Cassius Only Has One Suggestion For Everything

I’ve been rereading Julius Caesar this week in a fit of nostalgia.¹ Two things have struck me on this go-round which did not always stick out to me before:

1. Brutus and Cassius are incredibly concerned with whether the other thinks of him as a really good friend or just a work friend,

2. For all Cassius’ reputation for being a conniving, subtle, behind-the-scenes manipulator, his number-one go-to strategy for trying to get people on side is to mention how willing he is to commit suicide. He does it right away, and all the time, and it’s wonderfully off-putting. I realize Romans had their own set of values around suicide, but even by their standards he really front-loads the conversation. Trying to encourage your work friends into doing something very risky with you by mentioning your extreme willingness to engage in risky behavior seems complicated!

The second scene of the first act could almost word-for-word be replicated at any number of uncomfortable sleepovers I attended in the year 2000, especially if Katie F. and Monica K. were both present.² No one wants to be the first to admit they’re not having a good time, so instead they have this highly uncomfortably and obviously-charged back-and-forth about whether or not they look tired.

I don’t mean to suggest it’s in any way surprising that a text about Roman conspirators could involve cattiness, merely that the breadth and detail of the cattiness on display is rich and delightful:

CASSIUS: Are you having a good time?

BRUTUS: I’m not sure. Are you having a good time?

CASSIUS [Carefully]: You should go have a good time with everybody else. Unless you’re tired! You do look a little tired.

BRUTUS [Diplomatic]: I’m not as much fun as some of our other friends. Antony, for example. He’s a lot of fun. I hope I’m not keeping you from having fun.

CASSIUS: No, not at all.

BRUTUS: Should I go? I can go. I don’t want to spoil your fun.

CASSIUS: I hope this doesn’t sound like a criticism. But you’ve been a lot less gentle lately. Everyone’s been talking about it. Because ordinarily you’re a very gentle and demonstrative person, and there’s this quality of love that’s very visible and very warm in your eyes. It’s gone lately. I don’t know if you’ve noticed that, or if anyone’s told you, but it’s very distinctly vanished from your eyes, that light.

BRUTUS: You sound like you have something to say.

CASSIUS: I don’t have anything to say. Do you have something to say?

BRUTUS: If I had anything to say, I would say it. I don’t like talking about people behind their backs; I’m very direct. I’ve always been a very direct person.

CASSIUS: Oh, I know. That’s something I’ve always admired about you.

Then it’s that first proper monologue of Cassius’ that really lets loose. It’s remarkable how quickly he falls from the subject of honor to cattiness about who can swim the fastest and how sniffly Caesar gets when he has a cold:

I know that virtue [honor] to be in you, Brutus,
As well as I do know your outward favor.
Well, honor is the subject of my story.
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.
I was born free as Caesar; so were you;
We both have fed as well, and we can both
Endure the winter’s cold as well as he.

For once, upon a raw and gusty day,
The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores,
Caesar said to me “Dar’st thou, Cassius, now
Leap in with me into this angry flood
And swim to yonder point?” Upon the word,
Accoutered as I was, I plungèd in
And bade him follow; so indeed he did.
The torrent roared, and we did buffet it

And stemming it with hearts of controversy.
But ere we could arrive the point proposed,
Caesar cried “Help me, Cassius, or I sink!”
I, as Aeneas, our great ancestor,
Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder
The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber
Did I the tired Caesar. And this man
Is now become a god, and Cassius is
A wretched creature and must bend his body
If Caesar carelessly but nod on him.
He had a fever when he was in Spain,
And when the fit was on him, I did mark
How he did shake. ’Tis true, this god did shake.
His coward lips did from their color fly,
And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world
Did lose his luster. I did hear him groan.
Ay, and that tongue of his that bade the Romans
Mark him and write his speeches in their books,
“Alas,” it cried “Give me some drink, Titinius”
As a sick girl. You gods, it doth amaze me
A man of such a feeble temper should
So get the start of the majestic world
And bear the palm alone…

“Brutus” and “Caesar”—what should be in that
“Caesar”?
Why should that name be sounded more than
yours?
Write them together, yours is as fair a name;
Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well;
Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure with ’em,
“Brutus” will start a spirit as soon as “Caesar.”

1. I know honor is important to you. I love honor!

2. Honor is actually what I came here to talk about today.

3. I would have zero problem committing suicide if I felt the situation called for it.

4. I don’t know how you feel about it, but I just want you to know, before we get into anything else, that I am ready to die, right now.

5. While we are on the subject of honor: when it comes to Julius Caesar, in the winter — not that it’s a contest, but when it comes to winter weather, his coats are warmer and my shorts are shorter. Do you know what I mean? Like he has to get very bundled up in this very precious way, and isn’t Gaul supposed to be cold? Shouldn’t he be used to it by now?

6. I can swim faster than him too

7. Again I realize this is not a contest but it has to count for something, no? We both eat dinner, we both put on our sandals one foot at a time in the morning,

8. When he gets sick it’s a mess

9. [Remembering this conversation was supposed to be about honor] And I guess I just don’t think that’s right. Because of Rome. Who deserves better.

10. [Remembering that this conversation should be about Brutus] And I’m sure you could outswim him too

11. Your name has the same number of syllables in it, even, we wouldn’t have to work that hard to change all the signs

[Caesar returns onstage]

BRUTUS: And he looks weird, right? Weirder than usual. And his wife and all his friends look weird too, right?

CASSIUS: I’m so glad you said something. I didn’t want to say anything, because I was worried it would sound catty, but he and his wife and his close friends have been looking so weird lately.

CAESAR [pointedly]: I don’t like the way Cassius looks. [Even louder] I DON’T LIKE HIS WEIGHT

In Scene Three, Cassius once again tries to impress his friends by announcing how ready he is to kill himself:

CASSIUS: Sorry if I look wet. I’ve just been walking in a rainstorm WITHOUT A SHIRT ON because I don’t care if I get struck by lightning…If the senators offer Caesar a crown tomorrow I’ll stab myself. The best thing about life is that you can always kill yourself. If nothing else.

He suggests it again in Act 3, scene 1, so prematurely that Brutus has to tell him “Cassius, be constant.”

Brutus has the sort of relationship to death I’d expect from a history play – “If it comes, it comes; I hope it doesn’t, but we’re playing a high-stakes game and I’m prepared for whatever outcome,” whereas it’s Cassius’ first and seemingly only card in the pocket.³

Luckily everything works out for the best in the end.

[Image via]

1. I spent the summer between junior and senior year at the CalArts theater summer camp memorizing every one of Cassius’ monologues and watching movies on microfilm in the library basement with a young man who I now believe was lying to me when he told me his legal name, given to him by his parents at birth, was James Bond. I also hitchhiked once, over the freeway, in order to go to a Claim Jumper with my scene partners, and got in trouble with the summer RAs for doing so.

2. It’s not that Katie F. and Monica K. weren’t friendly — they generally were — but they were both very big personalities who never knew how to deescalate, and both of them thought they were better at French braiding hair than the other. At one sleepover the two of them got into an argument at 2am while cutting my hair in the bathtub, such that I received two very different haircuts on either side of my head, and my mother cried when she came to pick me up in the morning.

3. If “card in the pocket” is the expression I want, or even an expression at all.