Understanding Julius Caesar: Translate the following sentences from the play. Write complete answers on a
separate sheet.
1. Two tribunes name Flavius and Marullus are speaking to a group of tradesmen (shoemakers and
construction workers, etc). The tribunes are angry with the tradesmen because the tradesmen are
celebrating Caesar’s return after he has defeated Pompey.
Marullus:
You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!
O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,
Knew you not Pompey? (1.1.39)
2. Caesar is warned to beware the ides of March (March 15) by the soothsayer (a wise man). He responds
as follows, talking to his friends, not to the soothsayer:
He is a dreamer; let us leave him: pass. (1.2.24)
3. Brutus responds when someone asks him why he is not running in the race of the Lupercal like Marc
Antony is.
I am not gamesome: I do lack some part
Of that quick spirit that is in Antony. (1.2.28)
4. Cassius is slightly angry that Brutus has not been hanging around with him lately. He tries to explain
why Brutus has not been as friendly as he used to be. He says:
Poor Brutus, with himself at war,
Forgets the shows of love to other men. (1.2.46)
5. When Cassius pushes Brutus, asking him if he would be afraid to do the “honorable” thing if his life
were threatened, Brutus responds by saying:
Set honour in one eye and death i' the other,
And I will look on both indifferently. (1.2.87)
6. Cassius is angry that Caesar is seen as being so wonderful and may even become king. He says:
I cannot tell what you and other men
Think of this life: but, for my single self,
I had as lief not be as live to be
In awe of such a thing as I myself. (1.2.92) *I had as lief not be—I would rather die
7. Cassius explain to Brutus what he thinks of Caesar:
8. 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.
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. (1.2.135) *Colossus—an enormous statue that straddled a
harbor; ships would pass beneath it.
9. Caesar refers to Cassius’s thinness to make a point about the kind of men he does not trust. Consider in
what way Cassius might be “hungry” if he is not literally hungry for food:
Let me have men about me that are fat;
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights;
Yond' Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous. (1.2.192)
10. Cassius explain how he feels about the overbearing power that Caesar holds. Imagine that he holds a
knife while says this
Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius. (1.3.90)
Persuasion: JC is a play in which someone is almost always trying to persuade someone else. Identify which
appeal is used in each example below:
Marullus says to the commoners:
Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?
What tributaries follow him to Rome,
To grace in captive bonds his chariot-wheels?
Marullus means:
Why are you rejoicing? What spoils of war is Caesar bringing home? (None)
What prisoners is he bringing to Rome to make himself look really good?
1. Appeal:
2. Why does it fit the definition of this appeal?
Soothsayer to Caesar: Beware the ides of March.
3. Appeal:
4. Why does it fit the definition of this appeal?
Cassius says to Brutus:
Where many of the best respect in Rome
Except immortal Caesar, speaking of Brutus
And groaning underneath this age's yoke,
Have wish'd that noble Brutus had his eyes
He means that many of the most respected men in Rome (but not Caesar) are suffering under the problems
of this time period (Caesar is the implied problem) and wish that Brutus could see his own worth.
5. Appeal:
6. Why does it fit the definition of this appeal?
Cassius explains that Caesar is no better than he and Brutus are:
We both have fed as well, and we can both
Endure the winter's cold as well as he:
7. Appeal:
8. Why does it fit the definition of this appeal?
Still trying to convince him to take part in the plot, Cassius reminds Brutus that he is related to the Brutus who
did the honorable thing, helping to drive the king out of Rome about 450 years earlier:
There was a Brutus once that would have brook'd
The eternal devil to keep his state in Rome
As easily as a king.
9. Appeal:
10. Why does it fit the definition of this appeal?
Caesar tries to convince Antony that Cassius is dangerous. He tells him:
11. Appeal:
12. Why does it fit the definition of this appeal?
Casca tells Brutus and Cassius how Caesar had a “fit” during the Lupercal festival. He is trying to convince
them that Caesar did not deserve the woman’s pity.
Three or four wenches, where I stood, cried 'Alas,
good
soul!' and forgave him with all their hearts: but
there's no heed to be taken of them; if Caesar had
stabbed their mothers, they would have done no less.
The woman’s reactions could be called an example of _____________ but Casca says it isn’t important, using
this appeal__________________.
Casca is frightened by the storm. He tells Cicero:
Are not you moved, when all the sway of earth
Shakes like a thing unfirm? O Cicero,
I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds
Have rived the knotty oaks, and I have seen
The ambitious ocean swell and rage and foam,
To be exalted with the threatening clouds:
But never till to-night, never till now,
Did I go through a tempest dropping fire.
13. Appeal:
14. Why does it fit the definition of this appeal?