by Isaac Asimov
May safely come to him and be resolved
How Caesar hath deserved to lie in death,
Mark Antony shall not love Caesar dead
So well as Brutus living; but will follow
The fortunes and affairs of noble Brutus
Through the hazards of this untrod state
With all true faith.
—Act III, scene i, lines 130-37
It is a careful speech, appealing to Brutus' vanity and giving him the necessary adjective "noble." Mark Antony tempts Brutus with the picture of himself taking the place of Caesar, while Mark Antony continues as loyal assistant. It would seem that Antony judges Brutus to be not so much interested in stopping Caesar as in replacing him, and perhaps he is right.
Nor is Mark Antony a complete hypocrite. The message does not promise unqualified submission to Brutus. It sets a condition. Brutus must arrange to have Mark Antony "be resolved" as to the justice of the assassination; that is, to have it explained to his satisfaction.
Of course, Mark Antony has no intention of allowing the assassination to be explained to his satisfaction, but Brutus cannot see that. The unimaginably vain Brutus feels the assassination to be necessary; how then can anyone else doubt that necessity once Brutus explains it?
Your voice shall be as strong…
Brutus is won over at once, as he always is by praise, but Cassius is not. He says:
But yet have I a mind
That fears him much…
—Act III, scene i, lines 144-45
Brutus, with his usual misjudgment, brushes that aside and welcomes Mark Antony, who now comes onstage with a most magnificent piece of bluffing. He speaks in love and praise of Caesar, and grandly suggests that if they mean to kill him, now is the time to do it, in the same spot and with the same weapons that killed Caesar. Yet he is careful to join the offer with flattery:
No place will please me so, no mean of death,
As here by Caesar, and by you cut off,
The choice and master spirits of this age.
—Act III, scene i, lines 161-63
The flattery further melts the susceptible Brutus, of course, and he offers conciliatory words to Mark Antony. The practical Cassius realizes that Brutus is all wrong and feels the best move now is to inveigle Mark Antony into sharing the guilt by offering to cut him in on the loot. He says:
Your voice shall be as strong as any man's
In the disposing of new dignities.
—Act III, scene i, lines 177-78
… what compact…
Mark Antony makes no direct reply to the offer of loot, but proceeds to strike those attitudes of nobility he knows will impress Brutus. He ostentatiously shakes the bloody hands of the conspirators yet speaks eloquently of his love for Caesar, once Brutus professes that he himself had loved Caesar.
Cassius, rather desperately, breaks into the flow of rhetoric with a practical question to Mark Antony:
But what compact mean you to have with us?
Will you be pricked in number of our friends,
Or shall we on, and not depend on you?
—Act III, scene i, lines 215-17
Where we write names with chalk on slate, or with pen and pencil on paper, the Romans were apt to scratch them in the wax coated on a wooden tablet. Where we check off names with a /, they would prick a little hole next to the name. Hence the question "Will you be pricked in number of our friends…"
… do not consent …
Again, Mark Antony evades a direct commitment. He still wants an explanation of Caesar's crimes, which Brutus is still confident he can give. What's more, Antony adds a casual request:
… that / may
Produce his [Caesar's] body to the market place,
And in the pulpit, as becomes a friend,
Speak in the order of his funeral.
—Act III, scene i, lines 227-30
It seems a moderate request. After all, Caesar, though assassinated, deserves an honorable funeral and a eulogy by a good friend; especially a friend who seems to have joined the conspiracy. Brutus agrees at once.
The clear-seeing Cassius is horrified. He pulls Brutus aside and whispers urgently:
You know not what you do; do not consent
That Antony speak in his funeral.
—Act III, scene i, lines 232-33
Cassius knows, after all, that Mark Antony is a skillful orator and that if he catches the attention of the populace he can become dangerous.
Nothing, however, can win out over Brutus' vanity. It is the mainspring of all the action. Brutus points out that he will speak first and explain the assassination (he is always sure that he has but to explain the deed and everyone will understand and be satisfied) and that Mark Antony can, after that, do nothing. To make doubly sure, Brutus sets conditions, saying to Antony:
You shall not in your funeral speech blame us,
But speak all good you can devise of Caesar
And say you do't by our permission;
—Act III, scene i, lines 245-48
Brutus was worse than vain; he was a fool to think that such conditions could for one moment stop an accomplished orator and force him to make the conspirators seem noble and magnanimous. Later on, when Mark Antony does speak, he keeps to those conditions rigorously, and it does the conspirators no good at all.
… Caesar's spirit…
Mark Antony is left alone with Caesar's body and, in an emotional soliloquy, apologizes to the corpse for his show of affection with the conspirators. He predicts the coming of civil war and says:
And Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Ate by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice
Cry "Havoc," and let slip the dogs of war,
—Act III, scene i, lines 270-73
Ate is visualized here as the personified goddess of retribution, and "Havoc" is the fearful cry that sounds out at the final fall of a besieged city. It is the signal for unrestrained killing and looting when all real fighting is done. (The word "hawk" is from the same root and one can see in the swoop of the hawk the symbol of the surge of a conquering army on its helpless victims.)
The reference to "Caesar's spirit" may be taken literally in any society that believes in ghosts, and these include both Mark Antony's and Shakespeare's. Indeed, Caesar's spirit makes an actual appearance in Plutarch's tale and therefore in this play as well.
… Octavius Caesar…
It is but a small leap, however, to interpret "Caesar's spirit" in another way too. His spirit may be the spirit of his reforms and his attempt to reorganize the Roman government under a strong and centralized rule. This could live on and come "ranging for revenge." And that spirit might well be embodied in another man.
As though to indicate this, Antony's soliloquy is followed by the immediate entrance of a "Servant"; a messenger coming to announce his master is on his way. It follows only six lines after the reference to "Caesar's spirit" and Mark Antony recognizes the newcomer, saying:
You serve Octavius Caesar, do you not?
—Act III, scene i, line 276
Octavius Caesar, whose proper name is Caius Octavius, is the only living close relative of Julius Caesar. He is the grandson of Caesar's sister, Julia, and is therefore the grandnephew of Julius. He was born in 63 b.c. and was nineteen years old at the time of the assassination.
Octavius was a sickly youth. He had joined Caesar in Spain (just before the opening of the play) but he was obviously unsuited for war. Nor was his greatuncle anxious to push him into warfare. In default of living children of his own, the Dictator needed Octavius as an heir. Therefore, when Caesar was making ready to move east against Parthia, he ordered the boy to remain in Greece at his studies.
Octavius was still in Greece when news of the assassination reached him, and at once he decided to make for Rome, there to demand what he could of his great uncle's inheritance.
Antony does not welcome t
he news of the coming of Octavius. He may have loved Julius Caesar, but that does not require him to love Caesar's grandnephew. After all, Antony could reasonably argue that he, as Caesar's loyal lieutenant and a mature man of war, is more realistically Caesar's heir than some sickly child who happens to be related to Caesar by accident of birth. The presence of the boy would merely produce complications and Antony does his best to keep him away. He sends back a message:
Here is a mourning Rome, a dangerous Rome,
No Rome of safety for Octavius yet.
—Act III, scene i, lines 288-89
… I loved Rome more
The next scene moves directly to Caesar's funeral. Actually, it took place on March 20 and the five days between assassination and funeral were busy ones. The conspirators had hurriedly taken hold of the spoils. Many of them have had provinces assigned to them: Brutus will govern Macedonia; Cassius will take over Syria; Decius will have Cisalpine Gaul; Trebonius, part of Asia Minor; Metellus Cimber, another part of Asia Minor; and so on.
For men supposedly actuated only by a noble concern for the commonwealth, they were extraordinarily quick to place themselves in positions of power. Nor was Brutus behindhand in taking his share.
But Shakespeare ignores this and proceeds directly to the funeral.
Brutus begins by addressing a hostile crowd in the forum, offering to explain the circumstances of the assassination. He does so in prose; stilted prose, at that, with laboriously balanced sentences. He insists he loved Caesar and killed him only for the greater good of Rome:
Not that I loved Caesar less,
but that I loved Rome more.
—Act III, scene ii, lines 21-22
The essence of his defense is that Caesar had grown too ambitious for Rome's safety; that is, Caesar was ambitious to be king. Brutus says (and here he is almost convincing):
As Caesar loved me,
I weep for him; as he was fortunate,
I rejoice at it; as he was valiant,
1 honor him; but as he was ambitious,
I slew him.
—Act III, scene ii, lines 24-27
Brutus then prepares to keep his promise of letting Mark Antony speak on behalf of Caesar. With fatuous vanity, he urges the crowd to listen to Antony and himself hurries away as though he is convinced that he has so turned the crowd against Caesar and toward himself that nothing Mark Antony can say will undo matters.
… Brutus is an honorable man
Now Mark Antony is there with Caesar's corpse. Quietly, he begins one of the most famous passages Shakespeare has ever written. (Whatever Antony said in reality-and it must have been effective, for he gained Rome thereby-it is hard to believe that he could possibly have scaled the heights Shakespeare wrote for him.) He begins:
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
—Act III, scene ii, lines 75-76
He admits that if (if) Caesar were ambitious, that was a bad fault and he has certainly been punished for it. As he promised Brutus, he explains that he speaks by permission of the conspirators and he does nothing but praise them:
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest
(For Brutus is an honorable man,
So are they all, all honorable men),
Come 1 to speak in Caesar's funeral.
—Act III, scene ii, lines 83-86
The phrase "Brutus is an honorable man" is to be repeated and repeated by Mark Antony. He gives the praise to Brutus in precisely the fashion Brutus most enjoys, crying out how honorable and noble he is. Yet the skillful repetition, in rising tones of irony, builds the anger of the crowd to the point where the very epithet "honorable" becomes an insult.
Speaking in short and moving phrases, as though he were choked with emotion, Mark Antony disposes of the charge of ambition:
He was my friend, faithful and just to me;
But Brutus says he was ambitious.
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;
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;
And sure he is an honorable man.
—Act III, scene ii, lines 87-101
Antony's arguments are, of course, irrelevant. By "ambition," Brutus meant Caesar's desire to be king, and nothing Antony says disproves that desire. Caesar might be a good personal friend, yet plan to be a king. He might donate ransom money to the public treasury and express pity for the poor, but intend these acts only to build up the good will with which to buy the crown. If he did refuse the crown, it was only to force the mob to insist he take it, and he regretted the failure of the scheme.
But all that, of course, doesn't matter. Antony's speech is almost hypnotic in its force, and, properly presented, it can win over a modern audience which had earlier been prepared to sympathize with Brutus.
… 'tis his will
The crowd is indeed moved and Mark Antony senses that without difficulty. It is time for the next step, to appeal directly and forcefully to the powerful emotion of greed. He says:
But here's a parchment with the seal of Caesar;
I found it in his closet; 'tis his will.
Let but the commons hear this testament,
Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read,
And they would go and kiss dead Caesar's wounds,
—Act III, scene ii, lines 130-34
Yes indeed, Antony has not been idle in the interval between assassination and funeral either. The very night following the assassination, having made a temporary peace with the conspirators, he took a crucial action. He seized the funds which Caesar had gathered for his projected Parthian campaign and persuaded Calphurnia to let him have access to all of Caesar's papers, among which he found the will.
The funds would be important when it came to bribing senators and hiring soldiers. The will-well, that would be used now.
Naturally, once Antony mentions the will and declines to read it, the crowd howls for it to be read. Antony hangs back and the more he does so, the more violently insistent the crowd becomes. Choosing his moment with artistic care, Antony advances his reason for hesitating:
/ fear I wrong the honorable men
Whose daggers have stabbed Caesar; I do fear it.
—Act III, scene ii, lines 153-54
And one man in the crowd calls out with passion:
They were traitors. Honorable men!
—Act III, scene ii, line 155
There is hatred in the repetition of that phrase so often applied to Brutus, and which Brutus so loves. Another man in the crowd cries out.
They were villains, murderers!
The will! Read the will!
—Act III, scene ii, lines 157-58
… the Nervii
Mark Antony has them now, but it is still not enough. He intends to make them virtually insane with rage. He descends from the rostrum and has them gather round Caesar's corpse. Antony holds up the cloak Caesar was wearing when he was killed:
You all do know this mantle; I remember
The first time ever Caesar put it on:
'Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent,
That day he overcame the Nervii.
—Act III, scene ii, lines 172-75
The Nervii were a fierce Gallic tribe living in what is now Belgium, and Caesar had beaten them in 57 b.c. This was a skillful allusion, too, for it reminded the crowd of Caesar's conquests, not over Romans, but over barbarian Gauls (whom Romans particularly hated because of
the memory of the ancient Gallic sack of Rome in 390 b.c.).
To be sure, this passage doesn't square with actual history. Mark Antony couldn't possibly remember the evening of the day on which Caesar overcame the Nervii, since he didn't join Caesar in Gaul till three years later. Moreover, is it likely that Caesar on the supreme day on which he expects to be crowned king will put on a thirteen-year-old cloak? All our information concerning him agrees that he was a dandy, and meticulous with his grooming.
However, it is an effective passage and the real Mark Antony would have used it, regardless of accuracy, if he had thought of it
… the most unkindest cut of all
Now Mark Antony begins to point to the bloodied rents in the mantle where swords had sliced through (and this he actually did, according to Plutarch). What's more, he has progressed to the point where he can begin to stab the conspirators with pointed words.
Look, in this place ran Cassius" dagger through;
See what a rent the envious Casca made;
Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed,
—Act III, scene ii, lines 176-78
Antony lingers on Brutus' stroke, for it was this man who had instructed him to praise the conspirators, and it is Brutus therefore whom he chiefly wants to destroy with praise. He says: