Show notes
Wes & Erin continue their discussion of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” and its sustained reflection on how political power is constructed, located, and legitimated. Upcoming Episodes: “Amadeus,” Susan Sontag’s “On Photography.” Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes. Also from Wes: Curtain Times, a calendar of Boston theatre, classical, talks and readings. Follow:Twitter | Facebook | Website Transcript 0:19 Erin: or@patreon.com. 0:32 Wes: Okay. Welcome to part five of our six part series. Right. Is that right? 0:37 Erin: I thought it was part V. 0:42 Wes: Part V, Sorry. Of our six part series on Julius Caesar. Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. So I think we only. How long does a play take to perform? 3 hours. 2 to 3 hours. Anyway, so we'll have a little more than doubled actual performance time. But anyway, I enjoy it. I hope the listeners enjoy it. I hope you enjoy it. So in the spirit of taking your time, we're actually going to back up a little bit. We've gotten to the cusp of Antony's entrance. But I think before that, you wanted to say something about a line a little bit earlier. Fly not, stand still, ambition's debt is paid. Which is what Brutus, in a rather naive way, says to the people who just witnessed this horrific murder. 1:28 Erin: Just as I was reviewing yesterday, that line stuck out to me. And I thought, did we give this the attention it deserves? Because I think it's an interesting idea. The sort of bank account analogy. 1:38 Wes: Right. 1:39 Erin: And if ambition implies that Caesar felt that he was above other men, or sort of more than a man setting himself above his fellow Romans, then would the debt even be paid by his murder? I mean, we're sort of going to discover that it's not that the implications of this are going to be result in a big battle. And also that Caesar isn't even really dead. He's not dead, sort of figuratively. And also his ghost will show up, of course. But I thought this was a sort of interesting framing of the murder as a mere settling of accounts or a kind of moral math that Brutus seems to want to explain away in this easy analogy that. Okay, we've taken care of it now, so it's all going to be okay. And yeah, I mean, maybe just your word, which I like quite a bit. His naivete is really on display here. But I think this kind of posture that he has going into the two speeches is illustrative of his cast of mind. You know, I think in parts past I've made reference to this idea of scale that's repeatedly invoked with Caesar. And here we have an interesting nod to that. Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils, shrunk to this little measure? I mean, first of all, there's this list of four thing that Anthony came, keeps doing, right? His servant comes in and gives four adjectives to Brutus and four adjectives to Caesar. And then here we have conquest, glories, triumphs, spoils. And he goes on, fare thee well, I know not, gentlemen, what you intend. Who else must be let blood, who else is rank. So my note in my edition has this interesting gloss on rank, corrupt with the second sense of grown too large and thus in need of cutting, either to release diseased blood or to reduce in size. So Antony's doing this clever thing here where we have this list which sort of contains within it all of Caesar's glory. Then this idea that it's shrunk down to just Caesar's body. And then also he, with the metaphor or with the turn of phrase, gives a nod to Brutus, as though what he's done is a sort of appropriate culling or it could be seen that way. Right? So he's being very ambiguous, I think, from the get go, even as he's seemingly straightforwardly lamenting Caesar's body. 3:59 Wes: Yeah, who else's rank is a pun on rank, as in rotten or diseased. And then who else's rank has become too powerful, right? And the idea is that Caesar's ambition and his acquisition of too much power is almost like a disease and even to the point of being unnatural, as we've said before. So bloodletting is the way to deal with this disease and also the only way to Deal with power. So that's. Yeah, it's nicely ambiguous because it leaves him uncommitted, as he is going to be uncommitted to one side or another. In a sense, through this speech, he's going to have to convince them that he's not against them and that he's. Without simply repudiating Caesar outright, which would make him look not credible. So if he were merely even just worried about his credibility and convincing these people that he's not a threat, he can't go too hard on that. I didn't care about Caesar. He can't do that. So he's got to express an appropriate amount of distress over the death of Caesar, but some curiosity about. Well, maybe there was something I didn't see that warranted this. So why don't you guys fill me in that kind of approach. 5:22 Erin: I wonder if I'm wrong to see a little bit later, no instrument of half that worth, as though your swords made rich with the most noble blood of all this world. I wonder if I'm wrong there to see some idea of ink. Right. I feel like with Caesar's blood, ink is being repeatedly invoked. And the idea that the sword is being stuck. The sword, like the pen, is being stuck in the blood. It just reminds me, with their hands being wet, he's shortly going to like, grasp all of their hands. That hasn't happened yet, right? He hasn't greeted them. No, because he just came on, you know, he'll ask them to render their bloody hands. Reminds me of Sonnet 111, the dyer's hand, where you become stained with the ink of. When you're a writer, your fingers become stained with the ink. The idea that it will shortly come up with these two competing speeches of authorship, I think is being invoked. Who is going to spin this? Who is going to write this story in a way which is satisfactory to us, the audience, to the crowd within the play? And I think that already ambition's debt is paid, which makes assumptions or sort of like closes down metaphorical interpretations or possibilities on the Brutus side is not going to be able to withstand that ambiguous meaning in Antony's turn of phrase with the excellence of his writing. W R I T I N g the situation in these incredibly rich, multivalent moments when he talks to them. So it's, you know, so I keep seeing the pen or the ink and the interpretation of that as being some sort of statement about who's going to have the upper hand rhetorically, who's going to write this in the proper way or in the acceptable way that other people will determine is the correct interpretation, regardless of the actual crime or whether or not it was justified. It's sort of about the spin or the act of playwriting itself. 7:22 Wes: Yeah, very good. In a way, it's a riposte to Cassius, even though he wasn't there for that remark, but for the remark about ages hence, the enactment, the reenactment of the scene ages hence. And again, it leaves open who that reenactment is going to cast as the villain and as the hero. And I think in Shakespeare's case, he's agnostic. The play treats this as agnostic. Was it the right thing to kill Caesar? Wasn't it? It's just treated as a problematic. It doesn't try to resolve that problematic. I think some scholars would try to come down as if he's pro Caesar, pro Brutus. I think that's a fool's errand to try to do that. But this raises the question of whose story will be told in the end. He calls them the choice and master spirits of this age. At the end of his speech, he's telling them, kill me if you need to. It would be an honorable death to die here, near Caesar. If that's what you want, just do it. Even though they've already assured him through the servant that they're not. Then he gives them this compliment, which is that they've done something which is age defining. It makes it a conquest in a way, just like one of Caesar's conquests. And that's the standard of values that elevates Caesar, right power and conquest and glory and all those things. And it offers to them the same sort of accolade. But of course, the problem is that that's the thing that they're supposed to reject. So he's complimenting them. And he's not saying, you are the defenders of liberty against the whole ethos of power and conquest. You are master spirits, which I may. You know, it's a little bit of a reach for me to read that as. But that's the way I read it. And then Brutus is such a nice guy. Beg not your death of us, Antony. We're not going to do that. Cassius wanted to kill you, not me. Our hearts, you see, not they are pitiful. And pity to the general wrong of Rome. As fires drive out fire. So pity, pity, you know, so pity for the public good had to made them pitiless towards Caesar. 9:29 Erin: I love that, you know, pity the abstract concept killed Caesar. 9:33 Wes: Yeah. 9:33 Erin: And also this. This. The splitting, I think, which I also. Again, I'm not sure if that's the right word, but the atomizing that Brutus always does between his thoughts and his body or of the parts of his body. So here, you know, his hands are stained with blood. But then it's not as in Sonnet 111, almost thence my nature is subdued to what it works in, like the dyer's hand. Rather than taking ownership over this, it's as though he's divorcing the bloody hand from himself. He's not accepting the bloodiness of the business, even as they are dripping with this blood. And I think it's. Again, I just want to mention that there's an element of this which loses its power when we read it. It versus seeing it on stage. They literally are covered in blood. And when they shake Antony's hand, he then gets stained with the same blood. So I think the contrast between what they're saying and what it actually looks like on stage, that power is, you know, I don't want that to be lost in our conversation. 10:33 Wes: Brutus loves Caesar. When he struck him, I doubt not of your wisdom, says Antony, let each man render me his bloody hand. And then he shakes hands with each conspirator and names them by name. Which reminds me a little bit, I think. Well, when Brutus greets the conspirators in his home, doesn't he name everyone by name? And then when Caesar greets people when they go to visit them, he names everyone by name. 10:55 Erin: That's right. Yeah. I think I had that as he greets, I think as part of the list of things that united Brutus and Caesar. But then Antony does it too. So, yeah, it's a threesome. 11:07 Wes: I don't know what to make of that, but it's an interesting way to. In a way to establish trust or ingratiate himself with everyone on an individual level rather than just speaking generically to the crowd. 11:21 Erin: Well, it gives us the opportunity to hear the name Cinna, which will come up later, and which is also, of course, a great pun on sinner, which I think is part of the reason why that character in particular is. Maybe that's in Plutarch. Cinna the poet. I'm not sure. 11:36 Wes: I think it is. 11:38 Erin: Okay, well, then even more perfect. I mean, these things really write themselves. But. 11:43 Wes: Well, actually, maybe. I'm not sure, actually, now that I think about it. 11:46 Erin: But anyway, yeah, but it's also, of 11:49 Wes: course, a lot of this is in Plutarch, including the bloody hands and let's daub ourselves in blood. And then. Yeah, a lot of this. He follows it very closely. But. 11:57 Erin: Yeah, well, and the shaking hands and saying people's names, it seems to me to be redoing or a doing in a different way or doing to its full. The non oath oath scene that Brutus enacts with the conspirators early on, you know, which I was assuming was a blood oath. Right. So here it seems like that is being toyed with, ironically, that it's not their blood, but still there's some sort of blood oath being enacted here. 12:25 Wes: It's almost as if he just loses awareness. He goes off into a reverie in the movie. Marlon Brando does a good job of this. You know, just kind of drifting off into this. These comments about Caesar as if the others aren't there. I mean, ultimately Cassius is gonna say, Mark Antony, what's going on? But, you know, I did love thee, Caesar. Oh, tis true. If then thy spirit look upon us now, shall it not grieve thee dearer than my death to see thy Antony making his peace, shaking the bloody fingers of thy foe? I think, importantly, I don't think it's not pegged as an aside. Right. So we don't just get the idea that the others can't hear him, but we do get a bit of an idea that he's talking to himself absentmindedly with the others hearing this, I certainly don't think. And maybe I'm just influenced by the film rendition of this. He's not talking to them, he's talking to the body and almost losing. Losing sight of the others around him. And then he wants to ask, for reasons, Brutus kind of postpones that, says we will eventually. And then I think he sets up the funeral oration and Cassius doesn't want to let him do that, which is very correct. And then Brutus sets these conditions. You're not going to blame us. And you'll say, we, it's with our permission. And then all exit. And then he gives this more famous speech lamenting Caesar. Oh, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth. This is around 250something in mine bleeding piece of earth. What do you make of that? That is such an odd phrase. I wonder if it would have sounded as odd to an Elizabethan. 14:10 Erin: I don't know what that's supposed to emphasize. The way in which he's been brought low in death and his oneness with humanity or with the earth. Antony, when everybody else was still there, does again, this thing with Scale, where he describes Caesar as being the stag. So it's sort of upends that. That initial image from the very beginning of the play of Caesar being a falcon here, he's the wounded one, he's the hunted one. But he says, oh, world, thou wast the forest to this heart, and this indeed, O world, the heart of thee. There's a telescopic quality to that. The whole world is just in his heart. The world was his forest to play in. But then also he has a world within himself. Hart H A R T and Hart H E A R T, of course, are being played with there as well. So now that worldness, or that sense of the whole world being contained within him, that's being turned inside out here and now he's like a clod of earth. So I'm not sure if that's supposed to signal something grand about him or something about the pathos of him being brought so low here. Probably both. 15:17 Wes: Yeah. It's a kind of recapitulation of the whole. Has all your glory and conquest come to this? And here, this great spirit is now inanimate. This use of the word earth to get at the fact of an inanimate physical body. It's ashes to ashes, dusted dust and all that. But. 15:37 Erin: But also a whole. Like a. Like a piece of earth. 15:40 Wes: Yeah. 15:40 Erin: You know, I mean, that would be capital E. Right. 15:42 Wes: But part of the world, piece of piece of earth is in the planet. 15:46 Erin: Right. 15:46 Wes: Interesting. Yeah. 15:48 Erin: I mean, I don't know if you can get to that reading, but I think it's. But since he's just been talking. 15:52 W…
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