Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Compare Antony to Cassius in Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar".

Antony, like Cassius, is underestimated by other characters. For the first half of the play, Shakespeare makes it clear that he's Caesar's right-hand man - and that he enjoys masques and revels. Brutus and Cassius are scornful about him. Yet he alone seizes the political moment after the assassination and turns the tide against the conspirators in his inspired speech at Caesar's funeral.

Unlike Cassius, he seems to deeply care for Caesar (in fact, Cassius doesn't really seem to care for anyone - where is Mrs. Cassius? Never mentioned). Yet he's not simply the golden boy. He's actually a very, very canny politician. How, for example, does he know where Brutus' and Cassius' daggers ran through Caesar's mantle - he's not in the scene with the murder? And, though he has the will at the funeral, he sends Lepidus to get it in the next scene in which he appears, Act 4, Scene 1:

But, Lepidus, go you to Caesar's house,
Fetch the will hither, and we shall determine
How to cut off some charge in legacies.

Read carefully. Antony wants to cut down Caesar's legacies - why? Is it to accommodate the promises he made at the funeral? Was Antony's "will" a fake? It's never answered.

Note too that Antony, who in his funeral speech hammers home the point that Brutus is dishonourable, finishes the play by calling him "the noblest Roman of them all". Like Cassius, Antony is a canny political contriver.

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