(IV. iii. 212.)
and he runs on. The spiritual dictator carries his point, as he always does, and as here especially he is bound to do, when their recent trial of strength has ratified his powers afresh. Cassius is hypnotised into compliance, “Then, with your will, go on.” But Brutus is wrong. He is doing the very thing that the Triumvirs would have him do and dare not hope he will do. Octavius, when he hears of the movement, exclaims:
Now, Antony, our hopes are answered:
You said the enemy would not come down,
But keep the hills and upper regions:
It proves not so.
(V. i. 1.)
The adoption of Brutus’ plan, which he secured in part through the advantage he had gained in the quarrel, leads directly to the final catastrophe.
Here then we have the gist of the whole story. The tribulations of Brutus that ensue on his grand mistake, the wreck of his dearest affections, the butchery at Rome, the oppression of the provinces, the appalling discovery that his party is animated by selfish greed and not by righteous zeal, and that Caesar bore away the palm in character as well as ability; the dauntless resolution with which despite his vibrant sensibility he bears up against the rudest blows; the sustaining consciousness that he himself acted for the best, and the pathetic imagination even now that the rest must live up to his standard; the warrant this gives him to complete the outward ruin of the cause that already is rotten within—all this is brought home to us in a passage of little more than two hundred lines. It is not merely a masterpiece in characterisation; it at once garners the harvest of the past and sows the seeds of the future. Nor is the execution inferior to the conception; the passion of the verse, the fluctuation of the dialogue, provide the fit medium for the pregnancy and wealth of the matter.[180]
But the scene is not yet at an end. Even now we are not for a moment allowed to forget Brutus, the considerate gentleman and cultured student, in Brutus, the political pedant and the incompetent commander. We have a momentary glimpse of him with Lucius, unassuming and gentle, claiming the indulgence, consulting the comfort, tending the needs of his slave. This moving little passage is, as we have seen, entirely due to Shakespeare, and it seems to be introduced for the sake partly of the dramatic contrast with the prevailing trouble and gloom, partly of the indication it gives that Brutus is still unchanged at heart. In the stress of his suffering he may be irritable and overbearing with Cassius, but he has more than a woman’s tenderness for the boy.