By the year 44 of the pre-Christian era, Julius Caesar had reached the apex of power. Having crossed the Rubicon in the year 49 of that same era, his peers compared him to a Colossus, who bestrides the narrow world. But, as fate would have it, a conspiracy would undermine that power, a conspiracy, whose tremors are still felt today.
An excerpt of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene 2. Caesar’s procession is addressed by a soothsayer.
Soothsayer: Caesar
Soothsayer: Caesar
Girls: Caesar
Caesar: Ha! Who calls?
Caesar: Ha! Who calls?
Boys: Ha! Who calls?
Casca: Bid every noise be still. Peace, yet again!
Caesar: Who…calls on me?
I hear a tongue shriller than all the music.
Cry “Caesar.” Speak. Caesar is turned to hear.
Soothsayer: Beware the ides of March.
Soothsayer: Beware the ides of March.
Girls: Beware the ides of March.
Caesar: What…is that?
Caesar: What…is that?
Boys: What…is that?
Brutus: A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March.
Caesar: Set her before me. Let me see her face.
Cassius: Come from the throng. Look upon Caesar.
Caesar: What sayst thou to me now?
Girls: Beware the ides of March.
Boys: He is a dreamer. Let us…Pass.
Act III, Scene 1. Caesar addresses the soothsayer just before the conspiracy rises and Caesar is murdered.
Caesar: The ides of March are come.
Caesar: The ides of March are come.
Boys: The ides of March are come.
Soothsayer: Ay, Caesar, but not gone.
Soothsayer: Ay, Caesar, but not gone.
Girls: Ay, Caesar, but not gone.
[PAUSE]
Decius: Great Caesar–
Decius: Great Caesar–
Company: Great Caesar–
Caesar: Doth not Brutus bootless kneel?
Casca: Speak, hands, for me!
Casca: Speak, hands, for me!
Company: Speak, hands, for me!
Company: Kill him! Kill Caesar!
Caesar: Et tu, Brute?–Then fall, Caesar.
Company: Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!
Act III, Scene 2. The crowd is addressed by a conspirator, Brutus, who according to the Renaissance poet Dante, is in the lowest level of hell.
Brutus: Romans, countryman, and lovers, hear me for my cause, and be silent that you may hear.
If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar’s, to him I say that Brutus’ love to Caesar was no less than his.
If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer:
Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.
Act III, Scene 2. Against the conspirators’ better judgment, Mark Antony, Caesar’s friend, eulogizes Caesar.
Mark Antony: Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar.
The noble Brutus Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest—
Company: For Brutus is an honorable man;
So are they all, all honorable men—
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
Company: And Brutus is an honorable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
Company: And Brutus is an honorable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
Company: And, sure, he is an honorable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.
Company: Brutus...is an honorable...man.
Caesar: The ides of March are come.
Soothsayer: Ay, but not gone.
Caesar: The ides of March are come.
Soothsayer: Ay, but not gone.
Caesar: The ides of March are come.
Soothsayer: Ay, but not gone.
Caesar: The ides of March are come.
Soothsayer: Ay, but not gone.
Boys: The ides of March are come.
Company: Ay! But not…gone!
