Shakespeare's Take On Political Violence.

I was thinking about this play after 9-11. "Julius Caesar" by William Shakespeare. I studied it in my Sophomore Year in HS, 1983-4. It was horrible what the 9-11 terrorists did of course. And we should never in any way condone that kind of behavior. But I was thinking at that time. What kinds of political and social conditions lead people to think acts of political terrorism is their only option. And what is going on in their mind at the time. I even thought it might be a good idea to do this play as a charity event to benefit the first responders and victims of 9-11. The January 6th riots would be a more recent example when people are misled to believe that violence is the only solution to their problem. What follows are some of the more famous and poignant lines from that play.

“Knew you not Pompey?”

-Act I, Scene 1.

“But for mine own part, it was Greek to me.”

-Act I, Scene 2.

“Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep a-nights.
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look.
He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.”

-Act I, Scene 2.

“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.”

-Act I, Scene 2.

“What a terrible era in which idiots govern the blind.”

-Act II, Scene 1.

“Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma or a hideous dream.”

-Act II, Scene 1.

“Danger knows full well
That Caesar is more dangerous than he.”

-Act II, Scene 2.

“When beggars die, there are no comets seen; the heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.”

-Act II, Scene 2.

“Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.

-Act II, Scene 2.

“Beware the Ides of March.”

-Act III, Scene 1.

“The ides of March are come.”
“Ay, Caesar; but not gone.”

-Act III, Scene 1.

“I could be well moved, if I were as you.
If I could pray to move, prayers would move me.
But I am constant as the Northern Star,
Of whose true fixed and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament.”

-Act III, Scene 1.

“Et tu, Brutè?”

-Act III, Scene 1.

“Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!
Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets.”

-Act III, Scene 1.

“And Caesar’s spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Ate by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice
Cry ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of war,
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth.”

-Act III, Scene 1.

“Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.”

-Act III, Scene 2.

“For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,
Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech
To stir men’s blood. I only speak right on.
I tell you that which you yourselves do know.”

-Act III, Scene 2.

“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interrèd with their bones.
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious.
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answered it.”

-Act III, Scene 2.

“He was my friend.”

-Act III, Scene 2.

“This was the most unkindest cut of all.”

-Act III, Scene 2

“Now let it work. Mischief, thou art afoot;
Take thou what course thou wilt.”

-Act III, Scene 2.


“There are no tricks in plain and simple faith.”

-Act IV, Scene 2.

“There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.”

-Act IV, Scene 3.

“How ill this taper burns.
Ha, who comes here?
I think it is the weakness of mine eyes
That shapes this monstrous apparition.
It comes upon me. Art thou any thing?
Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil,
That mak’st my blood cold and my hair to stare?”

-Act IV, Scene 3.

“Thou shalt see me at Philippi.”

-Act IV, Scene 3.

“This was the noblest Roman of them all.
All the conspirators save only he
Did that they did in envy of great Caesar.
He only in a general honest thought
And common good to all made one of them.

-Act V, Scene 5.

“His life was gentle; and the elements
So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, This was a man!”

-Act V, Scene 5.