Betrayal and the Death of Caesar II
Bill Long
As was mentioned previously, the second reaction one might have to the experience of being betrayed is to give up all desire or will to live. Betrayal can provoke an inner collapse, a weakening or enervation that exhausts the soul and depletes whatever resources one has to deal with life. Your most precious thing has been taken, wrenched away, destroyed. What can you do but die?
It is this approach to betrayal that helps explain the six final words of Caesar:
"Et tu Brute?--Then fall Caesar (3.1.77)."
Two things should be noted about these six words. The first is that Caesar falls back into Latin, the only Latin words uttered in the play. The best translation of these words is "Even you, Brutus?," and they are meant to suggest Caesar's astonishment, confusion and sudden surprise at Brutus' action. There is, in addition, a note of deep tenderness in the words, "Et tu Brute?" They are spoken in the vocative case, the case of address, with the grammatically unnecessary addition of the personal pronoun, as if to say, "You, You my close companion, you too?"
By having the actor resort to Latin, Shakespeare as it were has the actor leave his role and revert back to the instinctive language of the character. It thus becomes language uttered before thought, before conscious "covering up" of the identity of Caesar by a late 16th century English actor. It is meant to suggest that the action of Brutus cut right to the heart of Caesar's identity.
Second, Caesar says, "Then fall Caesar." Once the full weight of the betrayal has dawned on him, he has no option but to die. Certainly one can say that the loss of blood and injury killed him, but these three words give the impression that Caesar died from a broken heart. His inner collapse preceded his collapse before the statue of Pompey.
This approach to Caesar's death is remarkably confirmed by Mark Antony's funeral oration over Caesar in 3.2. After he descends from the rostrum and gathers the crowd around the lifeless body of Caesar, he interprets the meaning of Brutus' stabbing of Caesar-- a stabbing which he calls "the most unkindest cut of all (3.2.183)." He says:
"For when the noble Caesar saw him stab,/ Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms,/ Quite vanquished him. Then burst his might 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 (3.2.184-89)."
Caesar was killed by Brutus' "ingratitude." That is what "burst his mighty heart." Ingratitude that the friendship, their intimate connection, meant nothing. After all, Antony had just before this said that Caesar considered Brutus his "angel" (3.2.181)--not just a friend or companion but more akin to the theological concept of a guardian angel. Again, in words reminiscent of Jesus' love for the rich young ruler or the beloved disciple in the Gospels, Antony said, "Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar lov'd him (3.2.182)."
Brutus' "most unkindest cut" was the cut of a beloved friend. Caesar's inner resources collapsed, and he died. Never was Caesar so impressive, or so human, as at his death.
Copyright © 2004-2007 William R. Long |