We know hardly any passage more expressive of the genius of Shakespeare than this. It is as if he had been actually present, had known the different characters and what they thought of one another, and had taken down what he heard and saw, their looks, words, and gestures, just as they happened.
The character of Mark Antony is further speculated upon where the conspirators deliberate whether he shall fall with Caesar. Brutus is against it:
And for Mark Antony, think not of him:
For "he can do no more than Caesar's arm,
When Caesar's head is off."
Cassius. Yet do I fear him:
For in th' ingrafted love he bears to Caesar—
Brutus. 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 giv'n
To sports, to wildness, and much company.
Trebonius. There is no fear in him; let him not die.
For he will live, and laugh at this hereafter.
They were in the wrong; and Cassius was right.
The honest manliness of Brutus is, however, sufficient to find out the unfitness of Cicero to be included in their enterprise, from his affected egotism and literary vanity.
O, name him not: let us not break with him;
For he will never follow any thing,
That other men begin.
His scepticism as to prodigies and his moralizing on the weather—"This disturbed sky is not to walk in"—are in the same spirit of refined imbecility.