The Character of Authority in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” (Part 5)

0:19 Erin: or@patreon.com.

0:32 Wes: Okay. Welcome to part five of our six part series. Right. Is that right?

0:37 Erin: I thought it was part V.

0:42 Wes: Part V, Sorry. Of our six part series on Julius Caesar. Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. So I think we only. How long does a play take to perform? 3 hours. 2 to 3 hours. Anyway, so we'll have a little more than doubled actual performance time. But anyway, I enjoy it. I hope the listeners enjoy it. I hope you enjoy it. So in the spirit of taking your time, we're actually going to back up a little bit. We've gotten to the cusp of Antony's entrance. But I think before that, you wanted to say something about a line a little bit earlier. Fly not, stand still, ambition's debt is paid. Which is what Brutus, in a rather naive way, says to the people who just witnessed this horrific murder.

1:28 Erin: Just as I was reviewing yesterday, that line stuck out to me. And I thought, did we give this the attention it deserves? Because I think it's an interesting idea. The sort of bank account analogy.

1:38 Wes: Right.

1:39 Erin: And if ambition implies that Caesar felt that he was above other men, or sort of more than a man setting himself above his fellow Romans, then would the debt even be paid by his murder? I mean, we're sort of going to discover that it's not that the implications of this are going to be result in a big battle. And also that Caesar isn't even really dead. He's not dead, sort of figuratively. And also his ghost will show up, of course. But I thought this was a sort of interesting framing of the murder as a mere settling of accounts or a kind of moral math that Brutus seems to want to explain away in this easy analogy that.

Okay, we've taken care of it now, so it's all going to be okay. And yeah, I mean, maybe just your word, which I like quite a bit. His naivete is really on display here. But I think this kind of posture that he has going into the two speeches is illustrative of his cast of mind. You know, I think in parts past I've made reference to this idea of scale that's repeatedly invoked with Caesar. And here we have an interesting nod to that. Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils, shrunk to this little measure? I mean, first of all, there's this list of four thing that Anthony came, keeps doing, right?

His servant comes in and gives four adjectives to Brutus and four adjectives to Caesar. And then here we have conquest, glories, triumphs, spoils. And he goes on, fare thee well, I know not, gentlemen, what you intend. Who else must be let blood, who else is rank. So my note in my edition has this interesting gloss on rank, corrupt with the second sense of grown too large and thus in need of cutting, either to release diseased blood or to reduce in size. So Antony's doing this clever thing here where we have this list which sort of contains within it all of Caesar's glory.

Then this idea that it's shrunk down to just Caesar's body. And then also he, with the metaphor or with the turn of phrase, gives a nod to Brutus, as though what he's done is a sort of appropriate culling or it could be seen that way. Right? So he's being very ambiguous, I think, from the get go, even as he's seemingly straightforwardly lamenting Caesar's body.

3:59 Wes: Yeah, who else's rank is a pun on rank, as in rotten or diseased. And then who else's rank has become too powerful, right? And the idea is that Caesar's ambition and his acquisition of too much power is almost like a disease and even to the point of being unnatural, as we've said before. So bloodletting is the way to deal with this disease and also the only way to Deal with power. So that's. Yeah, it's nicely ambiguous because it leaves him uncommitted, as he is going to be uncommitted to one side or another. In a sense, through this speech, he's going to have to convince them that he's not against them and that he's.

Without simply repudiating Caesar outright, which would make him look not credible. So if he were merely even just worried about his credibility and convincing these people that he's not a threat, he can't go too hard on that. I didn't care about Caesar. He can't do that. So he's got to express an appropriate amount of distress over the death of Caesar, but some curiosity about. Well, maybe there was something I didn't see that warranted this. So why don't you guys fill me in that kind of approach.

5:22 Erin: I wonder if I'm wrong to see a little bit later, no instrument of half that worth, as though your swords made rich with the most noble blood of all this world. I wonder if I'm wrong there to see some idea of ink. Right. I feel like with Caesar's blood, ink is being repeatedly invoked. And the idea that the sword is being stuck. The sword, like the pen, is being stuck in the blood. It just reminds me, with their hands being wet, he's shortly going to like, grasp all of their hands. That hasn't happened yet, right? He hasn't greeted them. No, because he just came on, you know, he'll ask them to render their bloody hands.

Reminds me of Sonnet 111, the dyer's hand, where you become stained with the ink of. When you're a writer, your fingers become stained with the ink. The idea that it will shortly come up with these two competing speeches of authorship, I think is being invoked. Who is going to spin this? Who is going to write this story in a way which is satisfactory to us, the audience, to the crowd within the play? And I think that already ambition's debt is paid, which makes assumptions or sort of like closes down metaphorical interpretations or possibilities on the Brutus side is not going to be able to withstand that ambiguous meaning in Antony's turn of phrase with the excellence of his writing.

W R I T I N g the situation in these incredibly rich, multivalent moments when he talks to them. So it's, you know, so I keep seeing the pen or the ink and the interpretation of that as being some sort of statement about who's going to have the upper hand rhetorically, who's going to write this in the proper way or in the acceptable way that other people will determine is the correct interpretation, regardless of the actual crime or whether or not it was justified. It's sort of about the spin or the act of playwriting itself.

7:22 Wes: Yeah, very good. In a way, it's a riposte to Cassius, even though he wasn't there for that remark, but for the remark about ages hence, the enactment, the reenactment of the scene ages hence. And again, it leaves open who that reenactment is going to cast as the villain and as the hero. And I think in Shakespeare's case, he's agnostic. The play treats this as agnostic. Was it the right thing to kill Caesar? Wasn't it? It's just treated as a problematic. It doesn't try to resolve that problematic. I think some scholars would try to come down as if he's pro Caesar, pro Brutus.

I think that's a fool's errand to try to do that. But this raises the question of whose story will be told in the end. He calls them the choice and master spirits of this age. At the end of his speech, he's telling them, kill me if you need to. It would be an honorable death to die here, near Caesar. If that's what you want, just do it. Even though they've already assured him through the servant that they're not. Then he gives them this compliment, which is that they've done something which is age defining. It makes it a conquest in a way, just like one of Caesar's conquests.

And that's the standard of values that elevates Caesar, right power and conquest and glory and all those things. And it offers to them the same sort of accolade. But of course, the problem is that that's the thing that they're supposed to reject. So he's complimenting them. And he's not saying, you are the defenders of liberty against the whole ethos of power and conquest. You are master spirits, which I may. You know, it's a little bit of a reach for me to read that as. But that's the way I read it. And then Brutus is such a nice guy. Beg not your death of us, Antony.

We're not going to do that. Cassius wanted to kill you, not me. Our hearts, you see, not they are pitiful. And pity to the general wrong of Rome. As fires drive out fire. So pity, pity, you know, so pity for the public good had to made them pitiless towards Caesar.

9:29 Erin: I love that, you know, pity the abstract concept killed Caesar.

9:33 Wes: Yeah.

9:33 Erin: And also this. This. The splitting, I think, which I also. Again, I'm not sure if that's the right word, but the atomizing that Brutus always does between his thoughts and his body or of the parts of his body. So here, you know, his hands are stained with blood. But then it's not as in Sonnet 111, almost thence my nature is subdued to what it works in, like the dyer's hand. Rather than taking ownership over this, it's as though he's divorcing the bloody hand from himself. He's not accepting the bloodiness of the business, even as they are dripping with this blood.

And I think it's. Again, I just want to mention that there's an element of this which loses its power when we read it. It versus seeing it on stage. They literally are covered in blood. And when they shake Antony's hand, he then gets stained with the same blood. So I think the contrast between what they're saying and what it actually looks like on stage, that power is, you know, I don't want that to be lost in our conversation.

10:33 Wes: Brutus loves Caesar. When he struck him, I doubt not of your wisdom, says Antony, let each man render me his bloody hand. And then he shakes hands with each conspirator and names them by name. Which reminds me a little bit, I think. Well, when Brutus greets the conspirators in his home, doesn't he name everyone by name? And then when Caesar greets people when they go to visit them, he names everyone by name.

10:55 Erin: That's right. Yeah. I think I had that as he greets, I think as part of the list of things that united Brutus and Caesar. But then Antony does it too. So, yeah, it's a threesome.

11:07 Wes: I don't know what to make of that, but it's an interesting way to. In a way to establish trust or ingratiate himself with everyone on an individual level rather than just speaking generically to the crowd.

11:21 Erin: Well, it gives us the opportunity to hear the name Cinna, which will come up later, and which is also, of course, a great pun on sinner, which I think is part of the reason why that character in particular is. Maybe that's in Plutarch. Cinna the poet. I'm not sure.

11:36 Wes: I think it is.

11:38 Erin: Okay, well, then even more perfect. I mean, these things really write themselves. But.

11:43 Wes: Well, actually, maybe. I'm not sure, actually, now that I think about it.

11:46 Erin: But anyway, yeah, but it's also, of

11:49 Wes: course, a lot of this is in Plutarch, including the bloody hands and let's daub ourselves in blood. And then. Yeah, a lot of this. He follows it very closely. But.

11:57 Erin: Yeah, well, and the shaking hands and saying people's names, it seems to me to be redoing or a doing in a different way or doing to its full. The non oath oath scene that Brutus enacts with the conspirators early on, you know, which I was assuming was a blood oath. Right. So here it seems like that is being toyed with, ironically, that it's not their blood, but still there's some sort of blood oath being enacted here.

12:25 Wes: It's almost as if he just loses awareness. He goes off into a reverie in the movie. Marlon Brando does a good job of this. You know, just kind of drifting off into this. These comments about Caesar as if the others aren't there. I mean, ultimately Cassius is gonna say, Mark Antony, what's going on? But, you know, I did love thee, Caesar. Oh, tis true. If then thy spirit look upon us now, shall it not grieve thee dearer than my death to see thy Antony making his peace, shaking the bloody fingers of thy foe? I think, importantly, I don't think it's not pegged as an aside.

Right. So we don't just get the idea that the others can't hear him, but we do get a bit of an idea that he's talking to himself absentmindedly with the others hearing this, I certainly don't think. And maybe I'm just influenced by the film rendition of this. He's not talking to them, he's talking to the body and almost losing. Losing sight of the others around him. And then he wants to ask, for reasons, Brutus kind of postpones that, says we will eventually. And then I think he sets up the funeral oration and Cassius doesn't want to let him do that, which is very correct.

And then Brutus sets these conditions. You're not going to blame us. And you'll say, we, it's with our permission. And then all exit. And then he gives this more famous speech lamenting Caesar. Oh, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth. This is around 250something in mine bleeding piece of earth. What do you make of that? That is such an odd phrase. I wonder if it would have sounded as odd to an Elizabethan.

14:10 Erin: I don't know what that's supposed to emphasize. The way in which he's been brought low in death and his oneness with humanity or with the earth. Antony, when everybody else was still there, does again, this thing with Scale, where he describes Caesar as being the stag. So it's sort of upends that. That initial image from the very beginning of the play of Caesar being a falcon here, he's the wounded one, he's the hunted one. But he says, oh, world, thou wast the forest to this heart, and this indeed, O world, the heart of thee. There's a telescopic quality to that.

The whole world is just in his heart. The world was his forest to play in. But then also he has a world within himself. Hart H A R T and Hart H E A R T, of course, are being played with there as well. So now that worldness, or that sense of the whole world being contained within him, that's being turned inside out here and now he's like a clod of earth. So I'm not sure if that's supposed to signal something grand about him or something about the pathos of him being brought so low here. Probably both.

15:17 Wes: Yeah. It's a kind of recapitulation of the whole. Has all your glory and conquest come to this? And here, this great spirit is now inanimate. This use of the word earth to get at the fact of an inanimate physical body. It's ashes to ashes, dusted dust and all that. But.

15:37 Erin: But also a whole. Like a. Like a piece of earth.

15:40 Wes: Yeah.

15:40 Erin: You know, I mean, that would be capital E. Right.

15:42 Wes: But part of the world, piece of piece of earth is in the planet.

15:46 Erin: Right.

15:46 Wes: Interesting. Yeah.

15:48 Erin: I mean, I don't know if you can get to that reading, but I think it's. But since he's just been talking.

15:52 Wes: Well, yeah, it's a possible. Interesting double entendre.

15:55 Erin: Yeah, right.

15:55 Wes: That I. That hadn't occurred to me.

15:57 Erin: Well, I think the same thing is happening with, you know, the wounds where Anthony said, if I had as many eyes as he had wounds, had I as many eyes as thou hast wounds, weeping as fast as they stream forth thy blood, it would be better. It would become me better than to close in terms of friendship with thine enemies. And then here they become mouths, he says, like dumb mouths do ope their ruby lips to beg the voice and utterance of my tongue. So there's also. There's a. There's like a multiplicity, multiple sets of eyes. And then it's as if their mouths crying out for justice, but then they beg the voice and utterance of my tongue.

So again, it comes back to Antony. So there's this. It starts in Caesar's body, it becomes multiple, like a crowd. And Then it ends in Anthony's body. So something like that seems to be happening with this idea of scale, too, with the earth or a piece of dirt, you know, like, I don't know how to work that out exactly, but it seems that telescoping is happening here.

16:58 Wes: This wounds is mouths metaphor, by the way, is one that Shakespeare uses in several plays, including Richard iii. Henry's wounds open their congealed mouths and bleed afresh.

17:09 Erin: Oh, yeah, that's a great line.

17:11 Wes: Wow. And then it's in Macbeth as well. I was looking at AI to figure out all the places where this happens, and it didn't give me Macbeth at first. And I had said, doesn't that happen in Macbeth? Macbeth, yeah.

17:23 Erin: Isn't it that they cry for vengeance? The wounds, Duncan's wounds.

17:28 Wes: They may. There's a point. It happens in different places. There's one where Duncan's wounds speak for themselves. Do not bid me speak. See? And then speak. And then speak yourselves so that the wounds speak for themselves. But I think there's more. I think there's more places. Anyway. I just vaguely remember that. That it's in several plays that he uses this idea that I find kind of gross, actually. The ruby lips.

17:58 Erin: Right. Well, I think it's great. It's obviously quite something I was hinting at before with the Portia scene. It's also obviously quite suggestive of Caesar being made feminine by falling in this way. There's an interesting reading there, which. Which maybe is a little too obvious to go into, but the other thing it makes me think of. I'm writing a book right now, which is. A lot of it is about Tudor portraiture. And I can't not think of the rainbow portrait of Elizabeth I in which she wears a gown which has all over it human eyes and ears, which is a little creepy. You know, sort of embroidered on her. On her gown. And I think the idea is that she's. As the monarch, she sees and hears every everything or everything ultimately gets back to her in this godlike way.

18:45 Wes: And they're real eyes and ears. Right.

18:48 Erin: And I think. I think coming out, she was a cruel one.

18:51 Wes: Sorry. No, it's just a joke. My fantasy about realizing ears as if she were part of a tribe in

18:58 Erin: the heart of darkness. Yes. These are her trophies. No, I think this coming out of that same moment. I mean, 1600. Yeah. So it's literally a year later, this rainbow portrait comes out. That's nearly the same moment. Right. Because this is 1599. Caesar. I don't know. It's an interesting invocation there of this, of being covered in sense organs.

19:27 Wes: Anyway, you know, it's interesting here because it's not like the wounds speak for themselves in this case. Although he will try to display the corpse. I mean, he will display the corpse ultimately to the crowd, which is very important. Important. And another one of Brutus's mistakes to let him do that. But Caesar needs someone to speak for him. And the best that the wounds can do is to open their mouth to beg for Antony's voice. Antony must speak on Caesar's behalf. And then he works up, you know, he gets worked up into this prophecy of civil strife.

So at this point, we know, you know, we kind of get a climax here where we realize, okay, you know, this is. Antony is faking it with the others. He's really out for blood. So shall in these confines with a monarch's voice, cry havoc. And let slip the dogs of war at this foul deed shall smell above the earth with carrion men groaning for burial. Wow. Carrion men groaning for burial. Are they dead or not, Antony? They can't be rotting if they're still alive. Yeah. Carrying men groaning for burial. There's a speech that's kind of similar in Henry V.

And for some reason I would always get this mixed up. And when I hear let's slip the dogs of war, I would associate that with Henry V. But another great let's go to war, rah, rah, rah speech. We move into the speeches, right? This is where we really want to. We want to cover these wonderful funeral speeches or Brutus. One's a funeral speech and the other is like, did I do that?

21:10 Erin: Yeah. A part that's maybe easily glossed over that just makes me laugh so hard is when Brutus. So Brutus is giving one speech, but Cassius is elsewhere giving another one. We're not privy to that one.

21:22 Wes: Yeah, that's another interesting thing.

21:24 Erin: You know, Cassius, go you into the other street and part the numbers. Those that will hear me speak, let him stay here. Those that will follow Cassius, go with him. Cassius will be in ballroom B.

21:36 Wes: And they're going to be very, very different speeches because he and Cassius are so different and they have different agendas. If I were Brutus, I would not trust Cassius to be going along with his plan. I wouldn't. Cassius, in a way, has a different plan. A more realistic.

21:51 Erin: Yeah. And then we hear public reasons shall be rendered of Caesar's death. And then we get the crowd in a moment of Brutus's fantasy wish fulfillment, actually deciding, like, I'm gonna go here and listen to this one. You go there, listen to that one, and then we're gonna compare the one moment where the crowd is what Brutus would wish, some sort of logic police, and then forget it after the. That.

22:17 Wes: Yeah. So Brutus's speech, which I guess is reputed to be the rational, logical speech. Romans, countrymen and lovers, not friends, what is it for Anthony? Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ear, your ears, your ear. So hear me for my cause and be silent that you may hear and believe me for mine honor. All right, so as Anthony is listening to this, this is the little key phrase, believe me for mine honor. And then the implication. I don't know if he says it directly here, but it's said before, right? I killed Caesar for his ambition. Ambition versus honor.

And as we've discussed over these parts, the question is, can we ground authority in some character trait of an individual or does it have to be grounded in institutions? Does it have to be grounded in some sort of. Of institutional or discursive process? Whatever goes on, right from our standpoint, from Brutus's standpoint in the republic, which is really more about guarding the rights of the aristocracy, but for our purposes, some sort of representative government or liberal democracy where the public good is balanced against the rights of individuals and all that good stuff.

So we tend to think of authority as grounded in principles, in a constitution and a form, in a process. And here the question is, well, can it be grounded in the prowess of Caesar and his greatness, in all his glorious conquests and things like that? And that's what Brutus rejects. But when he says, believe me, for mine honor, that's a real slip. Because if he's to believed for his honor, then why shouldn't Caesar be made king for his prowess? So I just wanted to call attention to that, claiming that he loves Caesar, but he did it because he loves Rome more and he was interested in being free.

By the way. Yeah, Brutus's letters that we have to Cicero are very much like this, except Brutus is not as placid. He's quite in the historical Brutus, at least as far as those letters make him look. Look, he is pretty harsh and hardcore about liberty and absolutely not compromising, not going to give the okay to Octavian, even if Octavian at that point has become an opponent of Anthony. But yeah, this focus on liberty and the public good, that is very much the historical Brutus. And then the result of that. So whether or not we see his speech is very rhetorically effective.

The crowd is pretty easily won over. Let him be Caesar. Caesar's better part shall be crowned in Brutus. So, again, the really anachronistic double entendre on Caesar as being synonymous with king, as it will later be. So let him be Caesar is almost let him be king, but in a less anachronistic, more literal sense. Is he to become. Is he just a replacement for this particular individual, which is suggestive of that previous slip where let honor but prowess be honor is honor. Prowess, prowess, honor. And I think Antony very skillfully picks up on all these things, because honor.

He's going to repeat it enough times where it just looks like the same thing, the same sort of authoritarian bent, grounding in some quality of an individual as with Caesar. So Brutus betrays himself in a way, in this, and Antony seizes on it.

26:03 Erin: I think the proudest moment of my life was when I read this for the first time as a little kid and immediately was like, wait a minute. Believe me, for mine honor, and have respect to mine honor, that you may believe that doesn't work. I was so proud of myself for realizing that that was circular logic.

26:19 Wes: It's like when people say, trust me,

26:20 Erin: trust me, trust me.

26:22 Wes: Yeah, because you said it. I'm supposed to trust you because you said, like, you're trustworthy because you said the word trust.

26:28 Erin: And now that you're invoking trust, I feel more distrustful than ever.

26:31 Wes: Yeah, yeah.

26:33 Erin: Just to say when the plebeians say, let him be Caesar, and then Caesar's better parts shall be crowned in Brutus. Yeah. I love your emphasis on this idea that they're already conceptualizing the role of Caesar, but also the implication, you know, Caesar's better parts shall be crowned in Brutus. Is that murder. We call it assassination. Whatever. Whatever word you want to ascribe has made him a fitter ruler than Caesar. Right. Because he. Because he ends his speech by saying with this. I depart that as I slew my best lover for the good of Rome, I have the same dagger for myself when I.

It shall please my country to need my death. First of all, he's the judge over Caesar and himself as to whether or not he gets too big for his britches and he's going to have the wherewithal to take care of it himself if ever the need should arise. But also that there's this economy of death inherent in Brutus's action that. Like a shrub being sculpted or something. You know, the republic is ever kind of Growing out of control. And only by killing people you know, will you ensure that it stays contained and shaped in the way that you want to do.

That's not a very good metaphor, but you know what I mean. Like, you're constantly hacking out the weeds. That's a better one. And this ideal of the republic is somehow only sustained through this idea of death or killing the thing which might. Which might grow too large. It's an autocratic kind of logic. No, he's going to be the one who gets his hands dirty and. And make swift work of whoever might be standing in the way according to who he thinks deserves it.

28:15 Wes: This is the problem with revolution, right? The state has become lawless, but the rebels must be lawless in order to rectify it. And then the question is whether law can be restored after a revolution, and that. The track record for that is not very good, unfortunately. But then, yeah, we get with Antony. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. It's an interesting variation on Brutus first line. So lovers gets replaced with friends, and then friends goes to the front of the line. Lovers. I don't know what Brutus means by lovers. Lovers of the country. Lovers of. It must be lovers of.

28:56 Erin: I think it just means friends.

28:58 Wes: I mean, it could be. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that occurred to me. But our contemporary association with lovers know, makes it sound weird in that context, but that's possible. But I was thinking possibly he meant love of lovers of Rome as well. But anyway, friends comes to the front of the line. Romans and countrymen go next. We remember Brutus, right? It was all about Roman identity. That's why you don't need an oath if you're Roman. Antony privileges relationships above identity, loyalty. And so I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. Another great line. Wow.

29:37 Erin: And I've brought my shovel.

29:38 Wes: Yeah, he's going to be burying the Brutus and the conspirators. That's who he's going to be bearing. The noble Brutus hath told you Caesar was ambitious. If it were so, it was a grievous fault. And grievously hath Caesar answered it 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. Do you want to read some of this? I feel like I'm just. I think we should read all of it, but I feel guilty. If I'm going to be the one, you do a better job anyway, so.

30:16 Erin: He was my friend, faithful and just to me. But Brutus says he was ambitious, and Brutus is an honorable man. Man, I'm already being too. I'm already giving away the game here. He hath brought many captives home.

30:28 Wes: But do you use your most sarcastic voice?

30:32 Erin: Well, I want to save the sarcasm. I want to ramp up the sarcasm.

30:35 Wes: Honorable, put the honorable. Honorable man. Yeah.

30:39 Erin: Stage direction here says he hath used inverted commas with his hands. 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.

31:04 Wes: Good pause. Good pause. Keep going. I'm not gonna try to pronounce lupercal or no lupercal.

31:13 Erin: That is it. No, I was just wondering if. If I had something to say about that. It was pretty straightforward. 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.

31:31 Wes: He's an honorable man. Sure, sure.

31:33 Erin: 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 comes back to me. See, this is. I used to do dramatic readings of this for my eighth graders. Forgive me.

32:01 Wes: I'm.

32:02 Erin: I go for the obvious with. With them.

32:05 Wes: Marlon branded is a really good. Good rendition of that last part because he gets a bit verklempt, and he just kind of turns away. Bear with me.

32:12 Erin: Yeah, bear with me.

32:13 Wes: My heart is in the coffin. How does the coffin. Wait. He wasn't the godfather at that point. What am I doing?

32:21 Erin: Caesar could have been a kid.

32:22 Wes: He made him enough. He couldn't. Yeah. So great. So, yeah, he really boils the frog here and just turns it up, you know? Gradually. Gradually, the irony becomes apparent. And this transformation of the world. Word honorable, in a sense, into its opposite, or at least into something malign and maybe something synonymous with ambition.

32:49 Erin: Well, again, having the body displayed there, it's so reminiscent to me of, say, Jackie Kennedy wearing the pink suit and making sure that everybody could see what had been done to jfk, you know, so there's this, you know, what he's saying in the speech is also being bolstered visually. And so we have, again, the contrast between this ravaged corpse and this idea of honor. And it exposes, as we've already been discussing, circular logic involved in just deciding that you're honorable and therefore anything you do is going to be full of honor. Here we have the actual result of an action up against the appellation that one has given oneself.

33:33 Wes: Yeah, Brutus, in a way, this is almost like a reductio in mathematics. Reductio ad absurdum. Because Brutus's claim is, because I am honorable, what I have done must have been the right thing. Antony takes this and suggests that if it's not the right thing, then Brutus is not honorable. And then we hear about why it's not the right thing, because was it ambition? He gives some evidence that Caesar was not as ambitious as Brutus says he was. And then. So this redounds back to Brutus's supposed honor. So he approaches this more empirically. What's the evidence for or against ambition?

Brutus, as we know, didn't really do that, even though. Right. He says it's. I don't. I haven't seen any true signs yet. But he's like serpent and his egg. And we gotta nip it in the bud to mix two metaphors. Nip that egg in the bud. Anyway, Brutus's idea is that he sees signs of what will inevitably develop into tyranny. And I suppose you could say you've seen ambition. The ambition is just one of the warning signs. But we don't hear him wrestle with the contrary evidence so much. It's just obvious. I think historically it is obvious. I don't think there's any question that.

What was going on with Caesar, by the way? That Caesar was becoming a tyrant and the big. He crossed a huge line when he basically stripped those tribunes of their titles. That was kind of like, okay, this is like Trump not listening to the Supreme Court or something like that, or decimating some institution which was seen as inviolable from the standpoint of people who cared about the republic.

35:19 Erin: Yeah, I have to say, my hyperbolic love of Caesar is diminished of late. It doesn't seem as funny to argue for Caesar anymore. The first remark of the crowd after this long opening part of Antony's speech is, we get the stage direction. He weeps. I don't know if you have that in your edition. You know, his heart is in the coffin there with Caesar. And then the first thing that A plebeian says is me thinks there is much reason in his sayings, which is really funny. You know, the first. The first place they go is reason. Right. He's broken off to cry.

35:58 Wes: And, yeah, he's given this speech which is full of pathos and ethos. And the crowd is supposedly focusing on the rationale part, but of course they aren't because they're so fickle, right? They're just, well, let's make Brutus Caesar. Now it's like, Caesar was a tyrant. Good riddance. And now it's, oh, right, yeah, it's Brutus who's the bad guy.

36:23 Erin: That's right. Yeah. And I think while we're on the pathos ethos line, that was one of the things that I would talk about with my students is like, okay, what's the dominant appeal in Brutus speech? Is it logo or is it ethos? And ethos? On what grounds? So, yeah, I like that. Right now is the moment of highest pathos. And the crowd goes to logos. It was funny.

36:43 Wes: But yesterday, the word of Caesar might have stood against the world. Now lies he here, and none so poor to do him reverence. O masters, if I were disposed to stir your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage, I should do Brutus wrong and Cassius wrong, who you all know are honorable men.

37:01 Erin: Men.

37:02 Wes: I will not do them wrong. I rather choose to wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you, than I will wrong such honorable men. But there's a parchment with the seal of Caesar. I found it in his closet. Tis his will. So then this movement to the will, which is in Plutarch, Right? So it's not. I don't know. There's something anticlimactic about it for me, this whole reading of the will to kind of finally win the crowd over. Oh, he gave you his public gardens or this or that. But again, Shakespeare is following Plutarch as best he can.

37:37 Erin: What is this about, really? It's such a curious prop because, as you've been talking about Caesar's will, the other sense of will, one of many, but is the thing that maybe hangs him or the thing that condemns him. And then we have this physical document, the contents of which are unknown to us, actually. Right in the play. I mean, we have to take Anthony's word for it that his will was honorable all along, was about the people all along. Was not autocratic. Was. Whatever. I don't know. It's weird. It's like Chekhov's gun, but the opposite, because it hasn't Been hanging on the wall the whole time. It's just sort of pulled out of the back pocket. And we know we don't have a way of seeing it. We don't have any corroboration. We just have to take Antony's word for it. And really he could be pulling out a document that has nothing on it or wing dings or something. You know what I'm saying?

38:32 Wes: I do think he has it retrieved. I can't remember if that's in the Plutarch or in the play, but he sends someone to retrieve it. But the crowd can't though. But yeah, I like this double entendre and will that you're pointing out because it. Right. The gardens and whatever monies he's dispersing. That ought to be a matter of form, the governmental form and institutions working the way they should. Is it in the public good? Not a bribe from a populist autocrat. He can be an autocrat and a populist at the same time. And he was a populist. He was part of the.

I think it was the populi that was the party. And Brutus was in the conservative camp. What were they called? I forget the name. But anyway, yeah, he was a populist in a sense. But it shouldn't be a matter of his will, his personal will and the largesse that he happens to want to give the people. That shouldn't be. Why? What determines what do they get? What's due to them?

39:31 Erin: Well, I just want to say one almost thinks of. Because of this heart, the stag and the idea that the world is his forest. Suddenly I'm thinking of Wyatt. Right. So anything you kill is actually the king's. Is owned by the king. And he's giving this public land to them out of his largess. And yet was it his to give? I assume it was. And yet there's something. I don't know. I'm not putting this very well or tying it together, but like there's something sort of inherently like, I'm giving you this, but also anything on it still belongs to me. And. And it's my world. You're just living in it. That kind of quality.

40:09 Wes: Right. Antony doesn't get to the will immediately. So we get some more awesome speechifying. First. See what a rent the envious Casca made. Through this the well beloved Brutus stabbed. And as he plucked his cursed steel away, mark how the blood of Caesar followed it as rushing out of doors to be resolved if Brutus so unkindly knocked. Or knocked. Wow. What an image. What a sad, sad image. 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. Most unkindest. What? What?

Shakespeare. He's trying to fill out a syllable with a double comparative, or whatever you call it. 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. Oh, what a fall was there, my countrymen. Then I and you and all of us fell down, whilst bloody treason flourished over us. Oh, now you weep. And I perceive you feel the dint of pity. These are gracious drops.

Kind souls. What weep you when you but behold our Caesar's vesture wounded? Look you here. Here is himself marred, as you see, with traitors. And then he uncovers the body so they just. The right. So all this is happening. You know, they can only see him covered. And I guess there's. I guess he's covered in his own toga. And then. So you can see the blood and you can see the rents. I don't know exactly how it works.

41:59 Erin: If it's just a mantle is over him. So maybe it's a mantle. Yeah. And he's sort of lifting it up and describing what he's seeing to them, maybe, and then pulls it off. That's how I imagine it.

42:12 Wes: I mean, you would have a cloak. A cloak of some sort, which is what I'm thinking the mantle is. But I don't know. I think in the movie, I might be influenced by the movie, which is kind of the way. Way that goes. And then the final thing, which I think we ought to read is maybe that last Good friend, sweet friends. Do you want to read that one?

42:31 Erin: Yeah. Before we do, I just want to say, too, that then you and I and all of us fell down. Right. Again, we have this idea that, like Caesar is all of us, or we're all contained within him. And then we get this wound and eye, tears and blood. Parallels comes to fruition here, where he's inciting the crowd to cry over the wounds by making them sort of identify with the body as if this was done, as if Brutus was their own assassin. Yeah. So then Antony goes on. Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up to such a sudden flood of mutiny. They that have done this deed are honorable.

What private griefs they have, alas, I know not, that made them do it. They are wise and honorable and will, no doubt with reasons answer you. I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts. I am no orator, as Brutus is, but as you know me all, a plain, blunt man that love my friend and that they know full well, that gave me public leave to speak of him.

43:28 Wes: Diana, I'm just a simple southern lawyer. I don't know your big city ways.

43:41 Erin: Sorry.

43:42 Wes: Go ahead.

43:42 Erin: Pretty good. For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech to stir man's blood. I only speak. Right on, right on, right on. I tell you that which you yourselves do know. Show you sweet Caesar's wounds, poor, poor dumb mouths, and bid them speak for me. But were I Brutus, and Brutus Antony, there. were an Antony would ruffle up your spirits and put a tongue in every wound of Caesar that should move the stones of Rome to rise and mutiny.

44:15 Wes: Yeah. There's some interesting reversals here, because he. Right, we remember that he was supposed to speak for Caesar's wounds, and now they're going to speak for him. You know, it's like the whole speak for themselves thing in Macbeth. And then the other thing is we get an echo of Cassius saying, if I were Brutus, and Brutus, Cassius, I would not trust me. And here he's saying, if I were Brutus, if I were such a great orator, I'd put a tongue in every one of these wounds.

44:48 Erin: I would speak against myself better than I'm doing now to speak against him. Yeah. Brutus is like. Yeah. In the same way that Caesar is being used constantly as proxy for the whole world. He's. He's spread out. He's. You know, everyone is sort of like, imbued with the spirit of Caesar, or everybody makes up the body that is Caesar. Brutus is similarly, I think, used as this. You know, he's like this inert corpse that various people want to possess.

45:17 Wes: So it's wwbd. If I were Brutus, I wouldn't. Trust me. If I were Brutus, I would. Yeah, yeah. It's weird. Yeah, it is weird. This identity thing.

45:31 Erin: Well, there's a puppet show quality to it, you know, that's the only way I can. It's the metaphor that occurs to me who is going to. Especially because of the difficulty, as you're suggesting, of being able to pin down whether or not something is right or wrong. As we were also talking about the deep irony of this play. Of knowing what's going to happen, of having it. Having it all sort of predetermined in this way, which is almost suggestive of prophecy or the. Or the sort of rhetorical, schoolboy, rhetorical element of this as well. Arguing one side or the other.

You can either hold up the little Caesar puppet or the Antony puppet and argue that side. Or you could hold up the little Brutus puppet and it almost doesn't matter which. Like, you know, there's a. There's a. That changeable quality that seems to be emphasized. Or you could put on, you know, the same toga and call yourself Brutus or Antony or Caesar. You know, there's also that, you know, maybe that's worth emphasizing too, or worth thinking about anyway. The uniform quality of the visuals in terms of the fact that they're all wearing roughly the same costume.

It's very easy to costume this play. Right. I don't know if this occurred. It'd probably be difficult because of the length of the speeches. But I wonder if in repertory productions of this, if it were common for people to switch roles occasionally or. Or, oh, tonight I'll play Brutus and you play Anthony. Might have been. Yeah. This idea of somebody just taking up a body and making that speak and say what it needs to say, that idea of Antony's happening imaginatively seems to me to be a reflection of the difficulty of the entire question.

47:08 Wes: Yeah, I like that. And there's a lot of locating the argument or the speech outside of oneself. So for Brutus, it's, what did Brutus say? It's about the public good. It's about the argument. Listen to my words, not to me in particular. But then he slips and listen to the fact that I'm an honorable man. Paralipsis is the rhetorical trick where you say something by saying that you're not going to say it or hear it, and then pretend to be humble and all that. And here he locates it. He uses these hypotheticals. Well, this is what Brutus would say in a similar circumstance.

I'm not going to do that. But if I were someone else, someone else would do it in my position. What does it do? It's a different way of saying it's not about me or my opinion or my sentiment. Even though I'm conveying this through all this sentiment, it's about some other and even my enemy. It's a way of getting into the point of view of the general spectator, as the British moralists would put it, to the general other that we imagine when we're deciding questions of morality or justice. So the authority isn't personal. Once again, this question about whether authority can be grounded in something personal, including power and conquest, or whether it's got to be grounded more generally and to ground it more generally in morality, we have to appeal to law, something law like.

Or we have to appeal to empathy in this broad sense of a general spectator. And you can start doing that by appealing to it should be a general spectator. But you can go down that path by appealing in a dramatic way, by appealing to the very person, the point of view of the very person who you're opposing. That's often how we get to principle. Right? Would you do that? What would you think if I did that to you with the thing that you're doing to me?

49:16 Erin: That's a great point. I love that idea.

49:18 Wes: All right, that's the end of part five of our discussion of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Please what do you do with podcasts now? Follow them, please. Follow us us. Maybe give us a rating, maybe even add a review on top of that. That helps us all. That helps us. But following helps a lot. If you've made it this far, immediately. Because I know you're sitting on the edge of your seat wondering what happens next?

49:47 Erin: What's going to happen next?

49:48 Wes: Who's going to win? Is it going to be an Empire or is it going to be Republic? But if not, you can wait a week and get Part six. All right, thank you, thank you.

50:04 Erin: And thanks to everyone who listened. For an easy way to do that, go to subtextpodcast.com patreon.com subtextpodcast please send your questions, feedback and episode requests to letters@subtextpodcast.com if we get enough questions, we'll do some bonus Q and A shows for subscribers. You can also find us on Facebook @subtextpodcast and on Twitter enjoysubtext. Next,