Noder's note: This excerpt from Act One, Scene Two of the play "Julius Caesar" by William Shakespeare is, I feel, the very crux of the story. Many people complain that the phrases and subtexts are difficult to understand- largely due to the fact that this play was written for a different era of thinking and communication. In an effort to illustrate the importance of this scene to the average layman, I have hardlinked specific phrases that are not easily understood to those who are not familiar with the language conventions or uses of the time with contemporary phrases that are typical in modern use. At its heart, the story of Julius Caesar's assassination is, in a manner of speaking, the first mob story- a mafia hit in action, seen from within. How appropriate, it should seem, that the setting is in Italy.
Why, man, he doth
bestride the
narrow
world
Like a
Colossus, and we
petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves
dishonourable graves.
Men at some time are
masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our
stars,
But in ourselves, that we are
underlings.
Brutus and
Caesar:
what should be in that 'Caesar'?
Why should that name be sounded more than yours?
Write them together, yours is as fair a name;
Sound them, it doth become the
mouth as well;
Weigh them, it is as heavy;
conjure with 'em,
Brutus will
start a spirit as soon as Caesar.
Now, in the names of all the gods at once,
Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed,
That he is grown so great?
Age, thou art shamed!
Rome,
thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!
When went there by an age, since the great flood,
But it was famed
with more than with one man?
When could they say till now, that talk'd of Rome,
That her wide walls
encompass'd but one man?
Now is it
Rome indeed and
room enough,
When there is in it but one only man.
O, you and I have
heard our fathers say,
There was a Brutus once that would have
brook'd
The eternal devil to keep his state in Rome
As easily as a king.