![]() ![]() ‘But if you find it upsetting to look merely at Caesar’s cloak, how about if I remove the cloak?’Īntony (rhetorically) asks them – before removing the mantle from Caesar’s body to reveal his wounded corpse to the audience. He assures his audience that their tears are ‘gracious’ and noble and kind. It’s as if everyone has been emotionally ‘stabbed’ by hearing what happened to Caesar. The ‘dint’ of pity is the mark of sympathy: ‘dint’ suggests the mark left by a blow, much like the stab wounds left on Caesar’s body. Note the way the syntax of ‘I perceive’ and ‘you feel’, juxtaposed as they are, further bring Antony and his audience together as one: not just ‘I see that you are moved’ but ‘I perceive, just as you feel’. Here is himself, marr’d, as you see, with traitors.Īntony’s impassioned speech has had its desired effect upon his listeners: now, people in the crowd are weeping. Our Caesar’s vesture wounded? Look you here, Kind souls, what, weep you when you but behold The dint of pity: these are gracious drops. O, now you weep and, I perceive, you feel (‘Flourish’d’ is also a nice touch: it doesn’t just mean ‘triumphed’ or ‘won’, but suggests a showy flourish, denoting a certain confidence, even arrogance.) Every Roman fell when Caesar fell, because Caesar was holding Rome together as its great ruler. He then consolidates this by his use of the rhetorical pattern of three: I … you … all of us. It recalls his earlier ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen’, too. Note Antony’s use of ‘my countrymen’ to bring himself and his audience together as fellow Romans – against the conspirators. Whilst bloody treason flourish’d over us.Īntony remarks on what a fall it was – not just because of the violence of the crime, but because Caesar was a great dictator who had been brought down by a few knifemen. ![]() Then I, and you, and all of us fell down,
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