Quote ID Study Guide
Geller’s Scintillating Sophomores
Fall 2013
“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.”
Cassius compares Caesar
to the Colossus of Rhodes,
a huge statue of Helios
that was said to straddle
an ancient harbor.
 He is trying to convince
Brutus to join the
conspiracy by
emphasizing that Caesar
is trying to take too much
power for himself.
 Additional note:
“stars”=fate. The “fault” is in
US if we don’t take action.

No, Caesar hath it not; but you and I,
And honest Casca, we have the falling sickness.

Literally, the “falling sickness” is epilepsy.
Figuratively, Cassius means that the conspirators
are being forced to “fall down” at Caesar’s feet, to
bow down before him and submit to his
dictatorial authority.
“Brutus, thou sleep'st:
awake, and see thyself.
Shall Rome, & c. Speak,
strike, redress!
Brutus, thou sleep'st:
awake!”
This is one of several
forged letters the
conspirators plant for
Brutus to find, in hopes of
securing his commitment
to the conspiracy.
“Our course will seem too
bloody, Caius Cassius,
To cut the head off and
then hack the limbs,
Like wrath in death and
envy afterwards…”
Here, Brutus persuades
Cassius that Mark Antony
should be allowed to live.
After all, Antony is “but a
limb” of Caesar, right…?
“Is it excepted I should
know no secrets
That appertain to you? Am
I yourself
But, as it were, in sort or
limitation,
To keep with you at meals,
comfort your bed,
And talk to you
sometimes? Dwell I but in
the suburbs
Of your good pleasure? If
it be no more,
Portia is Brutus' harlot, not
his wife.”


Portia entreats Brutus to
tell her the truth about
the conspiracy. She
even cut herself on the
thigh to show her
strength and constancy
(or creepiness).
This suggests that,
rather than accepting
the servile role of the
traditional Roman wife,
Brutus and Portia are on
more equal footing.
Calphurnia:
“When beggars die, there are no comets seen;
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of
princes.”
Caesar:
“Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard.
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.”


Calphurnia is basically expressing the classical
belief that the gods are more concerned about
the fate of the nobility than that of commoners.
Caesar doesn’t disagree, but feels it is foolish to
fear death, which is after all inevitable.
“This dream is all amiss
interpreted;
It was a vision fair and
fortunate:
Your statue spouting blood
in many pipes,
In which so many smiling
Romans bathed,
Signifies that from you great
Rome shall suck
Reviving blood….”


TREBONIUS: Caesar, I will. [aside] and so near
will I be, that your best friends shall wish I had
been further….
Caesar only hears the yellow part. Trebonius
says the rest “under his breath;” it’s not meant
for other characters onstage to hear. He doesn’t
want Caesar to know his true intentions.
“I could be well moved, if I
were as you:
If I could pray to move,
prayers would move me:
But I am constant as the
northern star,
Of whose true-fix'd and
resting quality
There is no fellow in the
firmament.”


Caesar is responding to
the conspirators’
request for Metellus’s
brother to be returned
from exile.
Caesar says that, like
the North star, he
cannot be moved. Once
his mind is made up,
there’s no changing his
mind, because he’s
never wrong.
Cassius: “Stoop, then, and
wash.
How many ages hence
Shall this our lofty scene be
acted over
In states unborn and accents
yet unknown!”
Brutus: “How many times
shall Caesar bleed in sport,
That now on Pompey's basis
lies along
No worthier than the dust!”



The conspirators smear
their hands with Caesar’s
blood, mirroring
Calphurnia’s dream.
Double entendre: they
comment on the historical
significance of their
actions while
acknowledging that this
is, after all, a play.
After this comes their
victory cry: “Peace,
freedom, and liberty!
Tyranny is dead!”
“Caesar's spirit, ranging
for revenge,
With Ate by his side come
hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with
a monarch's voice
Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip
the dogs of war;
That this foul deed shall
smell above the earth
With carrion men,
groaning for burial…”

In this famous
soliloquy, Antony
foreshadows the bloody
battle to come.
“If then that friend
demand why Brutus rose
against Caesar, then this
is my answer—not that I
loved Caesar less, but
that I loved Rome more.”

In his funeral speech,
Brutus tries to
convince the
plebeians that he
participated in
Caesar’s assassination
purely for the good of
Rome.
“He was my friend,
faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was
ambitious;
And Brutus is an
honourable man.
He hath brought many
captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the
general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem
ambitious?”

Antony proceeds to
refute Brutus’s speech
point-for-point, using
pathos, parallel
structure, and
repetition expertly to
rile the plebeians to
mutiny.
“Have patience, gentle
friends, I must not read
it;
It is not meet you know
how Caesar loved you.
You are not wood, you
are not stones, but
men…”

Antony uses reverse
psychology so the
plebeians will
DEMAND to see the
will—in which Caesar
left all of his private
walkways, gardens,
and orchards to the
people of Rome, as
well as 75 drachmas
to every citizen.
“Now let it work:
Mischief, thou art afoot,
take thou what course
thou wilt.”
Apostrophe is a form of
personification in which
one speaks directly TO
something or someone
that cannot answer.
An example from Emily
Dickinson:
“Oh heart, we will forget
him!”
“This is a slight unmeritable man,
Meet to be sent on errands: is it fit,
The three-fold world divided, he should stand
One of the three to share it?”
Here, to Octavius’s apparent surprise, Antony reveals
that he does not consider Lepidus worthy of being
part of the triumvirate. He then dispatches him to
Caesar’s house to get the will so they can “cut off
some charge in legacies;” i.e., skim a little off the top.
We don’t see Lepidus again. IRL he was apparently
strongly encouraged to retire (thanks Andrew )
“Cassius, be content.
Speak your griefs softly: I
do know you well.
Before the eyes of both our
armies here,
Which should perceive
nothing but love from us,
Let us not wrangle: bid
them move away;
Then in my tent, Cassius,
enlarge your griefs,
And I will give you
audience.”





Brutus is prudent
enough to know that
the two generals should
not argue in front of
their army.
They go inside to
exchange grievances
Brutus reveals that
Portia has committed
suicide
They drink wine and
hug it out
Next stop, Philippi!
“Impatient of my absence,
And grief that young
Octavius with Mark
Antony
Have made themselves so
strong:--for with her death
That tidings came;--with
this she fell distract,
And, her attendants
absent, swallow'd fire.”

Brutus explains the
reasons and method of
Portia’s suicide:
She missed Brutus
 She has heard of
Octavius and Antony’s
victories in battle
 According to Plutarch
(Shakespeare’s source),
Portia Catonis died by
eating hot coals.

“How ill this taper burns! Ha! who comes here?
I think it is the weakness of mine eyes
That shapes this monstrous apparition.
It comes upon me. Art thou any thing?
Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil,
That makest my blood cold and my hair to stare?
Speak to me what thou art.”
It’s Caesar’s ghost! He tells Brutus that he is his
(Brutus’s) evil spirit…i.e., his conscience. He also
assures him that they will meet again at Philippi.
Cassius: “…Caesar, thou art revenged,
Even with the sword that killed thee.”
Cassius asks his slave Pindarus to stab him, and he covers his
face while he does so. Titinius later uses Cassius’s sword to kill
himself as well.
Brutus: “Farewell, good Strato. Caesar, now be still. I killed not
thee with half so good a will.”
Brutus has Strato hold his sword while he falls on it.
“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.”

Antony acknowledges
that only Brutus, out
of all the conspirators,
truly believed he was
acting for the good of
Rome. He vows to
give him a proper
soldier’s burial.