Theatre's Only Second Lousiest Birthday
Just when I think I couldn't love Gaius Cassius Longinus any more, in Act Five he turns out to "hold Epicurus strong and his opinion" - which I did have to look up - but which puts him squarely on Team Cosmos, as opposed to the Chaos summoned by Mark Antony. Reading Epicurus' wikipedia entry it's hard to find anything to disagree with: "He advocated that people were best able to pursue philosophy by living a self-sufficient life surrounded by friends." It's not until I came to perfom the play I realised this is exactly how Brutus doesn't spend his final scene. Instead he's surrounded by people we've never met, presumably all that's left, and it makes his embarrassed whispering in their ears even more pitiful (we have to assume the whispering is embarrased, don't we?) SPOILERS: Like Cassius of course, Shakespeare would also die on his birthday, but we have to assume he didn't know that when he was writing. Here's Act Five.
THANK YOU for ‘this little season of Shakespeare’. Though I’m not sure 8h40 is ‘little’.
ReplyDeleteTake care.
(The ‘Is it a spoiler? ...’ bit in the intro was perfect.)
Not entirely on topic, but are you in any way familiar with the self-penned Deeds of the Divine Augustus? Here's the (far from modest) opening paragraph:
ReplyDeleteIn my nineteenth year, on my own initiative and at my own expense, I raised an army with which I set free the state, which was oppressed by the domination of a faction. For that reason, the senate enrolled me in its order by laudatory resolutions, when Gaius Pansa and Aulus Hirtius were consuls, assigning me the place of a consul in the giving of opinions, and gave me the imperium. With me as propraetor, it ordered me, together with the consuls, to take care lest any detriment befall the state. But the people made me consul in the same year, when the consuls each perished in battle, and they made me a triumvir for the settling of the state.
And, even more relevant to this play's final act,
I drove the men who slaughtered my father into exile with a legal order, punishing their crime, and afterwards, when they waged war on the state, I conquered them in two battles.
Talk about "When no friends are by, men praise themselves" (yes, I know that was Titus Andronicus rather than Julius Caesar, but still). As for myself, I'd rather have Caesar's own lapidary writing style - I came; I saw; I conquered - any day of the week.
Reminiscing about my high school Latin classes aside, I have yet to work out how much of my enjoyment of this play is down to your performance of it as well as my own fondness for this particular segment of Roman history, rather than any merit of Shakespeare's work itself. This final act felt a bit, I don't know, just there? But then again, alas, I have no sympathy for the conspirators - I'm guessing the audience was supposed to feel sorry for their tragic fate? At least Rome will now be free from tyranny forever - oh, hang on a second. Never mind.
I had no idea he was only nineteen!
ReplyDeleteThanks, both! I don't think I realised he was nineteen!
ReplyDelete