But there’s but one in all doth hold his place:
So in the world: ’tis furnish’d well with men,
And men are flesh and blood, and apprehensive;
Yet in the number I do know but one
That unassailable holds on his rank,
Unshaked of motion: and that I am he,
Let me a little show it, even in this.
(III. i. 58.)
Now, all these things are wholly or mainly the fabrications of Shakespeare. In Plutarch Caesar does not direct Calpurnia to put herself in Antony’s way, nor is there any indication that he attached importance to the rite. It is in the wife and not in the husband that Plutarch notes an unexpected strain of credulity, remarking with reference to her dream: “Capurnia untill that time was never geven to any feare or supersticion.”[168] Plutarch cites noble sayings of Caesar’s in regard to fear, for instance that “it was better to dye once, than alwayes to be affrayed of death:”[169] but he never attributes to him any pretence of immunity from human frailty, and makes him explicitly avow the feeling in the very passage where in Shakespeare he disclaims it. “‘As for those fatte men, with smooth comed heades,’ quoth he, ‘I never reckon of them: but these pale visaged and carian leane people, I feare them most.’” The dismissal of the soothsayer after a contemptuous glance is unwarranted by Plutarch. There is no authority for his defencelessness among flatterers, or for his illusion that he is superior to their arts. Yielding in quite a natural way and without any hesitation to the solicitations of Calpurnia and the reports of the bad omens, Caesar in Plutarch resolves to stay at home, but afterwards is induced to change his mind by Decius’ very plausible arguments. There is no hint of unsteadiness in his conduct, as there described; nor in the final scene is there any of the ostentation but only the reality of firmness in his rejection of Metellus Cimber’s petition.
Considering all this it is not difficult to understand the indignation of the critics who complain that Shakespeare has here given a libel rather than a portrait of Caesar, and has substituted impertinent cavil for sympathetic interpretation. And some of Shakespeare’s apologists have accepted this statement of the case, but have sought to defend the supposed travesty on the ground that it is prescribed by the subject and the treatment. Thus Dr. Hudson suggests[170] that “the policy of the drama may have been to represent Caesar, not as he was indeed, but as he must have appeared to the conspirators; to make us see him as they saw him; in order that they might have fair and equal justice at our hands.” With a slight variation this is also the opinion of Gervinus:[171] “The poet, if he intended to make the attempt of the conspirators his main theme, could not have ventured to create too great an interest in Caesar: it was necessary to keep him in the background, and to present that view of him which gave reason for the conspiracy.” And alleging, what would be hard to prove, that in Plutarch, Caesar’s character “altered much for the worse, shortly before his death,” he continues, in reference to his arrogance: “It is intended with few words to show him at that point when his behaviour would excite those free spirits against him.” But this explanation will hardly bear scrutiny. In the first place: if Shakespeare’s object had been to provide a relative justification for the assassins, he could have done so much more naturally and effectively by adhering to the data of the Life. Among them he could have found graver causes of resentment against Caesar than any of those he invents, which at the worst are peccadillos and affectations rather than real delinquencies. And Plutarch does not slur them over: on the contrary the shadows in his picture are strongly marked, and he lays a long list of offences to Caesar’s score; culminating in what he calls the “shamefullest part” that he played, to wit, his support of Clodius. Here was matter enough for the dramatic Advocatus Diaboli. It would have been as easy to weave some of these damaging stories into the reminiscences of Cassius, as to concoct harmless fictions about Caesar’s having a temperature and being thirsty, or his failing to swim a river in flood. All these bygone scandals, whether domestic or political, would have immensely strengthened the conspirators’ case, especially with a precisian like Brutus. But Shakespeare is silent concerning them, and Brutus, as we have seen, gives Caesar in regard to his antecedents a clean bill of health. Of course almost all Caesar’s previous history is taken for granted and left to the imagination, but the dubious passages are far more persistently kept out of sight than such as tend to his glory. And that is the bewildering thing, if Shakespeare’s delineation was meant to explain the attitude of the faction. It is surely an odd way of winning our good will for a man’s murderers to keep back notorious charges against him of cruelty, treason and unscrupulousness, to certify that he has never abused his powers or let his passion overmaster his reason, and then to trump up stories that he gives himself airs and is deaf in one ear. It reminds one of Swift’s description of Arbuthnot: “Our doctor has every quality and virtue that can make a man amiable or useful; but, alas, he hath a sort of slouch in his walk.” Swift, however, was not explaining how people might come to think that Dr. Arbuthnot should be got rid of.