The open sea. Edgar Lee Masters

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       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?

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