Julius Caesar Group

Question:

ramesh-chandra-sharma
ramesh-chand...
Student
High School - 9th Grade

Can someone please tell me that in Act II scene i lines 105-111, what does Casca want to indicate about Caesar?

Casca:

"Here as I point my sword, the sun arises;

Which is a great way growing on the south,

Weighing the youthful season of the year.

Some two months hence, up higher toward the north

He presents his fire, and the high east

Stands, as the Capitol, directly here."

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Posted by ramesh-chandra-sharma on Thursday March 5, 2009 at 12:55 AM and tagged with julius caesar.

Answers:


  1. jillyfish Student
    Doctorate

    First... the science...

    Every morning, the sun "rises". In fact, it doesn't rise, the Earth turns, making it look like the sun rises, from our POV. But the sun does not rise in the same place. The Earth sways as it spins. This sway makes the sun appear to rise in a different place each day. So, from Winter to Summer the sun moves north, then the Earth sways back and from Summer to Winter the sun moves south.

    Basically, on the winter equinox (21st Dec), the sun is in its most southerly position. and on the summer equinox (21st June) it rises in its most northerly position. (I really need a globe to model this properly, ask your science teacher about equinoxes and they will jump for joy that you want to know about the planet you live on!)

    Now then...

    Casca is basically using the metaphor of the sun 'travelling' north in the spring to describe Caesar's advance on Rome. The sun is unstoppable, powerful and fiery and it is moving north. It is the same with Caesar. 

    'At the moment' says Casca, 'the sun rises here (he points with his sword). In two months it will rise here, much further north. That is like Caesar's approach towards Rome.' 

    Caesar is advancing on Rome and he will be here soon. And he will be as hard to stop as The Sun.

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    Posted by jillyfish on Thursday March 5, 2009 at 2:14 AM