(II. i. 185.)
It is not so in Plutarch:
Brutus would not agree to it. First for that he sayd it was not honest: secondly, bicause he told them there was hope of chaunge in him. For he did not mistrust, but that Antonius being a noble minded and coragious man (when he should knowe that Caesar was dead) would willingly helpe his contrie to recover her libertie, having them an example unto him to follow their corage and vertue.
In this hope of converting a rusé libertine like Antony, there is no doubt a hint of idealism, but it is not so marked as in the high-pitched magnanimity of Shakespeare’s Brutus, who denies a man’s powers of mischief because his life is loose.
Yet though Antony would always be a source of danger, the conspirators might find compensation in the reputation for leniency they would gain, and the danger might be reduced were effective steps taken to render him innocuous. But this is only the beginning of Brutus’ mistakes. If indeed they had not begun before. With his masterful influence he has dissuaded his friends from applying to Cicero, on the ground that Cicero will not share in any scheme of which he is not the author. It may be so, but one would think it was at least an experiment well worth the trying. Apart from the authority of his years and position, there would have been the spell of his oratory; and of that they were soon to be sorely in need, again through Brutus’ crotchet that their course evinced its own virtue, and that virtue was a sufficient defence.
“The first fault that he did,” says Plutarch, “was, when he would not consent to his fellow conspirators, that Antony should be slayne: and therefore he was justly accused, that thereby he had saved a stronge and grievous enemy of their conspiracy. The second fault was when he agreed that Caesars funeralls should be as Antony would have them: the which in deede marred all.”
This hint Shakespeare works out. He sees clearly that this further blunder marred all, and heightens the folly of it in various ways. For in Plutarch the question is debated in the Senate, after it has been determined that the assassins shall be not only pardoned but honoured and after provinces have been assigned to them, Crete to Brutus, Africa to Cassius, and the like. Only then, when their victory seems complete and assured, do they discuss the obsequies.
Antonius thinking good his testament should be red openly, and also that his body should be honorably buried, and not in hugger mugger, least the people might thereby take occasion to be worse offended if they did otherwise: Cassius stowtly spake against it. But Brutus went with the motion and agreed unto it.
That is the amount of his error: that when all seemed to be going well with the faction, Antony, who had shown himself in seeming and for the time their most influential friend, commended the proposal on opportunist grounds, and Cassius opposed it, but Brutus supported it and voted with the majority. In the Play his responsibility is undivided, and all the explanatory circumstances have disappeared. He is not one member of an approving Senate, who, when the assassination seems once for all a chose jugée, accepts a suggestion, made apparently in the interests of peace and quiet, by the man to whom, more than to anyone else, the settlement of the affair is due. While the position is still critical, without any evidence of Antony’s good will, without any pressure of public opinion or any plea of political expediency, he endows the helpless suppliant with means to undo what has been done and destroy those who have done it. No wonder that Cassius when he hears Brutus giving Antony permission to speak in the market place, interrupts: “Brutus, a word with you,” and continues in the alarmed aside:
You know not what you do: do not consent