To think that or our cause or our performance
Did need an oath.
(II. i. 132.)
He carries them away with him. They abandon the oath; they accept all his suggestions; we feel that their thoughts are ennobled by his intervention, that, as Plutarch noted to be the effect of his fellowship, he has made them better men, at least for the time.
Meanwhile it is a devout imagination, an unconscious sophistry that lends him his power; and this brings its own Nemesis at its heels. In the future Brutus will be disillusioned of the merit of the exploit. In the present, persuading his associates of its unparalleled glory, he makes them take their measures to suit. He will not hear of the murder of Antony, for that would be bloody and unnecessary. And his clemency is based on disparagement of Antony’s abilities and contempt for his moral character. Of this “limb of Caesar,” as he calls him, “who can do no more than Caesar’s arm when Caesar’s head is off,” he cries:
Alas, good Cassius, do not think of him:
If he love Caesar, all that he can do
Is to himself, take thought and die for Caesar:
And that were much he should; for he is given
To sports, to wildness and much company.