"Julius Caesar"
Shakespeare thought very highly of Caesar. It
is strange that while in his Julius Caesar the Caesar he presents is not so
great as the Caesar, he refers in his other plays. He considered Caesar as the
noblest man that ever lived in the tide of times. The heroine of Antony and
Cleopatra calls him broad fronted Caesar and Horatio in Hamlet speaks of him as
the mightiest Julius.
We have here in
this play not the great Caesar who was
the heroic conqueror of the western Europe but old decaying Caesar. Failing
both in mind and body or as Cassius summarily describes him, The Tired Caesar.
Yet the Caesar of
the play is not quite devoid of greatness. Though his great military genius is
but lightly touched upon by Shakespeare, yet he clearly portrays the firm hold
which this one man had come to acquire over the Romans. Cassius bitterly testifies to this unique
position to which Caesar had stepped up among the Romans.
Caesar has the eye
whose bend doth awe the world. Antony also says, When Caesar says, "Do
this, it is performed" In the senates, too the is addressed by Metellus,
most high, most mighty and most Pissant Caesar."
In short, Cassius
beautifully summarize his high position in Rome:-
"Why man he doth bestride the narrow
world like a colossus , and we petty men walk under his huge and
peep about to find ourselves dishonorable graves."
But if in this play
Julius Caesar looks great he does not act so greatly he does not show either
the true modesty or quite self confidence that are the externals of true
greatness on the other hand his . Wisdom is consumed in confidence.
He regards him self
almost as God s[peaking of himself in the third person Eg.
"Caesar is
turned to hear" or "Caesar doth no wrong."
He is arrogant
because he thinks that he spices the rejection of the considerations petition
with his superiority complex and says,
"I could be
well moved if I Were as you, But I am constant as the northern star."
He is also boastful Eg:
"The things
that threatened me, ne'er looked but on my back, when they shall see. The face of Caesar, they are vanished;"
He makes a show of
condemning cowardice, when Culphurnia appeals to him not to go out, and expressing him own utter
fearlessness of death:
"Cowards die
many times before their deaths the valiant never taste of death but once of all
the wonders that I yet have heard seeing that death, a necessary end will come
when it will comes".
And yet this man who is so arrogant, who makes
such, a show of his greatness and fearlessness, this giant who bestrode the
world like a colossus is always afraid in his inner most heart. Charles knight
remarks about him that he has acquired the policy of greatness to seen what it
is not and goes onto say that he is an actor even to his intimate friends. The mental disease he suffered from
was the fear of being thought afraid. He is only posing when he says;-
" Danger knows full well that Caesar is
more dangerous then he."
Allied with his
fear is the element of superstition. He asks Antony to touch Calpurnia while he
says the holly course of the Lupercal .
" For our
elders say
The barren touched in this holy chase
Shake off their sterile curse"
Physically also
Caesar is infirm, He is deaf of one ear and is subject to epileptic fits. Even
the lean and thin Cassius could swim better than he and we are told that even
ordinary fear renders him as helpless as a woman. He cannot withstand the
shouts of the crowd and faints in the marked place. Caesar's deafness which is
an indention of Shakespeare him self and not to be found in Plutarch of in his
history. He speaks to Antony;-
"come on my right hand for this ear is
deaf and tell me truly what thou thinnest of Cassius.
Yet in spite of
these moral and physical defects Caesar was a great man who possessed a
marvelous influence which continued to exercise its say, even after Caesar call careerism or the "Spirit of Caesar" Brutus wanted to annihilate the spirit of Caesar with out killing Caesar
himself, As he himself says,
" O;- that we then could come by Caesar's
spirit and dismember Caesar."
But we know that he dismembered Caesar
without extinguishing the light that was Caesar's spirit.
Dowden says;
"It is the
spirit of Caesar which is the dominant power of the tragedy..... Brutus who
forever errs in practical politics succeeded only in striking down Caesar's body; he who had
been weak now rises as pure spirit strong and terrible and avenges himself upon
the conspirators...
It was the errors
of Brutus that he failed to perceive where in lay the true Cartesian power."
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