The Aeneid

Author: Virgil (70 BC – 19 BC)
Translator: Robert Fagles
Publisher: Penguin Books (2008)
Bought from: Book Depository


Introduction

The Aeneid is an epic poem composed by Virgil in Latin and is his most famous work.

Virgil, full name Publius Vergilius Maro, is considered one of Rome’s greatest poet. Centuries later, another great Roman poet, Dante, would make Virgil his guide through Inferno and part of Purgatory in The Divine Comedy.

Virgil linked the well known tradition that Rome was founded by Romulus (c 753 BC) with the mythology of Troy. He described how Aeneas and a band of Trojan survivors of the Trojan War landed in Italy (c 12th century BC). According to Virgil, Aeneas’ son Ascanius also known as Iulus founded a line of kings who ruled from Alba Longa until its last king Romulus founded Rome. Virgil also wrote that this line of kings became the progenitors of Julius Caesar’s family, the Julii.

Virgil wrote the poem during the tumultuous period when the Roman Republic gave way to the Roman Empire under the reign of Emperor of Augustus, Julius Caesar’s heir. Virgil’s ‘legitimatization’ of Julius Caesar, and by extension Augustus, must be a political statement.

It is believed that Virgil wrote the poem between 29 BC to 19 BC. Some scholars believe that he died before completing the poem.


What is it about?

Aeneas is the son of Anchises and Venus (Aphrodite). Anchises is a second cousin of Priam, the last king of Troy. Aeneas escaped the fall of Troy with a band of followers. The first part of The Aeneid (Books 1 to 6) is an account of the group’s journey. The second part (Books 7 to 12) chronicles Aeneas’ wars in Italy.

The poem begins in media res with Aeneas’s fleet harassed by Juno in the waters off Sicily. Juno has been an implacable enemy of the Trojans because the Trojan prince Paris snubbed her in favour of Venus and Minerva (Athena) in the Judgment of Paris and another Trojan prince Ganymede became Jupiter’s cup-bearer. She has also learned of a prophecy that Aeneas’ descendants will destroy one of her favourite cities, Carthage.

Aeneas lands in Africa where he meets Dido, queen of Carthage. He narrates Troy’s last hours, including the wooden horse ruse, Priam’s death and his own desperate dash to safety carrying his father on his back. He lost his wife but came across her ghost who left him with these parting words:

“A long exile is your fate ...
the vast plains of the seas are yours to plow
until you reach Hesperian land, where Lydian Tiber
flows with its smooth march through rich and loamy fields,
a land of hardy people. There great joy and a kingdom
are yours to claim, and a queen to make your wife.”
(2.967 – 972)

Aeneas continues his story and recounts his encounter with two other survivors of Troy, Hector’s widow Andromache and Priam’s son Helenus. Helenus, a prophet, revealed to Aeneas what lay ahead and told Aeneas to seek out the Sibyl Deiphobe.

Aeneas and Dido fall in love but Jupiter (Zeus) reminds him of his destiny. Aeneas leaves and Dido kills herself after cursing Aeneas to an early death and prophesising the Punic Wars and the coming of Hannibal:

“If that curse
of the earth must reach his haven, labor on to landfall –
if Jove and the Fates command and the boundary stone is fixed,
still, let him be plagued in war by a nation proud in arms,
torn from his borders, wrenched from Iulus’ embrace,
let him grovel for help and watch his people die
a shameful death! And then, once he has bowed down
to an unjust peace, may he never enjoy his realm
and the light he yearns for, never, let him die
before his day, unburied on some desolate beach!
That is my prayer, my final cry – I pour it out
with my own lifeblood. And you, my Tyrians,
harry with hatred all his line, his race to come:
make that offering to my ashes, send it down below.
No love between our peoples, ever, no pacts of peace!
Come rising up from my bones, you avenger still unknown,
to stalk those Trojan settlers, hunt with fire and iron,
now or in time to come, whenever the power is yours.
Shore clash with shore, sea against sea and sword
against sword – this is my curse – war between all
our peoples, all their children, endless war!”
(4.764 – 784)

Aeneas continues on his journey and lands in Cumae, on the island of Euboea. There, Deiphobe guides Aeneas into the Kingdom of the Dead, echoing Odysseus and anticipating Dante. Aeneas sees the ghost of his father. Anchises narrates the future (in reality, history relative to Virgil). Anchises also describes (6.823 – 8.69) something that is remarkably like the idea of reincarnation in Hinduism and Buddhism.

Fortified by what he learns in the Kingdom of the Dead, Aeneas heads towards Italy and the rest of the poem describes his alliances and battles against the local tribes. The poem ends, somewhat abruptly, when Aeneas kills Turnus, the leader of the tribes opposing Aeneas.


Finally

The first half (which recalls The Odyssey), with its flashbacks and flashforwards, is more interesting than the second half (which recalls The Iliad).


Et cetera

Many years ago, I saw the statue known as Laocoön and His Sons in the Vatican Museum. The marble statute was unbelievably detailed and the image stuck with me. I remember wondering what could have caused the serpents to assault the man and the children. Book 2 of The Aeneid tells the story of Laocoön who warned the Trojans not to bring the wooden horse into the city. Minerva sends two sea serpents to silence him and pave the way for the Trojans to bring the wooden horse into the city with disastrous consequences.

Another character who play a major role in the wooden horse episode in Sinon. He is a Greek soldier whose lies help persuade the Trojans to bring the wooden horse into the city. In Dante’s The Inferno, he is punished in Circle Eight: Bolgia Ten, where along with other False Witnesses (Falsifiers of Words), he is condemned to suffer a burning fever which make them “seem to smoke / as a washed hand smokes in winter” (Dante, The Inferno XXX.92 – 93).

Antony and Cleopatra

Author: William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)
Written: c 1606 – 1607
Editors: Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen
Publisher: Modern Library (2009 Edition)
Bought from: Book Depository


Introduction

Antony and Cleopatra is one of Shakespeare’s Roman tragedies based on Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans.

For centuries, Egypt has been ruled by the Ptolemiac Dynasty, a family that traced its origins to Ptolemy, the Greek general who was appointed satrap of Egypt after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC. In 51 BC, Cleopatra (69 BC – 30 BC) and her 10 years old younger brother Ptolemy VIII were made joint rulers of Egypt. As was Egyptian custom then, they married each other. Relationship between them broke down before long and Cleopatra was exiled in 48 BC.

In the same year, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great) arrived in Alexandria, fleeing the forces of Julius Caesar during the first Roman Civil War. Ptolemy had Pompey beheaded and presented Pompey’s head to Caesar, hoping to ingratiate himself with Caesar. This backfired in a big way. Caesar may have been horrified at the boy king’s treatment of a fellow Roman. He seized Alexandria. At this time, Cleopatra played her hand. Plutarch wrote of the famous episode of Cleopatra smuggling herself past her brother’s guards to Caesar rolled up in a carpet. Caesar ousted Ptolemy and named Cleopatra queen of Egypt in 47 BC, with another younger brother Ptolemy XIV as co-ruler.

Caesar had an illegitimate son with Cleopatra, Caesarion. There is evidence that Cleopatra, Caesarion and her entourage were visiting Rome when Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC.

After Caesar’s death, Mark Antony (83 BC – 30 BC) formed an alliance in Rome with Caesar’s adopted son and great-nephew, Gaius Octavius (63 BC – 14 AD) and Marcus Lepidus in 43 BC. This alliance, known as the Second Triumvirate, was a formal institution (unlike the First Triumvirate) and held practically unlimited political power (nearly identical to the powers that Caesar had held). As such, the Senate and assemblies remained powerless even after Caesar had been assassinated.

The Triumvirs launched the second Roman civil war against Caesar’s murderers Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus. In 42 BC, Octavius and Antony defeated Brutus and Cassius in two battles fought at Philippi. The Triumvirs divided Rome’s provinces into spheres of influence. Octavius took control of the West, Antony the East, and Lepidus Hispania and Africa.

In 41 BC, Antony (who controlled Egypt as Triumvir) summoned Cleopatra to Tarsus, in modern-day Turkey. Plutarch wrote that Cleopatra made such a first impression on Antony that he spent the winter of 41 – 40 BC with her in Alexandria before returning to Rome. In 36 BC, Antony returned to Alexandria and married Cleopatra (although he was already married to Octavia, sister of Octavian). Antony and Cleopatra would have 3 children.

Also in 36 BC, Octavius’ general Marcus Agrippa defeated the pirate commander Sextus Pompeius (son of Pompey) thereby ending serious opposition to the Second Trimvirate.

However, like the First Triumvirate, the Second Triumvirate was ultimately unstable and wracked with internal jealousies and ambitions. In 33 BC, Octavius convinced the Senate to declare war against Cleopatra, as opposed to Antony, an important distinction because Octavius did not want the Roman people to consider it a civil war.

Octavius’s forces decisively defeated those of Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in Greece in September 31 BC. Octavius invaded Egypt the following year. Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide in Alexandria in 30 BC. Caesarion was killed on Octavius’s order. Cleopatra’s children with Antony were spared and taken to Rome where they were brought up by Antony’s widow Octavia. Egypt became a Roman province. The rule of the pharaohs ended forever.

With the complete defeat of Antony and the marginalisation of Lepidus, Octavius became the most powerful man in the Roman world and the Senate bestowed upon him the name of Augustus in 27 BC. This marked the transformation of the oligarchic/democratic Roman Republic into the autocratic Roman Empire. Augustus brought peace to the Roman state that had been plagued by a century of civil wars and ushered in the Pax Romana, which remains the longest period of peace and stability that Europe has seen in recorded history (27 BC ­– 180 AD).


What is the book about?

The play is about the famous love affair between Antony and Cleopatra as it played out against the combustible political situation in the Roman world. It covers events from c 40 BC to 30 BC.

Antony, whom Shakespeare first wrote about in Julius Caesar, is a lover and a fighter. He is torn between his passion for Cleopatra and his sense of duty to Rome.

Cleopatra is one of Shakespeare’s most famous female characters. Indeed, most people ‘know’ her purely through Shakespeare’s pen. In the play, she is bewitching, cunning, capricious, insecure, cruel, angsty, passionate, proud. The Romans do not what to make of her. Agrippa’s oxymoron “Royal wench!” (2.2.265) sums up the typical Roman’s ambivalence about her.

One Roman who is familiar with Cleopatra is Enorbabus, Antony’s friend and soldier. Shakespeare has him deliver some of the most wonderful description of Cleopatra. Here, he describes the first meeting between Antony and Cleopatra:

I will tell you
The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Burned on the water: the poop was beaten gold,
Purple the sails, and so perfumèd that
The winds were lovesick with them: the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggared all description: she did lie
In her pavilion; cloth-of-gold, of tissue,
O’erpicturing that Venus where we see
The fancy out-work nature: on each side her
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With divers-colored fans whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid did ...
Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,
So many mermaids, tended her i’th’eyes,
And made their bends adornings. At the helm
A seeming mermaid steers: the silken tackle
Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands
That yarely frame the office. From the barge
A strange invisible perfume hits the sense
Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast
Her people out upon her, and Antony,
Enthroned i’th’marketplace, did sit alone,
Whistling to th’air, which, but for vacancy,
Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too
And made a gap in nature.
(2.2.226 – 255)

This is my personal favourite:

I saw her once
Hop forty paces through the public street
And having lost her breath, she spoke, and panted,
That she did make defect perfection,
And, breathless, pour breathe forth.
(2.2.268 – 272)

And finally:

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety: other women cloy
The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies. For vilest things
Become themselves in her, that the holy priests
Bless her when she is riggish.
(2.2.275 – 280)

So how is the book?

Each of the books in the RSC Shakespeare series published by The Modern Library comes with very informative footnotes, helpful scene-by-scene analysis and, best of all, commentary on past and current productions that comes with interviews with leading directors and actor. The books are also very reasonably priced. Best of all, the introductions are not overly long and focus on a few talking points for each play. The paper quality is not particularly good though.

Antony and Cleopatra is one of Shakespeare’s later works and written in what the publishers call “his most soaring poetic idiom”. The language is indeed impenetrable on many occasions even with the footnotes.

The editors appear to have fumbled in the play’s last scene when Ocatavius’ Roman soldiers captured Cleopatra inside her monument. The character Gallus entered and left without any dialogue. In on-line editions of the play, Gallus spoke lines 39 and 40.

Antony and Cleopatra does not have as many memorable lines as Julius Caesar but it is the origin of the term “salad days”, uttered by Cleopatra: “My salad days / When I was green in judgment, cold in blood” (1.5.86-87).


Finally

Good read.

The Nibelungenlied

Author: Anon
Written: c 1200 AD
Translator: A. T. Hatto
Publisher: Penguin Books (2004 Reissue)
Bought from: Borders Singapore


Introduction

The Nibelungenlied, or Song of the Nibelungs, is an epic poem written in Middle High German by an anonymous poet in modern day Austria.

It is based on Germanic oral traditions about historical events and persons from the 5th and 6 century AD.

The poem shares common elements with ancient Northern European mythology. For example, the story of Brunhild appears in Old Norse literature and the heroic deeds of Siegfried (briefly recounted by Hagen) are recounted in several ancient stories, many of which are preserved in the Scandinavian Poetic Edda, Vǫlsunga Saga and Thidriks saga, in which Siegfried is called Sigurd. The entire second part of the story, the fall of the Burgundians, appears in an older Eddaic poem, Atlakvida (“Lay of Atli”).

 The poem survives in more than 30 manuscripts, the oldest dating from the 13th century.


What is it about?

The story can be divided into 2 parts.

In the first part, Siegfried, crown prince of Xanten, the Netherlands, arrives in Worms, Burgundy to woo Kriemhild, sister to Gunther, king of Burgundy. He succeeds after (somewhat underhandedly) winning the hands of Brunhild, a queen of Iceland, for Gunther. Kriemhild and Brunhild soon get into a dispute over Siegfried’s social rank compared to Gunther. Gunther’s liege Hagen kills Siegried and seizes his Nibelung treasure.

The second part deals with Kriemhild’s revenge against the Burgundians. She marries Etzel (Attila), king of the Huns. She invites Gunther and the Burgundians to attend the wedding in Hungary. Kriemhild’s plot culminates in a bloody climax in which all the Burgundians (including her brothers) are slaughtered. She herself is killed by an old warrior from Etzel’s own court.


How is the book?

This is an English prose translation. There is a 2-page foreword. There is a wealth of materials that follow the story, including An Introduction to a Second Reading. It takes a critical look at the poem and identifies some ‘Inconsistencies, Obscurities and Prevarications’ in the story. Appendix 4, ‘The Genesis of the Poem’ identifies similarities and commonalities to a number of possible sources and is worth reading.


Finally ...

Probably no Germanic literary work has influenced later works and been adapted more often (not only in Germany itself) than The Nibelungenlied. The most significant modern adaptation is Richard Wagner’s famous opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (1853–74). J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun, written in the 1920s and published posthumously in 2009, is inspired by the story of Sigurd. Everyone should read this once.

Richard III

Author: William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Written: c 1592-1594
Editor: John Jowett
Publisher: Oxford University Press (2008 Reissue)
Bought from: Book Depository


Introduction

Shakespeare wrote his most important English history plays in two tetralogies (sequences of four plays). The first series, written near the start of his career (roughly 1589–1594), consists of 1 Henry VI, 2 Henry VI, 3 Henry VI and Richard III, and covers the period between about 1422 and 1485. The second series, written at the height of Shakespeare’s career (roughly 1595–1599), covers the period from around 1398 to 1420 and consists of Richard II, 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV and Henry V.

The eight works form a linked series and deal with the rise and fall of the House of Lancaster, established by Henry IV in 1399. They chronicle the War of the Roses (455 – 1485) between the Lancaster (whose heraldic symbol was a red rose) and the York, a rival branch of the Plantagenet family (whose symbol was a white rose).

There are two other, less-celebrated history plays: King John, whose title figure ruled from 1199 to 1216, and All Is Well, about the reign of Henry VIII (1509–1547) as its subject.

Before the events depicted in Richard III, the House of York had overthrown the House of Lancaster. The Lancaster king, Henry IV, was captured and later killed in the Tower of London. Henry IV’s widow Margaret of Anjou survived. His son, Edward, Prince of Wales, was killed in the Battle of Tewkesbury. Edward’s widow Lady Anne Neville also survived and would later marry Richard III.

Power switched to the House of York, specifically the sons of the late Richard, Duke of York. His wife Cecily Neville, Duchess of York survived him.

Richard and Cecily’s oldest surviving son became King Edward IV. His queen consort was Elizabeth, born Elizabeth Woodville. Edward IV and Elizabeth had at least three children, viz. Edward, Prince of Wales and later King Edward V, Richard, Duke of York and Elizabeth of York.

(Elizabeth Woodville had two sons from her first marriage to Sir John Grey, viz. Thomas Grey, 1st Marquis of Dorset, and Richard Grey, Earl or Lord Grey. She had a brother Anthony Woodville, Lord Rivers.)

Edward IV had two surviving brothers, George, Duke of Clarence; and the eponymous Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Richard would be Protector during the short reign of his young nephew Edward V and later monarch himself. King Richard III ruled from 1483 to 1485 when he was killed in the Battle of Bosworth Field, marking the end of the War of the Roses and the House of York.

Richard’s main supporters were William Hastings, Lord Chamberlain; Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham; Sir Richard Ratcliffe; and Sir William Catesby.

Last but not least, there was Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond. He was descended on his mother’s side from the Lancaster king, Edward III. He would later marry Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV, uniting the Houses of Lancaster and York and establishing the Tudor dynasty (1485 – 1603). Queen Elizabeth, who ruled England during Shakespeare’s life, was a granddaughter of Henry Tudor and the last monarch of the House of Tudor.


What is it about?

The play begins after Edward has seized the throne. Richard his brother vows to depose him. He appears to be driven by jealousy, bitterly describing his deformity and declaring:

… since I cannot prove a lover
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain,
And hate the idle pleasures of these days
(1.1.28-31)

He then proceeds to have relatives (brother Clarence and nephews Edward and Richard) and former allies (Anthony Woodville, Richard Grey, William Hastings and Henry Stafford) killed. He seduces, marries and possibly murders Lady Anne Neville, whose husband Prince Edward he had killed. He also plans to marry his own niece Elizabeth of York to strengthen his claim on the throne. Richard III is truly one of the greatest villains in literature.

He is so evil his own mother curses him in her last lines:

Either thou wilt die by God’s just ordinance
Ere from this war thou turn a conqueror,
Or I with grief and extreme age shall perish,
And never look upon thy face again.
Therefore take with thee my most heavy curse,
Which in the day of battle tire thee more
Than all the complete armour that thou wear’st.
My prayers on the adverse party fight,
And there the little souls of Edward’s children
Whisper the spirits of thine enemies,
And promise them success and victory.
Bloody thou art, bloody will be thy end.
Shame serves thy life and doth thy death attend.
(4.4.173-185)

Richard’s first and last lines in this play are well-known and often quoted (sometimes wrongly):

Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this son of York (1.1.1-2)
A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse! (5.6.13)

How is the book?

This is a volume in The Oxford Shakespeare line of the larger Oxford World’s Classics series. Each book in this series comes with a detailed introduction and on-page commentary and notes. There is also an appendix, which compares certain passages in the play against Shakespeare’s sources. I feel the introduction is too long and some of the footnotes too detailed for the general reader.


Finally ...

Good read.

Julius Caesar

Author: William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)
Written: c 1599
Editors: Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen
Publisher: Modern Library (2011 Edition)
Bought from: Book Depository


Introduction

Julius Caesar is one of Shakespeare’s Roman tragedies based on Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans.

Ancient Rome was a republic from c 508 BC (when Tarquinius, the last king was overthrown by Lucius Junius Brutus) to c 27 BC (when the Senate gave Octavius the title Augustus). The main political institutions during this period were the Senate, the Legislative Assembly and the Executive Magistrates. The Senate controlled the treasury and foreign policy. The Legislative Assembly passed laws and elected magistrates. The Executive Magistrates were officials elected by Roman citizens. There were several classes of Magistrates, each with different powers. Each office was held concurrently by at least 2 people and lasted for only one year. The highest ranking Magistrates were the consuls. They were effectively the heads of state. When a consul was abroad, he commanded an army and his powers were effectively unlimited. When he was in Rome, his military powers were suspended.

Demographically, the Roman Republic period was characterised by conflict between the plebeians, common citizens, and the patricians, land-owning aristocracy.

Gaius Julius Caesar (100 - 44 BC) lived in this period. In 60 BC, he, Pompey and Crassus formed an informal political alliance that became known as the First Triumvirate. He was elected consul for the year 59 BC. At the end of his one year term, Caesar outmaneuvered the Senate and secured a position of governor (proconsul) of several provinces but more importantly command of a large army. He then embarked on his greatest military triumphs. First, he conquered Gaul (present day France) after the Gallic War (58 to 50 BC). He fought as far as what is now Germany and he even crossed the English Channel to Britannia (Britain) twice.

In the meantime, the First Triumvirate has broken down. Pompey sided with the Senate and ordered Caesar to disband his army and return to Rome. Caesar disobeyed the order and, in 49 BC, crossed the Rubicon River (which marked the border of Italy proper) with one legion of his army. This sparked the Roman Civil War. Pompey and his supporters fled Rome. Caesar spent the next 4 years pursuing and battling Pompey’s forces in Hispania (present day Iberian Peninsula), Greece, Egypt and Africa. Pompey was murdered in Egypt. In March 45 BC, Caesar finally defeated the forces then led by Pompey’s sons Gnaeus and Sextus.

Caesar returned in triumph to Rome in September 45 BC. He began to introduce wide-ranging reforms of everything from the political institutions to the calendar. Most importantly, he began to consolidate his power at the expense of the Senate. At some point between January and February 44 BCE he was appointed dictator perpetuo (dictator in perpetuity). There was unease amongst many Romans that Caesar will soon assume absolute power and rule as tyrant, effectively as king.


What is it about?

The play begins in Rome on February 15, 44 BC. Julius Caesar parades through the streets near the Palatine Hill in a triumphal procession celebrating his victory over Pompey in the Roman Civil War.

A group of Senators, led by Cassius, seek to persuade Brutus to join their conspiracy to kill Caesar. Cassius invokes the name of the earlier Brutus who overthrew the last king of Rome. In a soliloquy, Brutus voices his fear that only death will prevent Caesar’s rise to absolute power:

It must be by his death, and for my part,
I know no personal cause to spurn at him
But for the general. He would be crowned:
How that might change his nature, there’s the question.
It is the bright day that brings forth the adder,
And that craves wary walking: crown him that,
And then I grant we put a sting in him,
That at his will he may do danger with.
Th’abuse of greatness is when it disjoins
Remorse from power: and to speak truth of Caesar,
I have not known when his affections swayed
More than his reason. But ’tis a common proof
That lowliness is young ambition’s ladder,
Whereto the climber upward turns his face.
But when he once attains the upmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend: so Caesar may;
Then, lest he may, prevent. And since the quarrel
Will bear no color for the thing he is,
Fashion it thus: that what he is, augmented,
Would run to these and these extremities.
And therefore think him as a serpent’s egg—
Which, hatched, would as his kind grow mischievous—
And kill him in the shell.
(2.1.10-34)

Brutus lead the conspirators and stab Caesar to death on the Ides of March, 14 March 44 BC. Then comes the centerpiece of the play. In prose, Brutus addresses the citizens and wins over the crowd by telling them that the reason he rose against Caesar was “not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more” (3.2.21-22). Then, he makes a fatal mistake in allowing Antony, Caesar’s second-in-command, to address the crowd after he leaves (“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears”). Antony uses a wonderful array of literary devices (and the promise of a substantial financial incentive) to completely undermine Brutus and manipulate the citizens to turn on the conspirators:

For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar’s angel. -
Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him. -
This was the most unkindest cut of all.
For when the noble Caesar saw him stab,
Ingratitude, more strong than traitors’ arms,
Quite vanquished him: then burst his mighty heart,
And, in his mantle muffling up his face,
Even at the base of Pompey’s statue -
Which all the while ran blood - great Caesar fell.
(3.2.185-193)

Antony then forms an alliance, the so-called Second Triumvirate, with Octavius (Caesar’s heir) and Lepidus. The play ends in Philippi, Greece, in 42 BC, when Cassius and Brutus commit suicide after defeat to the forces of Mark Antony and Octavius.

Brutus is arguably the protagonist of the play. Even his mortal enemy Antony praises him in the final scene of the play:

This was the noblest Roman of them all:
All the conspirators save only he
Did that they did in envy of great Caesar.
He only, in a general honest thought
And common good to all, made one of them.
His life was gentle, and the elements
So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, “This was a man!”
(5.5.73-80)

Themes

Shakespeare’s contemporaries, who were well versed in ancient Greek and Roman history, would very likely have detected parallels between the play’s portrayal of the shift from republican to imperial Rome and the Elizabethan era’s trend toward consolidated monarchal power. In 1599, when the play was first performed, Queen Elizabeth I had sat on the throne for nearly forty years, enlarging her power at the expense of the aristocracy and the House of Commons. As she was then sixty-six years old, her reign seemed likely to end soon, yet she did not have any heirs (the same as Julius Caesar). Many feared that her death would plunge England into the kind of chaos that had plagued England during the fifteenth-century Wars of the Roses. In an age when censorship would have limited direct commentary on these worries, Shakespeare could nevertheless use the story of Caesar to comment on the political situation of his day.

Shakespeare is fond of symmetries and often repeats scenes, conversations, or even characters. In Julius Caesar, the two female characters Portia, Brutus’s wife, and Calpurnia, Caesar’s wife, tried but failed to persuade their husbands from the events on the Ides of March.

The play also offers a primer to two major schools of Greek philosophy. The first is Epicureanism, founded by Epicurus (342 - 270 BC). He believed in gods who did not control nature; they lived a life of infinite bliss which would be spoilt if they worried about human affairs (source: The Concise Encyclopedia of Western Philosophy and Philosophers, Urmson & Ree, 1991). As the gods were indifferent to human affairs, omens did not influence the course of events. The second is Stoicism, founded by Zeno (c 333 - 262 BC). The Stoics believe that unhappiness was the result of pursuing what was not wholly under the control of the individual and the only thing completely in our power is the correct moral attitude of mind which is virtue (source: The Concise Encyclopedia of Western Philosophy and Philosophers, Urmson & Ree, 1991). The Stoics came up with was a strategy of emotional disengagement from life, apathia (apathy) and they acted only from reason, never from passion (source: Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar, Cathcart & Klein, 2007).

In the beginning of the play, Cassius declared himself an Epicurean. He dismissed various omens appearing all over Rome and said, “Men at some time are master of their fates. / The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / But in ourselves, that we are underlings” (1.2.145-147). By the end of the play, he has changed his mind (at least a little). He now said that he “... partly credit things that do presage” (5.185) and believed that he has seen omens that predicted the defeat of his army. Brutus on the other hand was initially a Stoic. Even when faced with defeat, he felt it was cowardly and vile (ie. not Stoic) to contemplate suicide (5.1.109-116). In the end, however, his forces and his spirit broken, he admitted:

Our enemies have beat us to the pit;
It is more worthy to leap in ourselves
Than tarry till they push us in ...
(5.5.27-29)

So how is the book?

Each of the books in the RSC Shakespeare series published by The Modern Library comes with very informative footnotes, helpful scene-by-scene analysis and, best of all, commentary on past and current productions that comes with interviews with leading directors and actor. The books are also very reasonably priced. Best of all, the introductions are not overly long and focus on a few talking points for each play. The paper quality is not particularly good though. Unlike the other titles in this series, I actually like the cover for this title (a bloodied knife).

The proof-readers made an unforgivable error in Scene 2. On the eve of the assassination of Caesar, Brutus asks his young servant: “Is not tomorrow, boy, the first of March?” (2.1.40). It should of course have been the “fifteenth” of March.


Et cetera

In Dante’s The Divine Comedy, Brutus and Cassius are punished in the lowest level of Purgatory (together with Judas Iscariot).

In Hamlet (written one to two years after Julius Caesar), there is a sly reference to Julius Caesar. Polonius say: “I did enact Julius Caesar / I was killed in the Capitol; Brutus killed me.” To which Hamlet replies, “It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there” (3.2).

As You Like It

Author: William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Written: c 1599

Editors: Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen

Publisher: Modern Library (2010 Edition)

Bought from: Book Depository

Introduction

This is one of Shakespeare’s “pastoral comedies”. It features Rosalind, one of his most famous female characters and the only one who delivers the epilogue.

What is it about?

The main characters Rosalind and Orlando are forced into exile in the Forest of Arden and find love. There is the inevitable cross dressing and mistaken identities. The play ends with four weddings (and happily no funerals).  

What about the book?

Each of the books in the RSC Shakespeare series published by The Modern Library comes with very informative footnotes, helpful scene-by-scene analysis and, best of all, commentary on past and current productions that comes with interviews with leading directors and actor. The books are also very reasonably priced. Best of all, the introductions are not overly long and focus on a few talking points for each play. The paper quality is not particularly good though. Also, the covers are not very attractive.

Finally ...

This play is the source for the famous quotation “All the world’s a stage / And all the men and women merely players” (2.7.142-143).

I don’t much like this!

Prometheus Bound and Other Plays

Author: Aeschylus (c 525 - 456 BC)

Translator: Philip Vellacott

Publisher: Penguin Books (1961)

Bought from: Book Depository

Introduction

Aeschylus is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays are extant. In terms of career, his started earlier than both Sophocles and Euripides. He is sometimes known as the Father of Greek Tragedy. Aeschylus wrote more than 70 plays. He is said to have won 14 - 15 dramatic competitions in Athens. In comparison, Sophocles won between 20 - 25 competitions (sometimes beating Aeschylus to second place) while Euripides may have won only 4 or 5.

Only seven of Aeschylus’ plays have survived intact. The Oresteia - consisting of Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides - is his most famous work.

What is it about?

This volume contains Aeschylus’ other 4 surviving works.

The first play in the volume, Prometheus Bound (written about 463 BC), is probably the best known. The titular character is the Titan who stole the secret of fire from the Olympian gods and gave it to humankind. This play tells of the punishment for his crime and a visit from Io (another victim of the Olympian gods). Prometheus Bound is the first play of a trilogy which includes the now lost Prometheus Unbound and Prometheus the Fire Bringer.

The last play in the volume is The Persians (written c 472 BC). It depicts the reaction of the Persian royal court to news that the Persian forces have been routed at the Battle of Salami (480 BC), a key battle in the Greco-Persian Wars. That is pretty much it. Nonetheless, the play is notable because it references an event that took place a mere 8 years earlier. Aeschylus himself took part in the Greco-Persian Wars. His epitaph reads:

Beneath this stone lies Aeschlyus, son of Euphorion, the Athenian,
who perished in the wheat-bearing land of Gela;
of his noble prowess the grove of Marathon can speak,
and the long-haired Persian knows it well.

The two plays bookend The Suppliants and Seven Against Thebes.


What about the book?

This book, part of the Penguin Classics series, is a verse translation. It is a very slim volume. The introduction is useful but the notes are very skimpy.

Finally …

Not as good as The Oresteia.