APPENDIX. INTERPRETATION OF THE PLAY. The Leading Characters. If the originality of Shakspere is shown in the construction of the plot of the play, despite his indebtedness to Plutarch for the materials used in its construction (see p. 24), much more is it shown in the characters of the play. The main characters are not Plutarch's, they are creations of the poet. His Caesar, for instance, is as truly a creation as is Michael Angelo's " David," in which the greater sculptor simply reshaped the work of an inferior one. The French critic Taine well says: "Shakspere is the most marvelous of all creators of souls." Let us look at some of these creations in our play. JULIUS CAESAR The Caesar of our play is not the Caesar of history. It is, indeed, historically true that the great dictator's character deteriorated somewhat in his last days. But the kindly-spoken, large-souled, steady-willed Caesar never became the arrogant, irresolute creature that struts and frets in the first part of our play. Shakspere's Caesar boasts in the Senate that he alone among men is constant, as is the northern star among its fellows in the firmament; yet in the unreserve of his home he is as wavering as a will-o'-the-wisp. He craves flattery, though affecting to scorn it. He uses his own name as if it were that of a divinity. He and Danger are "two lions litter'd in one day," and he "the elder and more terrible." This is almost insanity. In the play, even physical weaknesses of Caesar are dwelt on: his strength fails him in the Tiber; in his fever he cries "like a sick girl"; he is become deaf; he falls in a fit of epilepsy. The picture, as a whole, is absolutely unhistoric. To what shall we attribute this distortion of fact? Some, as Boswell and Brandes, take it as evidence of the poet's ignorance of history. But in the second part of our play, as in other of his plays, there is ample evidence that Shakspere appreciated the greatness of Caesar. The moment Caesar falls, depreciation almost entirely ceases. Brutus's harshest word in his address to the mob is, "He was ambitious." To Cassius he asserts that Caesar had lent his support to dishonest men, but in the same breath calls him "the foremost man of all this world." When Antony is alone with the "bleeding piece of earth," and is therefore not speaking for effect, Shakspere puts into his lips an address to 66 -the noblest man That ever lived in the tide of times." Shakspere's purpose in the play is clear, I think, if we suppose him to intend that our personal interest shall center in Brutus, that he shall be, to use the phrase of Professor R. M. Alden, the "moral hero" of the play, as Caesar, in the body and out of the body, is its "dramatic hero." That he may bring Brutus before us in heroic stature, he dwarfs the colossal Caesar. That we may not be repelled from Brutus by "the hole he made in Caesar's heart," he shows that heart so small and hollow as to invite its fate. Brutus appears the more nobly unselfish because of the ignoble self-worship of Caesar. But when the great crime is done, and, in the second part of the play, it becomes necessary to prepare us to accept the retribution upon Brutus for his great though unintended wrong, the dramatist becomes silent as to Caesar's faults and exalts his virtues. This inconsistency of the two presentments of Caesar is indeed an artistic defect, but consistency would have been a greater one. BRUTUS Marcus Brutus is undoubtedly the center of the personal interest in the play. He is, says Mr. Morley, "the most perfect character in Shakspere, but for one great error in his life." He alone exhibits sustained elevation of character. Antony's devotion to Caesar is noble; so also is his tribute to his fallen foe, Brutus, though this latter is really a lime-light thrown, as the curtain falls, upon Brutus himself, leaving in our memory the incomparable Man. But Antony elsewhere falls to very low levels. Portia but reflects her husband's own nobility, while her distracted fear throws into relief his own massive poise; this massiveness in turn makes more gracious his tenderness to her. Lucius, the slave boy, is carried through the play to give touching occasion for the exquisite sympathy of his master, who forgets the overwhelming burdens of his own spirit to remember the mere flesh-weariness of the child. Cassius's cynicism is a constant foil to Brutus's warm and simple-minded faith, which leads him to say: "I rejoice that yet in all my life I found no man but he was true to me." The selfish motive of all the other conspirators makes Brutus's self-sacrificing course more appealing. Through out the play the characters seem drawn and the action arranged to converge our admiration and love upon this noblest Roman of them all. Yet Shakspere is too true to his art and to life to portray a faultless character. Brutus is fretful with his wife (II. i., 238-247); he is confessedly "ill-tempered with Cassius; he is rather too conscious and assertive of his "honor." He knows the times are out of joint, but utterly misjudges why they are so and how they may be set right. Our play has often been compared to that of Hamlet, and Brutus to the Prince of Denmark himself. Both Brutus and Hamlet are swayed by lofty ideals of personal and public duty; but both men are purely idealists. Lacking in practical judgment, both as to ends and means, each feels called upon to act a heroic part for which he is unfitted and in which he pitifully fails. But Brutus has the heroic will, which Hamlet has not. CASSIUS Cassius is "a great observer," who "looks quite through the deeds of men." He rightly judges Antony, whose death he would add to Caesar's: he is not deceived by Antony's fine acting in the Capitol, and would not have him suffered to speak to the people; while Brutus seeks to move Antony by talking of "honor," Cassius talks to him of a share in the spoils. Cassius sees also, or thinks he sees, that even Brutus's "honourable metal may be wrought From that it is disposed," and so waters the seeds of envy and ambition which he believes lie latent in Brutus's heart. He indeed says to Brutus: Honour is the subject of my story (I. ii., 92)"; but the story that follows shows that "honour" means to him much what it does to the duelist, not what it does to the patriot. Selfish 66 |