By
EDGAR LEE MASTERS
BRUTUS
BRUTUS AND ANTONY
(Lucilius Talks at a Feast Given to Aristocrates in
Rome.)
B. C. 20
BRUTUS AND ANTONY
Part I
(Lucilius Talks at a Feast Given to Aristocrates in Rome)
B.C. 20
How shall I write this out? I do not write.
Talk to you? Yes, and tell of Antony,
And how I knew him. There at Philippi
I let myself be captured, so to give
Time to escape to Brutus—made pretense
That I was Brutus, and so Brutus flies
And I am captured. Antony forgives me,
And to his death I was his faithful friend.
Well, after Actium, in Africa,
He roamed with no companions but us two,
Our friend Aristocrates, here, myself,
And fed upon his bitter heart. Our guest
Nods truth to what I say, he knows it all.
And after certain days in solitude
He seeks his Cleopatra. As for her,
She was the sovereign queen of many nations;
Yet that she might be with her Antony,
Live with him and enjoy him, did not shun
The name of mistress, and let Fulvia keep
Her wifehood without envy. As for him,
A lover’s soul lives in the loved one’s body,
And where bode Cleopatra, there his soul
Lived only, though his feet of flesh pursued
The Parthian, or Cæsar’s hateful heir....
And if this Antony would wreathe his spear
With ivy like a thyrsus; from the chamber
Of his beloved rush to battle, helmet
Smelling of unguents and of Egypt; leave
Great action and great enterprise to play
Along the seashore of Canopus with her;
And fly the combat, not as Paris did,
Already beaten, with lift sail, desert
The victory that was his, yet true it is
His rank, his eloquence, his liberal blood,
His interest in all grades and breeds of men,
His pity and his kindness to the sick,
His generous sympathies, stamped Antony
A giant in this dusty, roaring place
Which we call earth. Who ruined Antony?
Why, Brutus! For he gave to Antony
The truth of which the Queen of Egypt stood
As proof in the flesh:—Beauty and Life. His heart
Was apt to see her for mad days in Rome,
And soul created sateless for the cup
Of ecstasy in living.
On a day
Myself and Aristocrates and Antony,
We two companioning him in Africa,
Wandering in solitary places, Antony
Brooding on Actium, and the love that kept
His soul with Cleopatra, up he speaks,
And asks us if we knew what Brutus said,
While nearing death, to Cassius. “No,” we said.
And Antony began to tell of Brutus:—
How all his life was spent in study, how
He starved his body, slept but briefly, cut
His hours of sleep by practice; fixed his thought
On virtue and on glory; made himself
A zealot of one purpose: liberty;
A spirit as of a beast that knows one thing:
Its food and how to get it; over its spirit
No heaven keeps of changing light; no stars
Of wandering thought; no moons that charm
Still groves by singing waters, and no suns
Of large illumination, showing life
As multiform and fathomless, filled with wings
Of various truth, each true as other truth.
This was that Brutus, made an asp by thought
And nature, to be used by envious hands
And placed to Cæsar’s breast. So Antony
Discoursed upon our walk, and capped it off
With Brutus’ words when dying. They were these:
“O virtue, miserable virtue, bawd and cheat;
Thou wert a bare word and I followed thee
As if thou hadst been real. But even as evil,
Lust, ignorance, thou wert the plaything too
Of fortune and of chance.”
So Antony
Consoled himself with Brutus, sighed and lapsed
To silence; thinking, as we deemed, of life
And what it yet could be, and how ’twould end;
And how to join his Cleopatra, what
The days would hold amid the toppling walls
Of Rome in demolition, now the hand
Of Cæsar rotted, and no longer stayed
The picks and catapults of an idiot world!
So, as it seemed, he would excuse himself
For Actium and his way in life. For soon
He speaks again, of Theophrastus now,
Who lived a hundred years, spent all his life
In study and in writing, brought to death
By labor; dying lay encompassed by
Two thousand followers, disciples, preachers
Of what he taught; and dying was penitent
For glory, even as Brutus was penitent
For virtue later. And so Antony
Spoke Theophrastus’ dying words, and told
How Theophrastus by a follower
Asked for a last commandment, spoke these words:
“There is none. But ’tis folly to cast away
Pleasure for glory! And no love is worse
Than love of glory. Look upon my life:—
Its toil and hard denial! To what end?
Therefore live happy; study, if you must,
For fame and happiness. Life’s vanity
Exceeds its usefulness.”
So speaking thus
Wise Theophrastus died.
Now I have said
That Brutus ruined Antony. So he did,
If Antony were ruined—that’s the question.
For Antony hearing Brutus say, “O virtue,
Miserable virtue, bawd and cheat,” and seeing
The eyes of Brutus stare in death, threw over him
A scarlet mantle, and took to his heart
The dying words of Brutus.
It is true
That Cicero said Antony as a youth
Was odious for drinking-bouts, amours,
For bacchanals, luxurious life, and true
When as triumvir, after Cæsar’s death,
He kept the house of Pompey, where he lived,
Filled up with jugglers, drunkards, flatterers.
All this before the death of Brutus, or
His love for Cleopatra. But it’s true
He was great Cæsar’s colleague. Cæsar dead,
This Antony is chief ruler of all Rome,
And wars in Greece, and Asia. So it’s true
He was not wholly given to the cup,
But knew fatigue and battle, hunger too,
Living on roots in Parthia. Yet, you see,
With Cæsar slaughtered in the capitol,
His friend, almost his god; and Brutus gasping
“O miserable virtue”; and the feet of men
From Syria to Hispania, slipping off
The world that broke in pieces, like an island
Falling apart beneath a heaving tide—
Whence from its flocculent fragment wretches leap—
You see it was no wonder for this Antony,
Made what he was by nature and by life,
In such a time and fate of the drifting world,
To turn to Cleopatra, and leave war
And rulership to languish.
Thus it was:
Cæsar is slaughtered, Antony must avenge
The death of Cæsar. Brutus is brought to death,
And dying scoffs at virtue which took off
In Brutus’ hand the sovran life of Cæsar.
And soon our Antony must fight against
The recreant hordes of Asia, finding here
His Cleopatra for coadjutor....
He’s forty-two and ripe. She’s twenty-eight,
Fruit fresh and blushing, most mature and rich;
Her voice an instrument of many strings
That yielded laughter, wisdom, folly, song,
And tales of many lands, in Arabic,
And Hebrew, Syriac and Parthiac.
She spoke the language of the troglodytes,
The Medes and others. And when Antony
Sent for her in Cilicia, she took time,
Ignored his orders, leisurely at last
Sailed up the Cydnus in a barge whose stern
Was gilded, and with purple sails. Returned
His dining invitation with her own,
And bent his will to hers. He went to her,
And found a banquet richer than his largess
Could give her. For while feasting, branches sunk
Around them, budding lights in squares and circles,
And lighted up their heaven, as with stars.
She found him broad and gross, but joined her taste
To him in this. And then their love began.
And while his Fulvia kept his quarrels alive
With force of arms in Rome on Octavianus,
And while the Parthian threatened Syria,
He lets the Queen of Egypt take him off
To Alexandria, where he joins with her
The Inimitable Livers; and in holiday
Plays like a boy and riots, while great Brutus
Is rotting in the earth for Virtue’s sake;
And Theophrastus for three hundred years
Has changed from dust to grass, and grass to dust!
And Cleopatra’s kitchen groans with food.
Eight boars are roasted whole—though only twelve
Of these Inimitable Livers, with the Queen
And Antony are to eat—that every dish
May be served up just roasted to a turn.
And who knows when Marc Antony may sup?
Perhaps this hour, perhaps another hour,
Perhaps this minute he may call for wine,
Or start to talk with Cleopatra; fish—
For fish they did together. On a day
They fished together, and his luck was ill,
And so he ordered fishermen to dive
And put upon his hook fish caught before.
And Cleopatra feigned to be deceived,
And shouted out his luck. Next day invited
The Inimitable Livers down to see him fish,
Whereat she had a diver fix his hook
With a salted fish from Pontus. Antony
Drew up amid their laughter. Then she said:
“Sweet Antony, leave us poor sovereigns here,
Of Pharos and Canopus, to the rod;
Your game is cities, provinces and kingdoms.”
Were Antony serious, or disposed to mirth?
She had some new delight. She diced with him,
Drank with him, hunted with him. When he went
To exercise in arms, she sat to see.
At night she rambled with him in the streets,
Dressed like a servant-woman, making mischief
At people’s doors. And Antony disguised
Got scurvy answers, beatings from the folk,
Tormented in their houses. So it went
Till Actium. She loved him, let him be
By day nor night alone, at every turn
Was with him and upon him.
Well, this life
Was neither virtue, glory, fame, nor study,
But it was life, and life that did not slay
A Cæsar for a word like Liberty.
And it was life, its essence nor changed nor lost
By Actium, where his soul shot forth to her
As from a catapult a stone is cast,
Seeing her lift her sixty sails and fly.
His soul lived in her body as ’twere born
A part of her, and whithersoever she went
There followed he. And all their life together
Was what it was, a rapture, justified
By its essential honey of realest blossoms,
In spite of anguished shame. When hauled aboard
The ship of Cleopatra, he sat down
And with his two hands covered up his face!
Brutus had penitence at Philippi
For virtue which befooled him. Antony
Remorse and terror there at Actium
Deserting with his queen, for love that made
His body not his own, as Brutus’ will
Was subject to the magic of a word....
For what is Virtue, what is Love? At least
We know their dire effects, that both befool,
Betray, destroy.
The Queen and Antony
Had joined the Inimitable Livers, now they joined
The Diers Together. They had kept how oft
The Festival of Flagons, now to keep
The Ritual of Passing Life was theirs.
But first they suffered anger with each other
While on her ship, till touching Tenarus
When they were brought to speak by women friends,
At last to eat and sleep together. Yet
Poison had fallen on their leaves, which stripped
Their greenness to the stalk, as you shall see....
Here to make clear what flight of Antony meant,
For cause how base or natural, let me say
That Actium’s battle had not been a loss
To Antony and his honor, if Canidius,
Commanding under Antony, had not flown
In imitation of his chief; the soldiers
Fought desperately in hope that Antony
Would come again and lead them.
So it was
He touched, with Cleopatra, Africa,
And sent her into Egypt; and with us,
Myself and Aristocrates, walked and brooded
In solitary places, as I said.
But when he came to Alexandria
He finds his Cleopatra dragging her fleet
Over the land space which divides the sea
Near Egypt from the Red Sea, so to float
Her fleet in the Arabian Gulf, and there,
Somewhere upon earth’s other side, to find
A home secure from war and slavery.
She failed in this; but Antony leaves the city,
And leaves his queen, plays Timon, builds a house
Near Pharos on a little mole; lives here
Until he hears all princes and all kings
Desert him in the realm of Rome; which news
Brings gladness to him, for hope put away,
And cares slipped off. Then leaving Timoneum,—
For such he named his dwelling there near Pharos—
He goes to Cleopatra, is received,
And sets the city feasting once again.
The order of Inimitable Livers breaks,
And forms the Diers Together in its place.
And all who banquet with them, take the oath
To die with Antony and Cleopatra,
Observing her preoccupation with
Drugs poisonous and creatures venomous.
And thus their feast of flagons and of love
In many courses riotously consumed
Awaits the radiate liquor dazzling through
Their unimagined terror, like the rays
Shot from the bright eyes of the cockatrice,
Crackling for poison in the crystal served
By fleshless hands! A skeleton steward soon
Will pass the liquer to them; they will drink,
And leave no message, no commandment either—
As Theophrastus was reluctant to—
Denied disciples; for Inimitable Livers
Raise up no followers, create no faith,
No cult or sect. Joy has his special wisdom,
Which dies with him who learned it, does not fire
Mad bosoms like your Virtue.
I must note
The proffered favors, honors of young Cæsar
To Cleopatra, if she’d put to death
Her Antony; and Antony’s jealousy,
Aroused by Thyrsus, messenger of Cæsar,
Whom Cleopatra gave long audiences,
And special courtesies; seized, whipped at last
By Antony, sent back to Cæsar. Yet
The queen was faithful. When her birth-day came
She kept it suitable to her fallen state,
But all the while paying her Antony love,
And honor, kept his birth-day with such richness
That guests who came in want departed rich ...
Wine, weariness, much living, early age
Made fall for Antony. October’s clouds
In man’s life, like October, have no sun
To lift the mists of doubt, distortion, fear.
Faces, events, and wills around us show
Malformed, or ugly, changed from what they were.
And when his troops desert him in the city
To Cæsar, Antony cries out, the queen,
His Cleopatra, has betrayed him. She
In terror seeks her monument, sends word
That she is dead. And Antony believes
And says delay no longer, stabs himself,
Is hauled up dying to the arms of her,
Where midst her frantic wailings he expires!
Kings and commanders begged of Cæsar grace
To give this Antony his funeral rites.
But Cæsar left the body with the queen
Who buried it with royal pomp and splendor.
Thus died at fifty-six Marc Antony,
And Cleopatra followed him with poison,
The asp or hollow bodkin, having lived
To thirty-nine, and reigned with Antony
As partner in the empire fourteen years ...
Who in a time to come will gorge and drink,
Filch treasure that it may be spent for wine,
Kill as Marc Antony did, war as he did,
Because Marc Antony did so, taking him
As warrant and exemplar? Why, never a soul!
These things are done by souls who do not think,
But act from feeling. But those mad for stars
Glimpsed in wild waters or through mountain mists
Seen ruddy and portentous will take Brutus
As inspiration, since for Virtue’s sake
And for the good of Rome he killed his friend;
And in the act made Liberty as far
From things of self, as murder is apart
From friendship and its ways. Yes, Brutus lives
To fire the mad-men of the centuries
As Cæsar lives to guide new tyrants. Yet
Tyrannicide but snips the serpent’s head.
The body of a rotten state still writhes
And wriggles though the head is gone, or worse,
Festers and stinks against the setting sun....
Marc Antony lived happier than Brutus
And left the old world happier for his life
Than Brutus left it.
(Lionard Digges is speaking)
Yes, so I said: ’twas labored “Cataline”
Insufferable for learning, tedious.
And so I said: the audience was kept
There at the Globe twelve years ago to hear:
“It is no matter; let no images
Be hung with Cæsar’s trophies.”
And to-day
They played his Julius Cæsar at the Court.
I saw it at the Globe twelve years ago,
A gala day! The flag over the Theatre
Fluttered the April breeze and I was thrilled.
And look what wherries crossed the Thames with freight
Of hearts expectant for the theatre.
For all the town was posted with the news
Of Shakespeare’s “Julius Cæsar.” So we paid
Our six-pence, entered, all the house was full.
And dignitaries, favored ones had seats
Behind the curtain on the stage. At last
The trumpet blares, the curtains part, Marullus
And Flavius enter, scold the idiot mob
And we sat ravished, listening to the close.
We knew he pondered manuscripts, forever
Was busy with his work, no rest, no pause.
Often I saw him leave the theatre
And cross the Thames where in a little room
He opened up his Plutarch. What was that?
A fertilizing sun, a morning light
Of bursting April! What was he? The earth
That under such a sun put forth and grew,
Showed all his valleys, mountain peaks and fields,
Brought forth the forests of his cosmic soul,
The coppice, jungle, blossoms good and bad.
A world of growth, creation! This the work,
Precedent force of Thomas North, his work
In causal link the Bishop of Auxerre,
And so it goes.
But others tried their hand
At Julius Cæsar, witness “Cæsar’s Fall”
Which Drayton, Webster, others wrote. And look
At Jonson’s “Cataline,” that labored thing,
Dug out of Plutarch, Cicero. Go read,
Then read this play of Shakespeare’s.
I recall
What came to me to see this, scene by scene,
Unroll beneath my eyes. ’Twas like a scroll
Lettered in gold and purple where one theme
In firmest sequence, precious artistry
Is charactered, and all the sound and sense,
And every clause and strophe ministers
To one perfection. So it was we sat
Until the scroll lay open at our feet:
“According to his virtue, let us use him
With all respect and rites of burial,”
Then gasped for breath! The play’s a miracle!
This world has had one Cæsar and one Shakespeare,
And with their birth is shrunk, can only bear
Less vital spirits.
For what did he do
There in that room with Plutarch? First his mind
Was ready with the very moulds of nature.
And then his spirit blazing like the sun
Smelted the gold from Plutarch, till it flowed
Molten and dazzling in these moulds of his.
And lo! he sets up figures for our view
That blind the understanding till you close
Eyes to reflect, and by their closing see
What has been done. O, well I could go on
And show how Jonson makes homonculus,
And Shakespeare gets with child, conceives and bears
Beauty of flesh and blood. Or I could say
Jonson lays scholar’s hands upon a trait,
Ambition, let us say, as if a man
Were peak and nothing else thrust to the sky
By blasting fires of earth, just peak alone,
No slopes, no valleys, pines, or sunny brooks,
No rivers winding at the base, no fields,
No songsters, foxes, nothing but the peak.
But Shakespeare shows the field-mice and the cricket,
The louse upon the leaf, all things that live
In every mountain which his soaring light
Takes cognizance; by which I mean to say
Shows not ambition only, that’s the peak,
But mice-moods, cricket passions in the man;
How he can sing, or whine, or growl, or hiss,
Be bird, fox, wolf, be eagle or be snake.
And so this “Julius Cæsar” paints the mob
That stinks and howls, a woman in complaint
Most feminine shut from her husband’s secrets;
Paints envy, paints the demagogue, in brief,
Paints Cæsar till we lose respect for Cæsar.
For there he stands in verity, it seems,
A tyrant, coward, braggart, aging man,
A stale voluptuary shoved about
And stabbed most righteously by patriots
To avenge the fall of Rome!
Now I have said
Enough to give me warrant to say this:
This play of Shakespeare fails, is an abuse
Upon the memory of the greatest man
That ever trod this earth. And Shakespeare failed
By just so much as he might have achieved
Surpassing triumph had he made the play
Cæsar instead of Brutus, had he shown
A sovereign will and genius struck to earth
With loss irreparable to Time and ruin
To Cæsar’s dreams; struck evilly to death
By a mad enthusiast, a brutal stoic,
In whom all gratitude was tricked aside
By just a word, the word of Liberty.
Or might I also say the man had envy
Of Cæsar’s greatness, or might it be true
Brutus took edge for hatred with the thought
That Brutus’ sister flamed with love for Cæsar?
But who was Brutus, by the largest word
That comes to us that he should be exalted,
Forefronted in this play, and warrant given
To madmen down the ages to repeat
This act of Brutus’, con the golden words
Of Shakespeare as he puts them in his mouth:
“Not that I loved him less, but loved Rome more.
He was ambitious so I slew him. Tears
For his love, joy for his fortune, honor for valor,
Death for ambition. Would you die all slaves
That Cæsar might still live, or live free men
With Cæsar dead?”
And so it is the echo
Of Cæsar’s fall is cried to by this voice
Of Shakespeare’s and increased, to travel forth,
To fool the ages and to madden men
With thunder in the hills of time to deeds
As horrible as this.
Did Shakespeare know
The worth of Cæsar, that we may impute
Fault for this cartoon—caricature? Why look,
Did he not write the “mightiest Julius,” write
“The foremost man of all the world,” “the conqueror
Whom death could conquer not,” make Cleopatra,
The pearl of all the east, say she was glad
That Cæsar wore her on his hand? He knew
What Cæsar’s greatness was! Yet what have we?
A Cæsar with the falling sickness, deaf,
Who faints upon the offering of the crown;
Who envies Cassius stronger arms in swimming,
When it is known that Cæsar swam the Tiber,
Being more than fifty; pompous, superstitious,
Boasting his will, but flagging in the act;
Greedy of praise, incautious, unalert
To dangers seen of all; a lust incarnate
Of power and rulership; a Cæsar smashing
A great republic like a criminal,
A republic which had lived except for him.
So what was Rome when Cæsar took control?
All wealth and power concentered in the few;
A coterie of the rich who lived in splendor;
A working class that lived on doles of corn
And hordes of slaves from Asia, Africa,
Who plotted murders in the dark purlieus;
The provinces were drained to feed the rich;
The city ruled by bribery, and corruption;
Armed gladiators sold their services.
And battled in the Forum; magistrates
Were freely scoffed at, consuls were attacked;
And orators spat in each other’s faces
When reason failed them speaking in the Forum;
No man of prominence went on the streets
Without his hired gladiators, slaves.
The streets were unpoliced, no fire brigade,
Safe-guarded property. Domestic life
Was rotten at the heart, and vice was taught.
Divorce was rife and even holy Cato
Put by his wife.
And this was the republic
That Cæsar took; and not the lovely state
Ordered and prospered, which ambitious Cæsar,
As Shakespeare paints him, over-whelmed. For Cæsar
Could execute the vision that the people
Deserve not what they want, but otherwise
What they should want, and in that mind was king
And emperor.
And what was here for Shakespeare
To love and manifest by art, who hated
The Puritan, the mob? Colossus Cæsar,
Whose harmony of mind took deep offense
At ugliness, disharmony! See the man:
Of body perfect and of rugged health,
Of graceful carriage, fashion, bold of eye,
A swordsman, horseman, and a general
Not less than Alexander; orator
Who rivalled Cicero, a man of charm,
Of wit and humor, versed in books as well;
Who at one time could dictate, read and write,
Composing grammars as he rode to war,
Amid distractions, dangers, battles, writing
Great commentaries. Yes, he is the man
In whom was mixed the elements that Nature
Might say:—this was a man—and not this Brutus.
Look at his camp, wherever pitched in Gaul,
Thronged by young poets, thinkers, scholars, wits,
And headed by this Cæsar, who when arms
Are resting from the battle, makes reports
Of all that’s said and done to Cicero.
Here is a man large minded and sincere,
Active, a lover, conscious of his place,
Knowing his power, no reverence for the past,
Save what the past deserved, who made the task
What could be done and did it—seized the power
Of rulership and did not put it by
As Shakespeare clothes him with pretence of doing.
For what was kingship to him? empty name!
He who had mastered Asia, Africa,
Egypt, Hispania, after twenty years
Of cyclic dreams and labor—king indeed!
A name! when sovereign power was nothing new.
He’s fifty-six, and knows the human breed,
Sees man as body hiding a canal
For passing food along, a little brain
That watches, loves, attends the said canal.
He’s been imperator at least two years—
King in good sooth! He knows he is not valued,
That he’s misprized and hated, is compelled
To use whom he distrusts, despises too.
Why, what was life to him with such contempt
Of all this dirty world, this eagle set
Amid a flock of vultures, cow-birds, bats?
His ladder was not lowliness, but genius.
Read of his capture in Bithynia,
When he was just a stripling by Cilician
Pirates whom he treated like his slaves,
And told them to their face when he was ransomed
He’d have them crucified. He did it, too.
His ransom came at last, he was released,
And set to work at once to keep his word;
Fitted some ships out, captured every one
And crucified them all at Pergamos.
Not lowliness his ladder, but the strength
That steps on shoulders, fit for steps alone.
So on this top-most rung he did not scan
The base degrees by which he did ascend,
But sickened rather at a world whose heights
Are not worth reaching. So it was he went
Unarmed and unprotected to the Senate,
Knowing that death is noble, being nature,
And scorning fear. Why, he had lived enough.
The night before he dined with Lepidus,
To whom he said the death that is not seen,
Is not expected, is the best. But look,
Here in this play he’s shown a weak old man,
Propped up with stays and royal robes, to amble,
Trembling and babbling to his coronation;
And to the going, driven by the fear
That he would be thought coward if he failed.
Who was to think so? Cassius, whom he cowed,
And whipped against strong odds, this Brutus, too,
There at Pharsalus! Faith, I’d like to know
What Francis Bacon thinks of this.
My friend,
Seeing the Rome that Cæsar took, we turn
To what he did with what he took. This Rome
At Cæsar’s birth was governed by the people
In name alone, in fact the Senate ruled,
And money ruled the Senate. Rank and file
Was made of peasants, tradesmen, manumitted