Julius Caesar Julius Caesar Quotes

When Calphurnia dreams of Caesar's body spurting blood like a fountain, she correctly interprets it to mean that something bad is going to happen to Caesar and warns her husband to stay home that day.  At first, it seems like Caesar is going to heed his wife's warning (even though he doesn't want people to think he's staying at home because he's afraid).  But Calphurnia's attempts to protect her husband are completely undermined when Decius shows up.  Keep reading... 

In the last passage we saw Decius warn Caesar that he would be seen as weak if he listened to the advice of a woman.  Here Caesar completely disregards Calphurnia's interpretation of her ominous dream in favor of what Decius has to say.  Of course, it turns out that Calphurnia was right all along – Caesar gets stabbed in the guts 33 times and his assassins wash their hands in his blood.  So even though Caesar and the other characters don't put much stock in what women have to say, it seems pretty clear that Calphurnia isn't so dumb after all.  In fact, it also seems like things would have turned out differently if the play's female characters hadn't been ignored.  

Caesar is unashamed of his arrogance.  He doesn't see his condescension as arrogance; instead it's a quality he has earned by proving himself a powerful man.