Cicero’s Choric Comment in Julius Caesar

Abstract

C I C E R O ’ S C H O R I C C O M M E N T I N J U L I U S C A E S A R JOHN BLIGH University of Guelph I n Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Cicero enters as a silent member of Caesar’s entourage in i.ii, speaks a few lines in i.iii, is briefly discussed in n.i, and is reported as dead in iv.iii. On the one occasion when he comes forward to speak, his words are calm, courteous, business-like, and brief, yet long enough to include a memorable sententia of the sort which the historical Cicero introduced into his speeches to give them philosophical elevation.1 The occasion is an encounter with Casca, not taken from Plutarch but created by Shakespeare, in the middle of the play’s first movement, the formation of the conspiracy. At the beginning of i.iii, after the management has produced whatever thunder and lightning it has at its command, Cicero and Casca enter from opposite sides of the stage. Casca, who has just left Brutus and Cassius, is terrified by the storm, but Cicero is quite unmoved: Good even, Casca; brought you Caesar home? Why are you breathless? And why stare you so?2 Casca replies that never in his life has he seen such weather. Having verbally scene-painted the storm, he offers two alternative theological interpretations of it: Either there is civil strife in heaven, Or else the world, too saucy with the gods, Incenses them to send destruction. Still unmoved, Cicero asks: Why, saw you anything more wonderful? Casca replies with a list of strange events which he believes to be portents: A common slave — you know him well by sight — Held up his left hand, which did flame and bum Like twenty torches joined, and yet his hand, Not sensible of fire, remained unscorched. E n g l is h S t u d ie s in C anada, v iii, 4, December 1982 Besides — I ha’ not since put up my sword — Against the Capitol I met a lion, Who glazed upon me and went surly by Without annoying me. And there were drawn Upon a heap a hundred ghastly women, Transformed with their fear, who swore they saw Men, all in fire, walk up and down the streets. And yesterday the bird of night did sit Even at noonday upon the market place, Hooting and shrieking. When these prodigies Do so conjointly meet, let not men say, “These are their reasons, they are natural,” For I believe they are portentous things Unto the climate that they point upon. Cicero still refuses to be impressed. Before leaving Casca, he gives him a word of shrewd advice: Indeed, it is a strange-disposed time: But men may construe things after their fashion, Clean from the purpose of the things themselves, (i.iii.33-35) That is to say, under the sway of their passions, their prejudices, their beliefs, and their philosophies, men will read meanings into events which mean either nothing or the very opposite of the meanings read.3 The warning is Shakespeare’s own addition to the story, not derived from Plutarch; it is a general thesis in epistemology but has an immediate practical reference. Cicero draws upon his own philosophy as he politely refuses assent to Casca’s metaphysical interpretations of unusual events. In recent criticism one can observe a growing suspicion that Cicero’s maxim may be of far-reaching significance. In 1947, Granville Barker wrote disparagingly of the scene, contrasting it to the storm scenes in Lear: “ It takes the plot little further. And Cicero is a walking shadow, Cinna, a mere convenience; Casca, unnerved and eloquent, is unrecognizable as the Casca of the previous scene, is turned into a convenience for picturing the storm. . . . By the end of the hundred and sixty-five lines we have learned that Cicero is cautious, Casca ripe, that things are moving fast with Cinna and the rest, that Brutus must be won.” 4 Dorsch, too, in his 1955 Arden edition, regards the scene as a bit of minor character development drawing...