Complexity of Julius Caesar II

Bill Long

An Additional Complexity

Another difficulty we recognize in Julius Caesar is that the portraits of all major characters of the play except Portia, Brutus' wife, are laced with inconsistencies, and the only one who acts consistently, Portia, chooses to commit suicide. For example, Brutus is portrayed at the end of the play as follows:

"His life was gentle, and the elements/ So mix'd in him that nature might stand up/ And say to all the world, 'This was a man!' (5.5.73-75)."

That is, Brutus is a gentle and well-balanced character. Yet, the first time we meet Brutus in 1.2, and in every subsequent scene where he appears, he is anything but gentle and well-balanced. Nearly his first words are,

"Vexed I am/ Of late with passions of some difference (1.2.39-40)."

His inner disquiet continues, which he likens to an "insurrection (2.1.69)." His treatment of Cassius in 4.3 as they are preparing for battle,is rude, condescending and abrupt. Gentle and well-balanced are not words to describe him accurately.

Portrait of Caesar

The same is evident in the portrait of Caesar himself. He harshly dismisses the soothsayer who tells him to beware the Ides of March (1.2.15-24), but in the immediately preceding lines he adopts the popular superstition that a woman (his wife, Calpurnia) touched by a runner in the Lupercalian ceremonial run will become pregnant.

Again, he changes his mind twice regarding whether he will go to the Senate building, but then, when he goes to the Senate, he upbraids those asking for a political favor with words that are calculated not just to antagonize, but to show his constancy,

"But I am constant as the northern star (3.1.60)."

He is alternately arrogant and accessible, stable and unstable. He sees into another's character when, for example, he rightly suspects Cassius of some plot and says, "Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look,/ He thinks too much; such men are dangerous (1.2.194-95)" but he does not possess the insight to see into his own.

This complexity adds to our enjoyment of the play. It ought to encourage us to read between the lines, to read slowly and carefully, and to ask whether Shakespeare in his apparently limpid portrait of events and characters is really trying to say something about the deceptiveness of appearances in life in general. Make no mistake about it, however, Julius Caesar is not a simple play.