The greatest reproache they could make against Brutus was: that Julius Caesar having saved his life, and pardoned all the prisoners also taken in battell, as many as he made request for, taking him for his frende, and honoring him above all his other frends, Brutus notwithstanding had imbrued his hands in his blood.[177]
Plutarch indeed instances this as the grand proof of Brutus’ superiority to personal considerations; but it looks bad, and certainly introduces a new element into the moral problem. At all events, though it involves in a specially acute form that conflict of duties which the drama loves, and was so used by Shakespeare’s contemporaries, as early as Muretus and as late as Alexander, Shakespeare dismisses it.
Attention is concentrated on the single fact that Brutus felt it his duty to take the life of Caesar, and no obligations of kinship or gratitude are allowed to complicate the one simple case of conscience.
The victim and the sacrificer are thus set before us, each with an unstained record, and in only those personal relations that arise from warm and reverent friendship.
Of their mutual attachment we are left in no doubt, nor are we ever suffered to forget it. Cassius in talk to himself, bears witness that Caesar “loves Brutus” (i. ii. 317). Antony, in his speech to the people, appeals to this as a notorious fact:
Brutus, as you know, was Caesar’s angel:
Judge, O you Gods, how dearly Caesar loved him.
(III. ii. 185.)
But the strongest testimony is Caesar’s own cry, the cry of astonishment and consternation, whether from the betrayed when the beloved is the traitor, or from the condemned when the beloved is the judge:
Et tu Brute! Then fall, Caesar!