Today’s Totally Random
Lines
And, gentle friends,
Let’s
kill him boldly, but not wrathfully;
Let’s
carve him as a dish fit for the gods,
Not
hew him as a carcass fit for hounds:
And
let our hearts, as subtle masters do,
Stir
up their servants to an act of rage,
And
after seem to chide ‘em. This shall make
Our
purpose necessary, and not envious:
Which
so appearing to the common eyes,
We
shall be call’d purgers, not murderers.
And
for Mark Antony, think not of him;
For
he can do no more than Caesar’s arm
When
Caesar’s head is cut off.
Brutus
Julius Caesar Act II, Scene i, Line 175
Okay,
we’ve got some really good material to work with this morning. It’s the meeting
of Brutus, Cassius and the others to discuss the assassination of Caesar. They’ve
all decided that Caesar must indeed be killed, and now Caius Cassius has
suggested that Mark Antony, Caesar’s most ardent follower, should be killed as
well. Today’s Lines are part of Brutus’s twenty-line response to Caius.
The first part of this is Brutus talking about how to go about killing Caesar, and the last part is about not needing to kill Mark Antony. And there’s a bunch of good stuff here.
First off, next time someone mentions a dish fit for the gods, you can tell them that this is a reference to the dead body of Caesar. That’ll frost ‘em.
Secondly, considering that Mark Antony will become emperor in Caesar’s place, hunting down Brutus and his followers, I’m thinking that Brutus’s assessment of Mark Antony may have been a little off. And to be clear, Brutus and his followers are indeed considered purgers until Antony gets involved. Once that guy gets the crowd riled up, Brutus and his boys quickly become viewed as murderers, and it’s all downhill from there. Yes, Caius Cassius was right, and Brutus missed the boat on the Mark Antony question. You win some, you lose some.
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