Ides of March Part 3: For Brutus Is an Honorable Man (Repeat 3 Times)

For Brutus Is an Honorable Man (Repeat 3 Times)

Last week we looked at the response of Mark Antony to Caesar’s assassination, and how his central grace and failing –his ability to love—led him to act with trickery and self-abnegation to achieve vengeance. Even in his trickery, however, his words reveal truths.  This trick is particularly evident in his repetition of his ironic assessment of Caesar’s other surrogate son (and assassin): “Now Brutus is an honorable man.”

In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, a character’s real intent is shown subtly in his words (sometimes not so subtly). But that doesn’t mean he speaks his intent necessarily; rather that the truth has such power that it will influence the speech and action in ways that the audience can understand. That is, Shakespeare’s voice “gives voice” to the truth, but not in always in an obvious way.

His world view is not transparent– nothing is clearly clear, and he starts, I think, with acknowledging the complexity of humans. They are not one way. In fact, in the very end of the play, Mark Antony looks down at his enemy Brutus and acknowledges his nobility (which Brutus’s own actions have cast into doubt), and says:

His life was gentle, and the elements
So mix’d in him that Nature might stand up

And say to all the world ‘This was a man!’

That is, the measure of a man is the mixing of elements– the depth is in the contradictions. Shakespeare’s skill, however, was that he could make contradictions and never allow them to become incoherence. That’s because, I think, his view was that the contradictions made the character– he respected the contradictions as having meaning.

Now, as Antony kept averring, Brutus was an honorable man. But he had a single dishonorable quality, and that was that he was easily flattered, especially about his own honor and that of his exalted family. In fact, his reputation for honor was more important to him than acting honorably, and both Cassius and Antony make subtle and successful use of his need to be venerated. This single ignobility fires his choice colludes to ambush Caesar, who has been like a father to him.

Again, that privileging of the single “off” characteristic is, I think, part of Shakespeare’s approach– that “off” trait might actually be closer to the center of the character than all that nice consistent stuff.

Repetition and Remorse

The last acts deal with Brutus slowly coming to understand what has happened, what his vanity led him to do, when he finds out that Cassius, the one who proclaimed Caesar to be corrupt, is selling public offices:
Remember March, the ides of March remember:
Did not great Julius bleed for justice’ sake?
What villain touch’d his body, that did stab,
And not for justice? What, shall one of us
That struck the foremost man of all this world
But for supporting robbers, shall we now
Contaminate our fingers with base bribes.

Notice that first line, referring to the day (March 15) that they killed Caesar– this quintessentially Shakespeare line:
Remember March, the ides of March remember:

Its tragic wail, the anguish of it, is not about the words (although, wow, he could put together words), but about everything that has been Brutus in this play– the honorable man, the one who admired and envied Caesar, the naive Brutus, the disillusioned Brutus caught up now in a war against the city he loves– caught up in a loop of self-recrimination and self-doubt, and how does that come out? In repetition. Brutus isn’t repeating words because they’re pretty, or because it’s Shakespeare’s habit, or because he’s read some book about how to be poetic… he’s repeating because he can’t get past it. He can’t get past what he’s done:
Remember March, the ides of March remember:

Yes, Shakespeare uses repetition (“Out, out, damned spot!”) but not because it’s good “voice”– it’s because it’s good character, because when you’re caught up, as some of his characters are, in events they set in motion but can’t now stop, your mind just goes round and round and round, obsessively repeating what you regret.

You can feel that in Brutus’s March/March/Remember/Remember (Shakespeare was writing for theater, and he had to write lines in a way to convey to the actor how to speak this, so it’s no surprise we can hear Brutus’s anguish in those words).

We have only words. But words are more than just words. In story, they are everything– and so your voice is everything. Your voice is how you convey it all– what’s happening and who these people are and why it hurts so much. And if you know all that– if you are in the story and it’s in you– the words will come. But the words only matter because they convey the story– and yes, they convey the story in the best way. But if you start with words– if you think that your voice is about alliteration or punctuation– you’re starting where you should be ending.