Octavius speaks the final words in Julius Caesar. He and Mark Antony praise Brutus’s memory and plan to give him “all respect and rites of burial.” Though they mourn Brutus’s death, they also celebrate their victory: “let's away, / To part the glories of this happy day.” Octavius is Julius Caesar’s nephew and adopted son. The irony at the play’s conclusion is that another Caesar is set to lead Rome. Brutus’s aim was to keep Rome a republic, but killing the would-be emperor merely caused a civil war and put another Caesar in power. Octavius, or Augustus Caesar, would be the first in a long line of emperors.
Julius Caesar ends on a peaceful note, with Antony and especially Octavius coming across as fair-minded rulers, but it also foreshadows the trouble in the later play Antony and Cleopatra. Antony dismisses Lepidus, one third of the triumvirate, as “a slight unmeritable man,” and Octavius does not always follow the elder Antony’s orders. In Antony and Cleopatra, Octavius plays the role that Antony plays in Julius Caesar: he is the young and calculating upstart who defeats his elders. Just as Antony beats Cassius and Brutus at the political game, Octavius succeeds where Antony fails.
No comments:
Post a Comment