Caesar, Julius | Mark Sachar off (essay date 1972)
Mark Sachar off (essay date 1972)
SOURCE: "Suicide and Brutus' Philosophy in Julius Caesar," in Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. XXXIII, 1972, pp. 115-22.
[In the following essay, Sacharoff examines Brutus's apparent contradiction regarding his views on suicide and explores several schools of thought from which Shakespeare may have derived Brutus's philosophy.]
Perhaps the most controversial passage in Julius Caesar occurs in V.i., when Cassius asks Brutus what he is determined to do if they lose the impending battle against Octavius and Antony. Brutus replies;
Even by the rule of that philosophy
By which I did blame Cato for the death
Which he did give himself—I know not how,
But I do find it cowardly and vile,
For fear of what might fall, so to prevent
The time of life—arming myself with patience
To stay the providence of some high powers
That govern us...
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