Mojo, The Bard, & Me

             I know not how,

But I do find it cowardly and vile,

For fear of what might fall, so to prevent

The time of life:

-Marcus Brutus

Julius Caesar                     Act IV, Scene i, Line 103

Well this is an interesting line. I guess I say that a lot, don’t I? But it is. Brutus and Cassius are discussing suicide, of all things. Here they are standing on the plains of Philippi and they are about to go into battle. Cassius asks Brutus what he’ll do if they lose the battle, is he gonna fall on his sword. Here’s Brutus’s whole answer-

Even by the rule of that philosophy
By which I did blame Cato for the death
Which he did give himself, I know not how,
But I do find it cowardly and vile,
For fear of what might fall, so to prevent
The time of life: arming myself with patience
To stay the providence of some high powers
That govern us below.

That pretty much sounds like a ‘no way’ to me. How about you? And yet, Cassius follows up by saying, ‘Okay, then if we lose you’re gonna let them take you prisoner and drag you through the streets of Rome?’ And Brutus replies with an even stronger ‘No way, man!’ So which is it? Is he gonna commit hari kari if they lose the battle, or isn’t he? Well I think I’ve mentioned before that the last time I saw this play was in 1972. And I haven’t read it since then. So you tell me.

There you go. That's my high school diploma and you can see the date. We saw Julius Caesar at the Stratford Shakespeare theater in my freshman year with Father Diaz. He was a feisty little guy. I mean Father Diaz, not Julius Caesar. Julius was dead in the beginning of the third act; not very feisty at all.