Julius Caesar Casca Quotes

Casca knows that Caesar's dramatic refusal of the crown and fainting spell are just cheap tricks used to curry favor with the "hoot[ing]" and "clap[ing]" crowd. Casca also describes Caesar's adoring crowd as though they are an audience watching a performance at an Elizabethan playhouse, which suggests that political leaders like Julius Caesar are like actors on a very public stage. Check out "Themes: Art and Culture" if you want to know more about this.

We're also interested in Julius Caesar's dramatic fainting spell. We're not sure whether he really swooned or faked the whole thing, but for someone who's supposed to be such a threat to Roman freedom, Caesar sure does have a lot medical problems, don't you think (epilepsy, deafness in one ear, etc.)?

Earlier we suggested that Caesar's problem is that he might <em>become</em> a tyrant if he gains more power.  Here, however, the play suggests that he's already behaving like one.  When Casca says that Murellus and Flavius have been "put to silence" for covering up pictures of Caesar during the Feast of Lupercal, we're left to wonder whether this means that Caesar had them put to death.  

Uh oh.  Crazy weather and strange bird behavior are never good signs in a Shakespeare play.  Casca's observation about these "portentous things" reminds us of <em>Macbeth</em>, where nasty storms and animals gone wild also signal political turmoil and the murder of an important leader.

Earlier we saw Cassius try to flatter his friend Brutus into believing that he would make a better Roman leader than Caesar (1.2).  Now it seems pretty obvious that Cassius was trying to manipulate his pal, because here he acknowledges that the conspirators want Brutus on their side. He's popular with the commoners and will make the plotters against Caesar look "virtu[ous]" rather than "offen[sive]."   

Here Casca describes Caesar's theatrical behavior in front of the adoring crowd.  After refusing Antony's offer of the crown three times, Caesar faints dramatically, and the crowd loves him all the more for it.  Casca suggests that when Caesar appears before his followers, he presents himself as an actor of politics, and the "tag-rag [common, or poor] people" respond to his theatrics like an enthusiastic audience at a playhouse. 

In the last passage, we pointed out how Casca knows that Caesar's dramatic refusal of the crown and fainting spell are just cheap tricks used to curry favor with the "hoot[ing]" and "clap[ing]" crowd.  Here Casca continues to describe Caesar's adoring crowd as though they were an audience watching a performance in an Elizabethan playhouse. 

In this passage, Shakespeare also seems to be making an inside joke when Casca refers to the loud audience's "stinking breath."  Crowded Elizabethan theaters were notoriously smelly places (there being no mouthwash or deodorant at the time).  Plus, Elizabethans thought the plague was contracted by breathing in strong odors like bad breath.  So when Casca says he was afraid to laugh at Caesar and the crowd because he didn't want to open his "lips" and breath in the "bad air," he's suggesting that 1) the crowd's bad breath might make him faint like Caesar and 2) he might catch the plague.  So basically, Casca is bagging on Caesar's rowdy crowd and Shakespeare is bagging on the theatergoers who pay to watch his plays at the same time.

Casca suggests that public opinion is easily won and is therefore meaningless.  Plus, even though the Romans are supposed to be a republic of equal citizens, those in charge think everyone else is dumb and treat them accordingly.  (All Romans are equal, but some are more equal than others.)

Caesar deliberately deceives the public here.  It's clear he's putting on a great show by refusing the crown, even though he'd secretly love to have it. He understands that public refusal is a smart political maneuver to get the people to love him more and think him less ambitious.

Casca has fear before the gods, while Cassius interprets heavenly interference as a sign that his traitorous enterprise will go well.  Cassius is arrogant in his interpretation that the gods are on his side, while Casca displays humility.

Honorable men have incredible power; they can make any enterprise (even a dirty one) seem noble by attaching their name to it.  On the flip side, they've got to be responsible and discerning about what causes they choose to support, because people trust them to make the right decisions.