, but eventually changes his mind: "I should not urge thy duty past thy might." And then Brutus is visited by--or at least imagines Caesar's ghost.
Act V then comes on and the battle ensues. It seems that, for once, Brutus actually offers good advise in the course of this battle, but because of a terrible error in judgment on Cassius' part, the battle goes to Antony and Octavius. Both Cassius, mistaking friends for foes, and Brutus kill themselves by running onto their own swords. Antony ends the play with praise of the one true Roman among the conspirators, Brutus. Here are a few interesting quotations:
Brutus: "Good words are better than bad strokes, Octavius."
Brutus: "I know not how,/ But I do find it cowardly and vile,/ For fear of what might fall, so to prevent/ The time of life--arming myself with patience/ To stay the providence of some high powers/ That govern us below."
Brutus: "O that a man might know/ The end of this day's business ere it come!/ But it sufficeth that the day will end,/ And then the end is known. Come, ho! Away!"
Messala: "O Error, soon conceived,/ Thou never com'st unto a happy birth,/ But kill'st the mother that engend'red thee!"
Brutus: "O Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet!/ Thy spirit walks abroad and turns our swords/ In our own proper entrails."
Brutus: "Our enemies have beat us to the pit./ [Low alarms.]/ It is more worthy to leap in ourselves/ Than tarry till they push us."
Brutus: "Countrymen,/ My heart doth joy that yet in all my life/ I found no man but he was true to me./ I shall have flory by this losing day/ More than Octavius and Mark Antony/ By this vile conquest shall attain unto./ So fare you well at once; for Brutus' tongue/ Hath almost ended his life's history./ Night hangs upon mine eyes; my bones would rest,/ That have but labored to attain this hour."
Antony: "This was the noblest Roman of them all./ All the conspirators save only he/ Did that they did in envy of great Caesar;/ He, only in a general honest thought/ And common good to all, made one of them./ His life was gentle, and the elements/ So mixed in him that Nature might stand up/ And say to all the world, 'This was a man!'"
And with that, so ends our discussion of Caesar. I will give a look at Bloom on Caesar and add what I can, but it's on with Love's Labor's Lost tomorrow....
just a guy is Joey D
Act III
Onto Act III with all the same questions. (Hieb, thanks for the encouragement. I'm having a ton of fun. Go and check out the last post again, "Onto the second Act." I added a good bit.) Tomorrow, I will finish Julius Caesar.
Act III, scene i
Ceasar says regarding the note that Artemidorus gives him: "What touches us ourselves shall be last served." (Hardly sounds like a tyrrant, even if it is only a public statement.)
At the Capitol, before Senators, one of whom is supplicating on behalf of a banished brother, Caesar says: "Be not fond/ To think that Caesar bears such rebel blood/ That will be thawed from the true quality/ With that which melteth fools--I mean, sweet words,/ Low-crooked curtsies, and base spaniel fawning." Both Brutus and Cassius kneel before Caesar too. Caesar says, "What, Brutus?" surprised that Brutus would do such a thing (--of course, both Brutus and Cassius are moving into position to strike, whatever their feelings for the Senator's brother). Caesar holds steadfast: "I could be well moved, if I were as you;/ If I could pray to move, prayers would move me:/ But I am constant as the Northern Star,/ Of whose true-fixed and resting quality/ There is no fellow in the firmament." Cinna, Decius and Casca also bow. And then they strike, "[Casca first, Brutus last]." Caesar says in shock, "Et tu, Brute?--Then fall Caesar." And with that Caesar dies (almost as though his astonishment over the part Brutus plays were what killed him rather than the daggers).
Cinna cries out: "Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!"
Cassius instructs: "Some to the common pulpits and cry out/ 'Liberty, freedom, and enfranchisement!'"
Brutus speaks to the rest that look on: "People and senators, be not affrighted./ Fly not; stand still. Ambition's debt is paid."
All of these comments lack substantiation, based on what we have read so far. Perhaps a greater knowledge of Caesar, such as many of Shakespeare's audience might have had, substantiates it. Or perhaps a better understanding of what Rome was before Caesar--how it was conceived and governed would help. I do not know anything about Rome, but it is at least clear that the singularity of Caesar--the idea of but one reigning governor--an emperor, perhaps unprecedented in Rome at that time, is what Brutus means to abort. But it is hard for us to understand this assassination, unable as we are to draw any clear parallels to the context of the play. Cassius projects: "How many ages hence/ Shall this our lofty scene be acted over/ In states unborn and accents unknown!" And Brutus continues the thought: "How many times shall Caesar bleed in sport,/ That now on Pompey's basis lies along/ No worthier than the dust!" (And with this, Brutus anticipates the Hamlet of Act V.)
Brutus submits (still in Hamlet mode): "Fates, we will know your pleasures./ That we shall die, we know; 'tis but the time,/ And drawing days out, that men stand upon." Casca replies: "Why, he that cuts off twenty years of life/ Cuts off so many years of fearing death."
Mark Antony arrives on the scene: "O mighty Caesar! dost thou lie so low?/ Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils,/ Shrunk to this little measure?"
Brutus responds to Mark Anotony's request to be killed, if he is to be killed, then and there, with the same swords, "made rich/ With the most noble blood of all this world": "O Antony, beg not your death of us!/...Our hearts you see not. They are pitiful;/ And pity to the general wrong of Rome/ (As fire drives out fire, so pity pity)/ Hath done this deed on Caesar." And a few lines later, Brutus goes on: "Our reasons are so full of good regard/ That were you, Antony, the son of Caesar,/ You should be satisfied." (This recalls the line from Act I, in which Casca disdains the plebians who would excuse Caesar if he had killed their mothers.)
Antony, at his request, is granted the right to speak for Caesar after Brutus is done speaking to the people. Cassius, shrewd, whatever else you want to say of him, thinks it's a bad idea. He also wanted Antony to be killed when they were still conspiring. But both times, Brutus overruled his thinking. Brutus espoused the false belief that everyone would be able to understand the necessity of Caesar's death in the same way he understood it. No doubt, this difference between Brutus' expectation and what actually happens is the irony that swallows him whole, even as it distinguishes him for one of Shakespeare's most noble characters.
Anyway, Antony is then left alone, to dress the body and prepare his speech, at which point he prophesies: "A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;/ Domestic fury and fierce civil strife/ Shall cumber all the parts of Italy;/ Blood and destruction shall be so in use/ And dreadful objects so familiar/ That mothers shall but smile when they behold/ Their infants quartered with the hands of war,/ All pity choked with custom of fell deeds;/ And Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge/...Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice/ Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war,/ That this foul deed shall smell above the earth/ With carrion men, groaning for burial."
Act III, scene ii
"We will be satisfied! Let us be satisfied!" And thus the plebians take center stage again, so to speak. They first listen to Brutus, who starts: "Romans, countrymen, and lovers, hear me for my cause and be silent, that you may hear... If [you] demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer: Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more... With this I depart, that, as I slewmy best lover for the good of Rome, I have the same dagger for myself when it shall please my country to need my death." (This hardly does justice to the speech, which is great, and interestingly delivered as prose.) And then the Plebians, tractable as I said before, respond with what I think is truly the death of Brutus and of his ideal: "Let him be Caesar. Ceasar's better parts/ Shall be crowned in Brutus."
Brutus departs alone, as he would have it, and the crowd, also at Brutus' wish, stays to hear Mark Antony speak: "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;/... The evil that men do lives after them;/ The good is oft interred with their bones/... Here under leave of Brutus and the rest/ (For Brutus is an honorable man; So are they all, all honorable men)/ Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral." Repeating this "honorable" again and again, Mark Antony becomes more and more virulent. Eventually, he produces Caesar's will (or seems to produce it) in order to further disprove Brutus' charge that Caesar was ambitious. "I fear I wrong the honorable men/ Whose daggers have stabbed Caesar; I do fear it." Meanwhile, the Plebians are growing more and more angry: "They were traitors. Honorable men!" Antony continues: "For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel./ Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him!/ This was the most unkindest cut of all;/ For when the noble Caesar saw him stab,/ Ingratitude, more strong than traitor's arms,/ Quite vanquished him. Then burst his mighty heart;/ And in his mantle muffling up his face,/ Even at the base of Pompey's statue/ (Which all the while ran blood) great Caesar fell." This reference to Pompey recalls, as Antony probably wishes it would, how the people celebrated Pompey's removal from power at the hands of Caesar. But it also surely reminds us of the words of the tribune in the first scene of the play, that admonished the Plebians for turning on Pompey so quickly. In a word, wishwashy! Antony continues to rouse the people to "mutiny," whoe now move to "burn the house of Brutus." But Antony reminds them of the will he intends to read: "Why, friends, you go to do you know not what." (This recalls Caius who swore to follow Brutus blindly in Act II.) Finally, like a real stage performer, Antony delivers the will which seems to have given all that Caesar had built to the people themselves. The plebians now are a dangerous mob and they go off for revenge. Antony, left alone, says, "Now let it work. Mischief, thou art afoot,/ Take thou what course thou wilt." (The choice of the word "mischief" is interesting here; for how much of what Antony spoke might be described as guile?)
Act III, scene iii
But before the end of the Act, Shakeseare's gives a very strange scene, in which the mob tears apart Cinna the poet. Upon hearing that his name is Cinna, the Plebians assume he is one of the conspiratos and begin to "tear him to pieces." Cinna exclaims, "I am Cinna the poet! I am Cinna the poet!" To which a Plebian responds, "Tear him for his bad verses! Tear him for his bad verses!" Cinna again: "I am not Cinna the conspirator." The Plebian, full of bloodlust, says, "It is no matter; his name's Cinna! Pluck but his name out of his heart, and turn him going." Cinna is killed.
Why? Obviously, it shows the terrible power of the mob, blind and unrelenting. But why a poet? What is Shakespeare saying here? In the next Act, another poet shows up, and while Brutus does not kill him, he kicks him out: "I'll know his humor when he knows his time." Peculiar, to say the least. Perhaps he is saying that though poets, such as himself, take on the task (great or foolish, such as in A Midsummer's Night's Dream, perhaps even mischeivious or mendacious) of carrying the past and representing the greatest moments or periods in history, they have no place during those periods themselves. (This is a far cry from Whitman's poetical ideal...)
just a guy is Joey D
brutus
what about brutus's treatment of his servants? i n more than one occasion has brutus showed care and compassion to his servants(underlings) in act2 sc1 his servant sleeps and he calls for him and he sees he is asleep because it it so late, he says" Boy! Lucius! Fast asleep? It is no matter; Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber" he does this again around act 4, his guards were going to wait outside the door for the sound of his slumber but he bids them so find sleep and lie down, for he wil be up all night, that sounds like selfless acts to me, so i like to consider Brutus to be putting on a front, when around other generals and politicians, such as cassius.
well done, JAG. i'm having
well done, JAG. i'm having fun reading your comments, distant as they may be not having read a line of the play. too bad, too -- i think i would have enjoyed this one. still hope to join in, but we were traveling last weekend and are leaving again on wednesday for a week. so i'm probably out until The Merchant of Venice. anyway, i hope you're enjoying creating your own Will Shakes journal.
Onto the second Act
Onto the second Act, onto the nobility of Brutus, and the greatness of Caesar, onto the questions becoming paramount: What is the difference between nobility and commonness, between senators and plebians, between the nature of man and the nature of woman? And, of course, what are Brutus's motivations? What in Caesar's actions or words supports Brutus's reasons for killing him? Or is Brutus failing to see that it is the people whom he represents and for whom he is most dearly responsible--the plebians, themselves, that are making a Caesar of Caesar--that require "redress"? Or does Cassius's "instigations," resentful at root, influence Brutus?
The quotations I offer here either pertain to these questions, or they are simply important or powerfully articulated insights.
Act II, scene i
Brutus regarding his servant: "I would it were my fault to sleep so soundly."
Brutus regarding the assissination: "It must be by his death; and for my part,/ I know no personal cause to spurn at him,/ but for the general."
Brutus on Caesar: "Th' abuse of greatness is, when it disjoins/ Remorse from power. And to speak truth of Caesar,/ I have not known when his affections swayed/ More than his reason. But 'tis a common proof/ That lowliness is young ambition's ladder... [upon which]...the climber...[eventually] turns his back,/ Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees/ By which he did ascend. So Caesar may./ Then lest he may, prevent. And since the quarrel/ Will bear no color for the thing he is,/ Fashion it thus: that what he is, augmented,/ Would turn to these and these extremities..." (Bloom makes a lot of the last part of this quotation: the idea that Brutus must "fashion" his reasons in order to act upon them. More on that in time to come, hopefully.)
Brutus after reading one of the many notes Cassius has for a whole month now been leaving for him to find: "Since Cassius first did whet me against Caesar,/ I have not slept./ Between the acting of a dreadful thing/ And the first motion, all the interim is/ Like a phantasma or a hideous dream./ The genius and the mortal instruments/ Are then in council, and the state of a man,/ Like to a little kingdom, suffers then/ The nature of an insurrection." (Remember, the question here is whether even the noblest of them all can be persuaded in much the same way the plebians are.)
Brutus: ".... O conspiracy,/ Sham'st thou to show thy dang'rous brow by night,/ When evils are most free? O, then by day/ Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough/ To mask thy monstrous visage? Seek none, conspiracy./ Hide it in smiles and affability:/ For if thou path, thy native semblance on,/ Not Erebus itself were dim enough/ To hide thee from prevention."
Brutus, regarding Cassius's call to "swear [their] resolution": "No, not an oath. If not the face of men,/ The sufferance of our souls, the time's abuse--/ If these be motives weak, break off betimes,/ And every man hence to his idle bed./ So let high-sighted tyranny range on/ Till each man drop by lottery. But if these/ (As I am sure they do) bear fire enough/ To kindle cowards and to steel with valor/ The melting spirits of women, then, countrymen,/ What need we any spur but our own cause/ To prick us to redress?..../ Swear priests and cowards and men cautelous,/ Old feeble carrions and such suffering souls/ That welcome wrongs; unto bad causes swear/ Such creatures as men doubt; but do not stain/ The even virtue of our enterprise,/ Nor th' insuppressive mettle of our spirits,/ To think that or our cause or our performance/ Did need an oath; when every drop of blood/ That every Roman bears, and nobly bears,/ Is guilty of a several bastardy/ If he do break the smallest particle/ Of any promise that hath passed from him."
Brutus again: "...And, gentle friends,/ Let's kill him boldly, but not wrathfully;/ Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods,/ Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds."
Decius on persuading Caesar to come to the Capitol today: "...for he loves to hear/ That unicorns may be betrayed with trees/ and bears with glasses, elephants with holes,/ Lions with toils, and men with flatterers;/ But when I tell him he hates flatterers,/ He says he does, being then most flattered."
The conspirators leave and Portia, Brutus's wife, usurps the stage with her insistency: "Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus,/ Is it expected I should know no secrets/ That appertain to you? Am I your self/ But, as it were, in sort or mimitation?/ To keep with you at meals, comfort your bed,/ And talk to you sometimes? Dwell I but in the suburbs/ Of your good pleasure? If it be no more,/ Portia is Brutus' harlot, not his wife."
Portia again: "I grant I am a woman; but withal/ A woman that Lord Brutus took to wife./ I grant I am a woman; but withal/ A woman well-reputed, Cato's daughter./ Think you I am no stronger than my sex,/ Being so fathered and so husbanded?" And to prove her strength she has stabbed herself in the thigh. Ouch!
Brutus, at last responds, "O ye gods,/ Render me worthy of this noble wife!" and then promises to tell Portia all that has been troubling him.
Caius, sick and come at Brutus' request, finishes the scene, peculiarly: "I am not sick if Brutus have in hand/ Any exploit worthy of the name of honor." Revived as he said he would be, he says: "Set on your foot,/ And with a heart new-fired I follow you,/ To do I know not what; but it sufficeth/ That Brutus leads me on."
Act II, scene ii
Ceasar, now speaking to Calphurnia, who, after a bad night of truly prophetic dreams, asks Caesar to stay at home today: "Caesar shall forth." Caesar down this a lot--he speaks of himself by name, almost as if Caesar had become a title or role to fulfill, rather than his own name. He continue: "The things that threatened me/ Ne'er looked but on my back. When they shall see/ The face of Caesar, they are vanished." Calphurnia tells him of her dreams and Caesar reponds: "What can be avoided/ Whose end is purposed by the mighty gods?/ Yet Caesar shall go forth; for these predicitions/ Are to the world in general as to Caesar."
Calphurnia replies: "When beggars die there are no comets seen;/ The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes." (Consider again the difference between the commoners and Caesar; and consider the interesting choice of "princes" rather than "kings".)
Caesar responds: "Cowards die many times before their deaths;/ The valiant never taste of death but once./ Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,/ It seems to me most strange that men should fear,/ Seeing that death, a necessary end,/ will come when it will come." (These lines parallel Cassius's words to Casca an Act before.)
Calphurnia insists: "Alas, my lord,/ Your wisdom is consumed in confidence!/ Do not go forth to-day!" And here she gives him an out: "Call it my fear/ That keeps you in the house and not your own."
But Decius comes in, instead of Mark Antony. What's interesting here is that Caesar would have had Mark Antony deliver the lie that he is not well to the Senate, but to Decius he says, "Shall Caesar send a lie?/ Have I in conquest stretched mine arm so far/ To be afeard to tell greybeards the truth!" But Decius, pricking Caesar's ego, gets him to come to the Capitol after all.
And so in two juxtaposed scenes, a woman's insistency is leveled at principal characters. Brutus does submit to it, but in private. Caesar almost submits despite much self-vaunting, but, before Decius, he refuses to submit.
Brutus reacts in an aside to Caesar's "And we, like friends, will straightway go together": "That every like is not the same, O Caesar,/ The heart of Brutus erns to think upon." Brutus is full of uncertainty, that is, despite his endless rumination.
Act II, scene iii
Artemidorus writes a letter to give to Caesar: "Security gives way to conspiracy." Somehow, this minor personage knows precisely what is going to happen and he tries to tell Caesar in this secret way.
Act II, scene iv
Here, Portia is at home, struggling with the information Brutus has given her: "O constancy, be strong upon my side,/ Set a huge mountain 'tween my heart and my tongue!/ I have a man's mind, but a woman's might./ How hard it is for women to keep counsel!" She keeps ordering the servant to go to the Capitol, but is unable to tell him why. "Ay me, how weak a thing/ The heart of woman is!" Ultimately, she reveals nothing and only tells the servant to see how Brutus is doing.
So, is she weak or not? She, of course, shows up again later in the play, I think in Act IV. We'll have to keep an eye on her and the question she raises about human nature.
just a guy is Joey D
All right, pretty much, it
All right, pretty much, it looks like an Act a day for the next three months. Is that unreasonable? Presently, it seems like great fun and a good habit--you know, something like: An Act of Shakespeare a day keeps dullness away. I don't know.
Anyway, it's onto Caesar. I am glad I am reading this play again. I remember thinking it was politically apropo when I read it a while back; and now, unfortunately, all the more so. Jackson is right, I think, to exhort us to "watch the plebians." For the plebians (or Roman populace), I think, receives the brunt of Shakespeare's satire here. They are utterly tractable, vulnerable to despotism, though at the same time, the monstrous power by which a despot is formed. I cannot remember where I read it, but the notion that Rome was ripe for facism has stuck with me since I did. Is America also ripe for the dictator? In Act I, scene iii, Cassius speaks of Caesar:
"Poor man! I know he would not be a wolf
But that he sees the Romans are but sheep;
He were no lion, were not Romans hinds.
Those that with haste will make a mighty fire
Begin it with weak straws. What trash is Rome..."
How sincere Cassius is with his "Poor man!" stands to question (remember that Caesar is correct when he counts Cassius among "dangerous" men who "are never at heart's ease/ Whiles they behold a greater than themselves"), but the judgment of the people holds in the mouths of most of the other characters and throughout the play, if I remember correctly.
Shakespeare brings the people front and center in the first scene. The cobbler leads a group into the streets (partly to celebrate Caesar's defeat of Pompey, but also to wear out the groups shoes and hence to bring himself more business), but it is dispersed, easily, by two tribunes. The people "vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness" after a brief speech. And a scene later, Casca speaks of the people in this way: "But there is no heed to be taken of them. If Caesar had stabbed their mothers, they would have [forgiven him]." And this wishwashiness characterizes the plebians later in the play as well.
That said, the power of the people is unmistakeable. Flavius, one of the tribunes in the first scene, regards the people as feathers in Caesar's wings, with which he "would soar above the view of men." And Brutus, at once disdainful and deferential says: "I do fear the people/ Choose Caesar to be king." Watch the plebians, indeed.
Now, it is also interesting to note Cassius' contention: "Therefore it is meet/ That noble minds keep ever with their likes; for who so firm cannot be seduced?" Here, he is speaking of Caesar, but he might just as well be speaking of noble Brutus, whom Cassius hopes to persuade toward conspiracy. In other words, this wishwashiness seems to be the nature of every man, however much more observable it is in the plebians.
This draws to question the difference between the plebians and the nobles--between the cobbler and mighty Caesar. Certainly, Cassius sees no difference between himself and Caesar, which is what seems to irk him more than anything else. Cassius has seen Caesar at his weakest points, has even saved Caesar from drowning once, and yet Ceasar
"doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonorable graves."
Calling Brutus a "petty" man is risible, especially since he is not moved, not even slightly by Cassius. Brutus's motivation for the assissination is hardly jealousy or resentment. When Cassius says of Caesar, "'Tis true, this god did shake," Cassius is merely hoping Brutus will receive the same impression as Cassius has. But Brutus isn't like Cassius and they are only of one mind in as much as two minds or six or seven or a thousand thousand disparate minds are brought together by the performance of a single act.
Let's make sure I am right about this though. As Cicero says: "But men may construe things after their fashion,/ Clean from the purpose of the things themselves."
just a guy is Joey D
I can't seem to go back and
I can't seem to go back and edit the above comment anymore. If I could I would add these few things. I would add these two quotations from Cassius:
"Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods."
and
"...our fathers' minds are dead
And we are governed with our mothers' spirits."
Both of those quoations would be used to show that Cassius' judgment of Romans applies as much to the senators as to the people.
And then I would end with this, from Casca:
"O, he sits high in all the people's hearts;
And that which would appear offense in us,
His countenance, like richest alchemy,
Will change to virtue and to worthiness."
This, I would write, shows a difference between Brutus and the other conspirators, if even in only how he is esteemed by the masses...
Cest la vi (Did I spell it right, Kim?)
just a guy is Joey D
Here are some other
Here are some other quotations from Act I:
"No Cassius; for the eye sees not itself
But by reflection, by some other thngs."
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings."
"Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look.
He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.
...Would he were fatter."
"It was Greek to me."
"Are not you moved when all the sway of earth
Shakes like a thing unfirm?"
"Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius..." (this whole quotation connects well with Nietzsche's notion of the thought of suicide being a great comfort).
just a guy is Joey D
alright then, Jackson. i've
alright then, Jackson. i've got to track down a copy (starting some traveling this weekend, though, so i may need to site this one out).
two quick editorial notes:
1) when you add tags to your posts, separate them with a comma, not a space (tags can have spaces within, so 'book club' is one tag, while 'book, club' is two)
2) if you haven't already, you may want to pick up an email subscription to threads like this (just like the old forums used to work) by clicking the 'Subscribe post' link under the post (check out my instructions)