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| Beware the ides of March. |
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| Cowards die many times before their deaths;The valiant never taste of death but once. |
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Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus; and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves. |
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| Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Caesar! |
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| Let me have men about me that are fat;Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights |
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| As he was valiant, I honour him: but, as he was ambitious, I slew him. |
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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. |
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| But, for my own part, it was Greek to me. |
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O Conspiracy!
Shame’st thou to show they dangerous brow by night
When evils are most free? |
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Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods,
Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds. |
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You are my true and honourable wife,
As dear to me as are the ruddy drops That visit my sad heart |
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But I am constant as the northern star,
Of whose true-fixed and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament. |
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O! pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers; |
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| Cry, 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war. |
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| As he was valiant, I honour him: but, as he was ambitious, I slew him. |
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| I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him. |
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He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man. |
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I am no orator, as Brutus is;
But, as you know me all, a plain, blunt man,
That love my friend. |
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| You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,Knew you not Pompey? |
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| Marullus/Flavius (Tribunes) |
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I am not gamesome: I do lack some part
Of that quick spirit that is in Antony. |
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And therefore think him as a serpent’s egg
Which hatched would as his kind grow mischievous
And kill him in the shell. |
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| This was the most unkindest cut of all. |
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| He warns Caesar—but is not heeded. |
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| Seemingly not very bright, this senator tells us that the Senate plans to make Caesar king. |
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| One of the tribunes who try to disperse the commoners who have come to honor Caesar in the opening scene of the play. |
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| He is very honorable, and he mistakenly believes all other men are honorable too. |
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| A very proud man, susceptible to flattery. |
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| He pleads for the return of his banished brother. |
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| He asks the conspirators for permission to speak in Caesar’s funeral. |
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| He argues (unsuccessfully) that Mark Antony should be killed along with Caesar. |
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| Brutus’s wife, who pleads with him to tell her what has been troubling him. |
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| She dreams that “lusty Romans” will bathe their hands in Caesar’s blood. |
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| Brutus is the first to stab Caesar. |
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| Caesar compares himself to the northern star because it is like him—unchanging. |
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| Caesar’s last words imply that he ceases struggling when he sees that Brutus is one of his attackers. |
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| The conspirators fulfill Calpurnia’s premonition when they smear their arms with Caesar’s blood. |
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| Antony never misleads the conspirators about his feelings toward them. |
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| Mark Antony says he will support the conspirators if they can satisfy him that Caesar deserved death. |
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| In his soliloquy, Antony calls the conspirators “butchers”—quite opposite what Brutus describes them as. |
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| Brutus’s funeral speech is in blank verse; Antony’s in prose. |
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| False (Brutus prose; Antony blank verse, which lends to more emotion.) |
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| An example of dramatic irony occurs when the conspirators say that by killing Caesar they have saved him from years of fearing death. (The audience knows that Caesar did not fear death and deemed anyone who did a coward.) |
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| In his funeral speech, Brutus finds nothing good to say about Caesar, calling him a tyrant who had squandered Rome’s wealth. |
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| The plebeians in the play are fickle in their loyalties, having supported Pompey, then Caesar, then Brutus, and finally Antony. |
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| The play opens on the feast of Lupercal, one month before the Ides of March. |
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| The tribunes in the first scene are “put to silence” for tearing down banners put up in honor of Caesar. |
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| Caesar is depicted as a reasonable, generous, physically fit person—the model of what a king ought to be. |
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| Portia pleads with Brutus to tell her why he is so worried and withdrawn. |
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| Brutus regards Mark Antony as shallow, a lover of games and sports and “revels.” |
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| The night before the Ides, Calpurnia dreams that Caesar is made king by the Senate. |
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| On the morning of the Ides of March, Caesar changes his mind twice about going to the Senate. |
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| Caesar agrees to go to the Senate after Decius implies that he might be laughed at and thought a coward if he does not. |
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| Artemidorus’ letter contains a warning to Caesar to beware of the conspirators. |
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| Caesar agrees to read the above letter immediately when it is presented to him. |
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| Metellus Cimber pleads with Caesar to pardon his brother, who has been banished from Rome. |
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| Portia is so worried about Brutus that she sends Lucius to the capitol to check on him. |
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| Some of the commoners want to make Brutus king after they hear his speech. |
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| In his funeral speech, Antony repeatedly calls Brutus an “honorable” man. |
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| Antony reminds the crowd of some of Caesar’s good qualities, including his sympathy for the poor. |
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| Caesar regards Cassius as a man to be feared—by anyone except himself. |
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| Cassius is able to sway Brutus by appealing to his sense of honor and duty. |
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| Casca, who reports the crowd’s attempt to present Caesar with a crown, is depicted as the wisest and most perceptive of the conspirators. |
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| Caesar refuses the crown offered him by Mark Antony and the crowd four times. |
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| Caesar is blind in his left eye. |
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| Cassius tells Brutus he once had to rescue Caesar when they were having a swimming contest. |
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| The night before the Ides of March is remarkable for its warm, calm weather. |
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| Cassius says he will kill himself rather than live a “bondsman” under Caesar as king. |
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| Brutus decides to kill Caesar not for what he is but for what he might become if given the power of a king. |
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| After he agrees to join the conspiracy, Brutus readily agrees to everything Cassius proposes. |
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| Brutus thinks Mark Antony will be not be a threat to the conspirators and opposes Cassius’s suggestion that Antony too should be assassinated. |
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| An anachronism is a kind of Roman clock. |
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