Politics and Women in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” Act 2

Act 2 of the Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar[1] opens with a reference to Act. 1.2.140.  According to Brutus, Cassius is wrong about blaming men for fateful events (2.1.2-4).[2] Brutus is incapable of fully awakening from the slumber preventing him from being a successful soothsayer.  He must revert to vulgar, even servile, artificial means to see into the night.  The distinction at hand is between stars and a candle or “taper” (7).  Yet, Cassius’s own earlier argument invites the conclusion that natural or heavenly wisdom is nothing more than a projection of human wisdom.  So perhaps the disagreement between Cassius and Brutus does not run deep, after all.   Perhaps Brutus’s “alienation” from metaphysics results from his recognition of our natural limitations.[3]

The first ten verses of the first scene articulate the problem of “temporal” distance in a human or political context.  How is one to measure the Whole, or a whole cycle, including most notably the passage from sleep to awakening?  How are we to understand the passage from one stage to its overt contrary?  In political terms, Brutus is trying to measure the distance separating him from the death of Caesar, and so from the end of a political cycle.  Is political death to be likened to personal awakening?  Is there an art helping us “guess how” (3) we can awaken out of a moral-political slumber, or how we may bring about a successful revolution?  Freedom appears inevitably tied to death—the death of a Caesar.   More precisely, the crowning of Caesar is supposed to mark the moment of the “change [of] his nature” (13).  The question raised is not personal, insofar as it pertains to the very nature of political life and order (11-12, 21).  The coronation of political striving—indeed every political solution—is supposed to entail the abandonment of prudence (18-19).

Shunning all transcendence of our political limitations, Brutus identifies the crowning of a Caesar with death itself, the death of freedom, which must be “exteriorized” in the death or effacing of Caesar’s own persona.[4] The loss of freedom coincides with the loss of authority, just as, for Cassius, the movement of the heavens reflects that of souls (1.3.127-30).

The heavens conceived as cut off from the human do not constitute a suitable standard for our lives; likewise, “the progress of the stars” (3) is a poor teacher of political life and order.  Not any heavenly movement, but the movement of the soul, should serve as standard for the political art, even as the heavens may be seen as reflecting the condition of men (it is as if they did, for Cassius).[5]

Lucius, Brutus’s interlocutor and servant, serves as mouthpiece for a key suggestion: awakening comes from men, especially in writings hiding messages to be studied, “investigated” (35-39, 46, 49) by artfully (here, loquaciously) using heavenly luminous signs (42-45).  The awakening in question is to the spirit of revolution, which demands the use of words to “strike” and of strike to “redress” (47, 55-57).  Words do not point to heaven, but use heaven to carry out the just work of death (to echo Hegel, even though in Shakespeare we are warned of the cyclical character of political life and of the possibility of transcending the cyclical altogether or without “spiraling” into a future end).  What remains to be “investigated” is the distance between words and actions, or the path leading the soul out of its slumber, or to “insurrect” (in the sense of rising above sleep by acting against it), lest the distance between words and actions be accepted as a mere “hideous dream” (61-69).

The outcome of Brutus’s “investigation” is insinuated as soon as Lucius exists: the type of awakening Cassius has in mind is brought about by cunning concealment, a ghastly (65 and 81) feigning that servile souls fail to “discover” (72-85 after 41).  For they do not investigate “sealed” (37) uprising words (88); for they have no ear for them, nor eye to “know” the outward authority needed to carry out the insurrection (98 and 89-93, after 72 and 41).  That authority is feigned here, as a deceiving lie concealing the distance between West and East, between the night and daybreak, and manifest through the “sword” (98-110).  It is the sword that allows us to discern the “vertical” dimension (from South to North) of the shift from night (West) to day (East).  Political movement—from slumbering slavery to the triumph of freedom—does require divine support, if only via the sword.  But it is “directly here” (101, 106, 111) where “I point my sword” that “the sun arises”: in deceit itself, or in resolute “conspiracy” (77 and 113) we find the birth of freedom.  And yet, Brutus interjects that the conspiracy is honest and in need of no ratification: it needs no words to vouch for it, no laws, no masks of cowardice and deceit (129), but virtue itself, at once that of the insurrection (the “enterprise”) and of insurgent spirits (134).  No law could save Rome in the absence of the immaculate virtue (133) of conspiracy.

There would seem to be a virtue and an honesty that are more fundamental than and incompatible with legal representation.  Whence Cassius’s rebuttal, “But what of Cicero?” (141); for Cicero stands for no antinomy of virtue and law, or of natural and positive right.  So, what about Cicero?  According to Metellus, the political philosopher’s authority or gravitas (149) should be accustomed to concealing “youths and wildness” (148-49) in keeping with the antinomian’s assumption that authority is but a mask of intemperate impulses.  Yet Brutus, Cassius and Casca disagree: Cicero cannot be made use of as readily as conspiracists make use of the heavens (150-53).  Cicero is too dangerous insofar as he binds virtue to law.  Nor, on account of Cassius, is Mark Anthony to be trusted, inasmuch as he could become a new Caesar; the implication, here, being that the insurrection is supposed to solve the problem of Caesarism, once and for all.  The sword is to set people free.  Brutus, however, sees Mark Antony as harmlessly sharing his own “wildness” (189 after 148).  In this respect, Mark Antony represents a mirror image of the conspirators: both sides are “wild,” although only for Mark Antony is wildness compatible with legal representation.

Anthony’s wildness depends upon Caesar; the poor soul lives in Caesar’s shadow, domesticated, thus posing no threat to revolutionists.  While Antony’s wildness is associated to “sports […] and much company,” the wildness of conspirators “shall no whit appear, / But all be buried in [the] gravity” of the old aristocracy (189, 148-49).  Whereas the insurrectionists hide behind the old ways or virtues, Marc Anthony is supposed to hide in the shadow of the present, or in full visibility—in the new.  The old ways are to be used against the new ways.  The old ways are then a mere means to subvert the new.  What is the goal, the end of the insurrection?  If it is not the restauration of the old (where the old becomes a mere means), then what is it?  The cyclicity of politics suggests the uncomfortable answer that the insurrectionists are unwittingly promoting a new Caesar: they are using the old ways, the classical “virtues,” to reenact the rise of a Caesar—through blood (the sword).  Insofar as Marc Anthony stands directly for the new, or insofar as he is not “grounded” in the old, which he knows only through the new, his being is bound to but one Caesar as opposed to Caesars “in general” (1.12).

Finding no formidable obstacle to the insurrection, Brutus cries “Peace!” The fullness of time (where past and future collapse into the present) is found in the mechanisms of revolution, involving an “honesty” cut off from metaphysical questions and so compatible with Machiavellian maneuvers, above all betrayal (compare 192-94, 110-11 and 204 to John 18:13–27).  Honesty, here, entails disenchantment vis-à-vis divine transcendence.  All that counts positively is contrived appearance, or “superstition” (195-98), while all that is hidden is inherently dark, as necessary evil in the service of a higher, common good (223-28).  It would be dishonest to stand by a (divine) good incompatible with evil.

Does Caesar himself presuppose such tenets when fearing “the unaccustomed” (195-201)?  Does he share with “today’s” conspirators the cynical view that all purity is a mask of impure enterprises and spirits (133-34)?  Be that as it may, Cassius believes he can easily channel Caesar’s fears in the interests of revolution, by flattering the sovereign into believing himself immune to flattery (207-08).  Pretensions notwithstanding (223), cynicism, which resents all love of kings (consider the “non” placed in verse 217, between the “all” of 212 and 222), while looking down on the naïveté of customs (229-34), makes us especially gullible (211).

A heart-wrenching, ennobling dialogue between Brutus and his wife, Portia, ensues.  It is daybreak and Brutus is surprised at his wife’s having awaken so early: the hour when servants sleep soundly is unbefitting of someone of “weak condition” (236).  The lady of the house has been worried about her husband’s “impatience” (244, 248).  Given foregoing passages, we should conclude that Brutus lost his patience in listening to Cassius’s words about the demise of Caesar (see also 275-76), which is not a suitable “matter” (being greatly dangerous) for slaves and women alike (compare 1.1.42 and 1.2.169 on “patience” tied to positive expectations; compare, further, the child-bearing arms of 1.1.41 and the folded ones of 3.1.240).  Women are to worry about domestic “matters,” matters of “health” (235, 257, after 11.22-25), rather than of political appearances that every free husband deals with (compare 224-228, but especially the “every one” of 228, 251 and 255).  While it is precisely so that Portia not worry about him that Brutus imputes his ill countenance to mere health (257), Brutus’s own counsel invites Portia to manifest her wisdom and valor: Brutus’s own is a mere public “show” betraying domestic malaise (258-59).  The lady refuses to sleep as servants do, standing up as a living reminder of true honor and strength for her husband—and in the name of her own valiant father, Cato (295), who had taken his life against Caesar.  Portia’s physical beauty has been a mere charming doorway (porta, in Latin) to her real function as a wife: not merely to comfort Brutus in bed (286), but to provide him with a living reminder of true nobility—a nobility that is no mere façade hiding a dark secret in the closet, as it were, but a matter of gaining access to a complete or integrated “self” (271-74), a living matter, a providential one that sees what is outward in the light of what is domestic, or that sees right as fundamentally natural (on Portia’s capacity to foresee through calculation, compare 278, 214 and 3.2.114).  A “true and honorable” wife (288)—as opposed to one who is true but dishonorable, or falsely honorable—teaches her husband that true patience is patience in the face of danger (291-302); her divine nobility (303) invites us to recognize that you cannot be “healthy” in politics, while being ill at home.

Alas, Brutus fails to heed his Portia’s lesson (304-08), preferring instead to disclose his “secret” to Caius Ligarius, a young insurrectionist, insofar as he will engage in an “exploit” (317) that is supposed to cure his sickness through devotion to conspiracy against Caesar (key is the “exorcist”—or the one exhorting through an oath—of 323).  The secret Brutus is hiding is one that is to “unfold” in the very act of conspiration (330 after 274; as we had learned in Act 1, conspirers do not require any oath for themselves).  No wonder Brutus had asks Portia to wait indoors (304).  He must know she will be patient, even as his impatience runs wild, seeking wholeness, not as Portia had asked him to (compare 273-74 and 327), but through revolution evidently involving blood shedding.  While Portia’s integrity came through the curing of sickness “within [the] mind” (268)—reminiscent of the “mending” agency of the philosopher-cobbler—Brutus sets out to cure Caius’s sickness in blind faith and deeds (330ff, reminiscent of the final verses of Dante, Inferno 1).  But why must faith be blind?  Why must it demand impatience or imprudence, if not under the assumption that authority is a merely-outward or pretentious matter (compare 1.278 and 320).

Scene 2 opens with a return indoors.  We are now in the house of Caesar, who has been wearied by signs derived both from the elements (heaven and earth) and his wife’s nightmare (1-3).  Do women’s dreams reflect political turmoil (9 anticipating 110) or the cyclical movement of human affairs as much as the heavens do?[6] Caesar’s approach to the signs suggests otherwise.  The signs are not, for him, a useful warning, but a confirmation of the necessary cyclical motion of human life, a motor that applies “in general” to all Caesars (25-29 after 7-9).  Disagreeing with his wife Calphurnia, Caesar speaks as if he had no fear, leaving open, however, the possibility that what he fears is nothing “forth” or evident to men, but “within” (3, 8-14): Caesar fears not death per se, but the divinity driving all Caesars to it with inexorability—as sacrificial animals (5-7 anticipating 39-40; 26-37 after 1.2.212).  Caesar’s fate is, to speak with Hegel, to carry out the work of death: to look forward in response to what lies behind (41-47).

Calphurnia temporarily succeeds in convincing Caesar to renounce his compulsion by drawing his attention to what is behind himself, by standing behind his outward authority even as she renounces her own (49-56).  Yet, Decius is thereupon able to quickly lead Caesar to his death by reinterpreting nightmares as propitious (58-107).  What ultimately compels Caesar to march to his demise is no destiny, but his will to be flattered (49, 69 and 118 after 27) into viewing the signs of his demise—and of sickness “in the mind”—in a positive light, as signs of glory.  What kills Caesar is his lack of “heart within” (2.240 anticipating 129 and 3.12), even though, as Artemidorus (“the gift of Diana” protector of “beasts”—2.240-43—including sacrificial ones) stands to intimate (scene 3), it is possible that written loving warnings—faithful, though by no means blind—save a Caesar from contrived appearances.  If only Caesars read the biddings of true friends!

If true friends speak from the heart, must not true listeners have a heart, as well?  Portia suggests this much when speaking of her manly mind in a woman’s body (4.8).  To speak authoritatively or publicly from the heart requires the body of a man (7).  On the other hand, as we learned in Act 1, manly bodies are often guided by a “womanish” mind (see prior references to people’s “womanish” condition).[7] Whence the impasse: those who speak publicly or authoritatively have no ears to hear, while those who have ears to hear will not be heard (7-9); whence the tragic character of the Julius Caesar.  When considered in and of itself, politics is an exercise in futility, or more precisely, a dead-end path.  Yet, Portia reminds us that the political arena is not, in principle, unredeemable.  When brought back home (“mine own house”—22), political discourse can be cured of its sickness; its running “forth” can be returned to its source (1.324-27 and 4.11-14).  Otherwise, politics will die into a stream of deceiving appearances, just as false friends will replace the frank (30 after Scene 3).

The key to the salvation of politics from itself is what transcends it, including primarily both ladies and soothsayers: both have a voice calling “running” men back home to heed the foundation of political masks (28-30 and 45-46).  Shakespeare’s woman has no strength of heart, no passion for politics (39-40); her word can be heard only at home (her speech is domestic, or intimate), now by a servant who has no say, whether in private or in public, but who can hear both in private and in public, unlike women who have a say in the house, but no direct access to political masks (13-20 and 42; what Portia hears of voices outside of her house is “noise”—17).

If only Portia could be heard in public, Brutus could interpret the distance between words and actions in the light of the distance between “heart and tongue” (4.7), thereby relieving Portia of her distress.  Brutus could then fill the void that otherwise only a “huge mountain” could occupy (ibid.).  Yet, it is highly unlikely that Brutus will be brought back home in time.  The soothsayer who could achieve the feat by keeping Caesar out of the sway of death, lacks the might that Brutus is running after.  And so does Shakespeare.[8]

NOTES:

[1] All citations from Shakespeare’s text follow the verse enumeration given in The Complete Signet Classic Shakespeare.  San Diego, New York, etc.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972.  In verse notations, the act number is followed by the scene number, followed in turn by the verse number.  Where only two numbers appear, these pertain to the scene and verse, while in the case of a single number, this refers to verses.

[2] Here we have the only two occurrences in the play for the word “stars”.

[3] Act 1 sets the stage for the present discussion.  See “Dangerous Thoughts: The First Act of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar,” VoegelinView, 26 April 2022.

[4] Brutus exemplifies the maxim that we seek to do unto others what we do unto ourselves: frustration calls for vengeance, the manifestation of resentment, or of hate of others for one’s own loss.

[5] Brutus’s lack of understanding of the movement of the soul is brought decisively to light by his exchange with his wife, to which we shall soon turn.

[6] For intimations of the cyclical character of political life, see 2.2 and 1.192 after 1.2.225-28.

[7] “Dangerous Thoughts,” op. cit.

[8] Portia’s “Antigonian” frustration may ultimately depend upon her conviction that the alienation of the tongue from the heart is overcome by might or power—the implication being that politics is a function of domestic or tribal interests.  (To what extent Shakespeare offers an alternative reading of natural right is yet to be seen.)

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