‘The Tragedy of Julius Caesar’ Act Three – “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him…”

‘The Tragedy of Julius Caesar’ Act Three – “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him…”

If anyone in 1599 had any doubt that Shakespeare was more just than “an upstart crow”, or a “tigers hart wrapt in players hyde” or a mildly talented poet with some talent for dramatic verse, they need only to have stayed at the Globe Theatre until about three o’clock on a sunny June afternoon to see Act Three of ‘Julius Caesar’

Shakespeare starts this crucial act of ‘Julius Caesar’ in a street outside the Capitol in Rome. He allows Fate to offer Caesar one last chance to overt his tragic fate. Artemidorus and the Soothsayer wait for Caesar outside the Capitol. As Caesar approaches with Brutus, Cassius, Casca, Decius, Metellus, Trebonius, Cinna, Ligarius and Mark Antony; Artemidorus gives Caesar a letter which he says addresses a matter close to Caesar’s heart that he must read straight away. Caesar, dismisses Artemidorus and his concerns, a decision that will cost him his life.

As the Caesar and the group enter the Senate, Trebonius draws Antony away. Metellus comes to Caesar first and pleads for his brother’s banishment to be rescinded but Caesar refuses. One by one, the senator’s kneel before Caesar to plead Trebonius’ case. Then Casca rises and stabs Caesar first, and the others follow in this bloody mêlée. Finally, a dying Caesar sees Brutus approach. Brutus, Caesar’s friend and ally stabs him too and then Caesar utters his famous final words: “Et tu, Brute?—Then fall Caesar”.

The murderers quickly claim that they have done this deed in honour and have freed Rome from tyranny. Some leave in the moment after the death and news arrives that Mark Anthony has heard of the events, left and gone home quickly. Brutus placates his fellow conspirators and suggests that everyone should dip their hands into the blood of Caesar to seal their bond and then allow them to advance into the public square showing their bloodied hands and proclaiming the liberty they have brought to Rome.

Suddenly, Mark Antony’s servant arrives with a message that Mark Anthony has heard of Caesar’s death and although he loved Caesar, he now vows to serve Brutus if Brutus promises not to seek revenge on Anthony for his allegiance to Caesar. Brutus says that he will welcome Anthony and assures the other conspirators that it is a effective move to embrace Anthony as their ally.

On entering, Antony is taken back when he sees the dead body of Caesar. He marvels how so small a body could hold the grand reputation of so great a man.

“O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,

That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!

Thou art the ruins of the noblest man

That ever lived in the tide of times.”

Anthony begs for the conspirators to kill him too but Brutus tells Mark Anthony that their actions were pure since they acted out of love for Rome itself. Brutus says that the public of Rome will listen to their reasoning and Anthony says he does not doubt this and Anthony even shakes the bloodied hands of the assassinators one by one.

When Antony turns to Caesar’s body and he speaks to the spirit of Caesar, Cassius questions where Anthony’s loyalties lie but Anthony says he will align himself with them if they can explain why they killed Caesar and why Caesar was such a threat to them and to Rome. Again Brutus says that they acted out of noble aims and that Caesar was ambitious and would have destroyed all Rome stands for. Anthony seems to accept this and asks whether he could speak at Caesar’s funeral. Cassius sees this as a dangerous move and warns Brutus against this, but Brutus consents on the condition that he, Brutus, speaks first at the funeral and that Anthony knows that he speaks only with their consent and that Anthony should only speak well of those who did the deed. Cassius still thinks allowing Anthony to speak is a dangerous idea. Brutus’ opinion reigns. They leave Anthony with the body of Caesar to prepare to go to the public square.

Alone, Anthony asks for Caesar to pardon him for seeming to act passively to his murderers but Anthony claims that this is the calm before the storm and that Caesar’s death shall indeed be avenged even if this brings chaos to Rome itself.

The servant of Octavius (the great General who was Caesar’s adopted son and anointed successor and who Caesar himself had asked to come to Rome) enters and sees the body of Caesar. Antony informs the servant that Rome has become a dangerous place for Octavius, and instructs the servant to come and hear his speech at Caesar’s funeral and to relay what is said and how the people respond to Octavius and then Octavius should decide what his next move should be.

When Brutus enters the Forum to speak to the plebeians, he placates them and assures them that they killed Caesar out of love and that it is because Brutus has more love for Rome than he had for Caesar that he committed such an act as murder.

“Romans, countrymen, and lovers! hear me for my

cause, and be silent, that you may hear...

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.”

The crowd cheers Brutus and seems to be swayed by his reason and his logic and then Brutus calms the crowd and begs them to listen to Mark Anthony who Brutus adds has been given permission to speak. Brutus then leaves. As Anthony rises to the stage, the crowd discusses how Caesar was indeed a tyrant and then Anthony cleverly turns the tide of feeling.

Unlike Brutus, Anthony does not speak to the crowd in blank verse. Anthony does not wish to speak down to the plebeians but to rise them up to feelings and actions of great passion. He speaks in verse using irony and rhetoric to its poetic limits to capture and move them. Anthony starts by appealing to the crowd as comrades and states that he has come to bury Caesar not to praise him. He then acknowledges that Caesar was ambitious and that Brutus is “an honorable man”. He then cleverly points out that Caesar brought great money to Rome not himself and asks whether this is a sign of ambition. Anthony then points out the empathy that Caesar had for the poor of Rome and goes on to remind the crowd that he Anthony had offered Caesar the crown three times but Caesar had refused and asks whether such humility could be considered to be ambition. He reminds the crowd that they once loved Caesar and he asks that they should mourn him now:

“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--

For Brutus is an honourable man;

So are they all, all honourable men--

Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.

He was my friend, faithful and just to me:

But Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honourable 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 honourable 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 honourable 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.”

But Anthony has more than rhetoric up his sleeve. He then speaks again to the crowd and reveals that in his hands he has Caesar’s will. The crowd begs Anthony to read the will and he insists that they stand around Caesar’s corpse before he does so. In a moment of high theatricality, he makes the crowd look closely at Caesar’s body.

“Look, in this place ran Cassius' dagger through:

See what a rent the envious Casca made:

Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabb'd;

And as he pluck'd his cursed steel away,

Mark how the blood of Caesar follow'd it,

As rushing out of doors, to be resolved

If Brutus so unkindly knock'd, or no;

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…”

Anthony then claims that he himself is a simple man who is not urging others to revolt. The crowd declares they will vent their outrage and then Anthony reveals that Caesar’s will gave to all the citizens of Rome money from his own personal estate and wanted to make all his private properties and parks open to the public for them to use. The die is cast and the crowd go off to seek revenge.

Alone Anthony resigns himself to whatever outcome emerges next.

“Now let it work. Mischief, thou art afoot,

Take thou what course thou wilt!”

Octavius’ servant enters and informs Anthony that Octavius is now in Rome at Caesar’s house. He also informs Anthony that Brutus and Cassius have been driven from Rome.

We switch briefly to the streets where a mob attacks Cinna the Poet thinking him to be Cinna the conspirator and they attack him and presumably beat him viciously to death. Shakespeare makes us pause and see the irrational and brutal power that passion and revenge can set loose in a crowd where the innocents are slaughtered in the streets.

“… pluck but his name out of his heart…

Tear him, tear him!”