Animals!
Bill Long
Revisiting Caesar's Assassination in 5.1
Before engaging in battle, the leaders of the conspiracy and two of the Triumvirs meet to exchange ritual insults. Antony's lines addressed to Brutus and Cassius recalling the murder of Caesar are memorable:
"Villains! you did not so [i.e., issue a prior threat] when your vile daggers/ Hack'd one another in the sides of Caesar./ You show'd your teeth like apes, and fawn'd like hounds,/ And bow'd like bondmen, kissing Caesar's feet;/ Whilst damned Casca, like a cur, behind/ Strook Caesar on the neck. O you flatterers (5.1.39-44)!"
The language emphasizes the violent and inhuman attack on Caesar, and is consistent with Antony's earlier soliloquoy, where, after shaking hands in feigned support of the conspirators, he prayed for forgiveness to the bleeding earth, "O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,/ That I am meek and gentle with these butchers (3.1.254-255)!" The linguistic field which Antony traverses in describing the conspirators, then, includes butchers and a variety of animals.
Hack'd One Another
One ought to pause for a moment on three words quoted above: "Hack'd one another." The first word was also used by Brutus in 2.1 when the conspirators were debating whether to kill Antony along with Caesar. Brutus cautioned them against it: "Our course will be too bloody, Caius Cassius,/ to cut off the head and hack the limbs (1.2.162-163)." Instead, Brutus wanted the death of Caesar to be a sacrifice, a "dish fit for the gods (2.1.173)." Thus, the interpretation that Brutus wanted to avoid in 2.1 (hacking) is taken up by Antony, and that which Brutus wanted slips silently away.
The actual battle of Philippi, which follows the insults, would therefore not only be a battle for supremacy in Rome but a battle for interpretation: hacking or dish? The victory of the Triumvirs assures the interpretation of the death of Caesar as vicious hacking. This is all the more reason for dismissing Brutus's final statement, that he should have more glory in the losing day than Octavius and Antony in their victory (5.5.36-38), as nothing more than the wistful words of a self-deceived man. In addition, Brutus notes the "vile" victory of the Triumvirs while Antony, in the passage quoted above, speaks of the "vile" attack on Caesar.
The phrase "one another" is subject two two interpretations. It can mean "one after another," to create a picture of a constant barrage of knives against Caesar. It can also mean that the conspirators were so numerous and vicious that they even stabbed each other as they assaulted Caesar. The latter interpretation gives Antony's words a vividness and unforgettable visual quality.
Who are/is the Animal(s)?
Antony wants to dehumanize Caesar's attackers as much as possible, and so he likens their smiles to those of apes, their fawning to hounds and Casca's lurking behind Caesar to a threatening cur (5.1.41-44). Interestingly enough, in the last moments of Caesar's life, when the conspirators were around him begging for the release of Publius Cimber, Caesar uses some of the same thoughts to describe them. He rejects their "sweet words,/ Low-crooked curtsies, and base spaniel fawning (3.1.42-43)." Further he says, "If thou dost bend, and pray, and fawn for him, I spurn thee as a cur out of my way (3.1.45-46)." Animal actions in begging for a person's freedom have led to those same animal actions in killing.
Lest we think that animal imagery attached to people is uniformly negative, it is also be attributed to Caesar in the play in order to demonstrate his helplessness and to evoke sympathy from the audience. Just after Antony had extended his hand to the bloody mitts of the conspirators, he was seemingly overcome by what he had done and asks the dead Caesar for pardon.
"Pardon me, Julius! Here wast thou bay'd, brave hart,/ Here didst thou fall, and here thy hunters stand,/ Sign'd in thy spoil, and crimson'd in thy lethe./ O world! thou wast the forest to this hart,/ And this indeed, O world, the heart of thee./ How like a deer, strooken by many princes,/ Dost thou here lie (3.1.204-210)."
Like a stag brought to bay by hunters, like the deer hunted down unmercifully, Caesar fell. Later Antony will say that at his death Caesar's "mighty heart" burst (3.2.186); here he plays on the words "hart" and "heart" to emphasize Caesar's greatness and vulnerability at the same time. He was as defenseless as the hart, but his heart was the throbbing center of the world.
The unmerciful and subhuman conspirators took the life of the innocent and defenseless Caesar. Caesar is the hart, however, and not the sacrificial lamb, which imagery was not only too close to the center of Christian belief but might give credence to Brutus's interpretation of the death as a sacrifice. The conspirators are, nevertheless, animals.
Copyright © 2004-2007 William R. Long |