What three omens does Casca describe in act 1 of Julius Caesar?

Superstitions abound in the Rome of Julius Caesar. In fact, the chaotic state of human affairs is reflected in the many omens of Shakespeare's play.  A key figure in helping Cassius sway Brutus to feel that it is necessary to rid the republic of the tyrant Julius Caesar, Casca describes for Cassius what he has heard and seen in Act I, Scene2.  Then, in Scene 3, Cicero asks Casca what he has observed in the storm of lightening and thunder. 

Casca, visibly shaken, replies that he has seen four omens: 

• a common slave whose left hand was caught on fire, but it "remained unscorched."
• a "surly" lion who was in the center of Rome; it stared at him and passed by without attacking him.
• A hundred ghostly women, huddled together, who in their fear swore that they had seen men on fire, walking up and down the streets.
• An owl (seen the day before) who was incongruously out at noon, "hooting and shrieking."

After hearing Casca, Cassius, who has disputed fate previously with Brutus, berates Casca for his fears, telling him that he, Cassius, bared his chest in the aim of the flash of lightening, daring it to hit him.  Unlike Casca, who perceives these omens as warnings from the gods, Cassius sees them as warnings against Caesar.

What omens occur in act 1 of Julius Caesar?

 There are several key omens in Act I:

• In scene ii, the Soothsayer (a fortune-teller or seer; sooth means "truth") warns Caesar, "Beware the ides of March” (l. 18). (On the ancient Roman calendar, the ides were the 15th day of March, May, July, or October or the 13th day of the other months). Caesar brushes off the warning.

• In scene iii, Casca tells Cicero about strange, unnatural occurences in Rome on the day and night before Caesar’s assassination: a firestorm, a slave whose hand is on fire but does not suffer burns, a lion running around the capitol, frightened women who say they saw men in flames walking the streets, and an owl shrieking in the market during daylight. Casca says, “they are portentous things / unto the climate that they point upon.” (ll. 31-32). (The firestorm could be interpreted to represent either the brewing conspiracy against Caesar or the social and political turmoil that erupts after Caesar's murder; the lion could be seen to represent Caesar; and the burning men could be seen to represent the conspirators, whose actions will condemn them to eternal damnation. Shakespeare uses the owl in several of his plays to foreshadow a calamity.)

How do the four omens in Act 1, Scene 3 of Julius Caesar foretell chaos?

The four omens in Act I, Scene 3 portend chaos in the heavens, which, because of the Chain of Being, will connect to the human world and affect it.

During the Elizabethan Age, many believed in the Chain of Being, a perfect order and hierarchy from God down to the most insignificant creatures on earth. So, when the four elements of the universe--fire, air, water, and earth--are disturbed, these terrible events in the heavens, such as Casca describes to Cicero, portend disturbances upon the earth as everything is connected. This is why Casca says,

Either there is a civil strife in heaven,
Or else the world, too saucy [impudent] with the gods,
Incenses them to send destruction. (1.3.11-13)

Furthermore, when these lines are spoken, with their knowledge of the Chain of Being, Elizabethan audiences would quickly understand that there will soon be civil strife in Rome as the earthly connects to the heavenly. Indeed, Casca's words presage what will follow:

• "scolding winds," which means punishing winds, suggests the battles to come
• an "ambitious ocean" that tries to rise upward to the heavens suggests Caesar's ambition as well as the ambition of which Marc Antony will accuse Brutus in his funeral oration
• "threat'ning clouds" are reflective of Antony's subtle urging of mutiny to the plebians at the end of his funeral oration, a mutiny that will lead to civil war between the two factions led by Brutus and Antony

In Julius Caesar, what signs, omens, and premonitions appear in Act 2, Scene 2?

There are many mysterious and ominous signs, omens, and premonitions evident in Act 2, Scene 2 of Julius Caesar. Calpurnia describes some of them to her husband Caesar while attempting to dissuade him from leaving the safety of his home.

Caesar, I never stood on ceremonies,
Yet now they fright me. There is one within,
Besides the things that we have heard and seen,
Recounts most horrid sights seen by the watch.
A lioness hath whelped in the streets;
And graves have yawn'd, and yielded up their dead;
Fierce fiery warriors fought upon the clouds,
In ranks and squadrons and right form of war,
Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol;
The noise of battle hurtled in the air,
Horses did neigh, and dying men did groan,
And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets.
O Caesar! these things are beyond all use,
And I do fear them.

Calpurnia herself has been having bad dreams all night long. Caesar tells Decius Brutus:

Calpurnia here, my wife, stays me at home:
She dreamt to-night she saw my statua,
Which, like a fountain with an hundred spouts,
Did run pure blood: and many lusty Romans
Came smiling, and did bathe their hands in it:
And these does she apply for warnings, and portents,
And evils imminent; and on her knee
Hath begg'd that I will stay at home to-day.

Caesar has sent to have augurers determine whether he is in danger. A servant returns with their findinigs.

They would not have you to stir forth to-day.
Plucking the entrails of an offering forth,
They could not find a heart within the beast.

Caesar seems reluctant to stay at home in spite of all the signs that would appear to be warning him to do so. He believes he will be offered the kingship of Rome that very day, and he is afraid that if he fails to show up, the senators will change their minds, possibly feeling insulted or persuaded that he does not really want it.

After the tremendous amount of foreshadowing, it might be thought that the actual assassination is anticlimactic. In Act 3, Scene 1, the only description of the actual stabbing is as follows:

CASCA first, then the other Conspirators and BRUTUS stab CAESAR

There have been two previous acts in which most of the dialogue has been about killing Caesar. When it finally happens, it is over quickly, and the conspirators are confused and disorganized after the event. It seems likely that Shakespeare wanted his big climactic scene to be Marc Antony's magnificent funeral oration and the subsequent mutiny of the Roman mob which turns the play completely around.

Shakespeare knew that action on the stage usually looks faked and unimpressive. A group of men stabbing Caesar with wooden swords and wooden daggers would be a letdown for the audience after all the foreshadowing and foreboding and discussion. Shakespeare's dramas depend on words, not actions. He must have realized that Antony's speech, as reported by Plutarch, was one of the most significant events in Roman history, and Shakespeare must have been eager to try his hand at recreating that speech in English and in iambic pentameter for his audience. All the premonitions and omens, the warnings to beware the Ideas of March, and all Calpurnia's dreams may have been beguiling the audience into thinking that the actual assassinatiion of Caesar, when it finally came, would be the great climax. Then, after disappointing them, Shakespeare had his Antony begin awkwardly and tentatively with his "Friends, Romans, Countrymen," leading into the most thrilling scene Shakespeare ever created.

What bad omens does Cassius observe in Julius Caesar?

In act 5, scene 1, Cassius takes the soldier Messala aside and shares some ill omens he has witnessed. Earlier, he saw two eagles perch on the flags of their army, feeding from the hands of the soldiers. However, today the eagles are gone and have been replaced by ravens, crows, and kites—all birds viewed as less majestic than the eagles and more associated with death. These birds tend to seek out corpses for their food, and this frightens Cassius, who believes the birds are waiting for them to die. Because of the scavenging nature of the assembled birds, Cassius feels that he and the other conspirators are being designated as "sickly prey."

Up to this point, omens have been a recurrent presence in Julius Caesar. They tend to emerge from the natural world while subverting its usual patterns and laws, such as the lion Casca encounters near the Capitol or the ghosts Calpurnia sees walking through the Roman streets before Caesar is assassinated. Here, nature foreshadows the next turn of events: Cassius's defeat, as well as the broader defeat of the conspirators.

Omens tend to disturb the play's characters, but they never prevent anyone from ultimately acting. The same applies to Cassius in the final act of the play.

What is the significance of omens in Julius Caesar?

Julius Caesar is a tragedy, which means that the play follows the downfall of a tragic hero.  A tragic hero is a character that experiences failure as a result of a flaw in his/her personality.  Many critics disagree about who the tragic hero of Julius Caesar is (could be Caesar, could be Brutus),  but many of the characters are alike in their arrogance.  The significance of the omens are to highlight the arrogance.

Let's start with Caesar.  Not only is Caesar approached by a soothsayer and told to beware the Ides of March, his own wife has a troubling dream that he will die on this day.  Caesar believes enough in the possibility of these things that he asks for a ritual sacrifice to be done to bring further news - and learns that he is unlucky on this day.  He at first agrees to stay home, but a little flattery and a suggestion that he is cowardly makes him quickly change his mind:

Decius Brutus:  “Break up the Senate till another time,
When Caesar's wife shall meet with better dreams.”
If Caesar hide himself, shall they not whisper
“Lo, Caesar is afraid”?

If Caesar had not been so proud and so arrogant - had he not been so concerned with how he might appear to others - he would not have been in front of the conspirators.

Next, lets look at Brutus.  After already making the tragic mistake of killing Caesar, Brutus is faced with decisions that could alter his future fate.  One such decision is presented by Cassius, who suggests that they not wear out their soldiers by marching forward to meet Antony and Octavius in battle.  Brutus disagrees and insists they go forth to Phillipi.  After, Caesar's ghost appears to Brutus and says he will see Brutus at Phillipi - suggesting that Brutus will die there.  Brutus recklessly ignores this warning, and goes forth anyway.  Like Caesar, he dies where the warning suggested he would.

Even Cassius sees the omen of the ravens to warn him before entering into battle.  Cassius admits at this time to being scared of the omen, but he does not change his own course to protect himself.

The omens, we see, show us that these men are either too arrogant or too stubborn to consider changing their course at the suggestion of others.

What is the significance of omens in Julius Caesar?

Shakespeare derived his information for Julius Caesar from an English translation of Plutarch’s Life of Julius Caesar, Life of Brutus, and Life of Antony. Plutarch, a Greek historian, lived from 46 AD to 120 AD and obviously believed in the supernatural phenomena he records in these three biographical essays. Here is an example from his Life of Julius Caesar:

But destiny, it would seem, is not so much unexpected as it is unavoidable, since they say that amazing signs and apparitions were seen. Now, as for lights in the heavens, crashing sounds borne all about by night, and birds of omen coming down into the Forum, it is perhaps not worth while to mention these precursors of so great an event; but Strabo the philosopher says that multitudes of men all on fire were seen rushing up, and a soldier’s slave threw from his hand a copious flame and seemed to the spectators to be burning, but when the flame ceased the man was uninjured; he says, moreover, that when Caesar himself was sacrificing, the heart of the victim was not to be found, and the prodigy caused fear, since in the course of nature, certainly, an animal without a heart could not exist. The following story, too, is told by many. A certain seer warned Caesar to be on his guard against a great peril on the day of the month of March which the Romans call the Ides; and when the day had come and Caesar was on his way to the senate-house, he greeted the seer with a jest and said: “Well, the Ides of March are come,” and the seer said to him softly: “Ay, they are come, but they are not gone.”

Shakespeare himself, however, found these anecdotes useful for dramatic purposes. For one thing, they obviously help to recreate the atmosphere of a time when superstition was science. More importantly, Shakespeare uses the phenomena reported by Plutarch, including Calpurnia’s prophetic dreams, to create a heavy sense of foreboding and expectation in his audience—which he fully intends to disappoint. The audience should be expecting the big climax to come when--after all their planning and after all the strange wonders--the conspirators finally kill Caesar. But the anticipated cathartic assassination scene does not come off. It actually “fizzles”--as it is intended to fizzle. Here are the stage directions.

They stab Caesar, Casca first, Brutus last.

The assassins are thoroughly confused and disorganized. The effect is anticlimactic. Shakespeare’s magic is always in his words, and he fully intended to have Antony’s funeral oration stir his audience as no awkward action on a little wooden stage could have done.

Antony’s speech is pivotal. It not only turns the story around, but it turns the audience around. They have been identifying with Brutus and Cassius--but now they are identifying with Antony and Octavius. After all, these two Romans represent the winning side; and the audience, like the Roman mob, has been strongly moved by Antony’s words. They want to see Brutus and Cassius defeated, even though they feel sympathetic to Brutus right up to his death.

The omens Shakespeare borrows wholesale from Plutarch are used to create a strong dramatic effect. But the modern viewer understands that they must all have had rational explanations. Calpurnia’s dreams especially seem to show her feminine intuition rather than being warnings from nonexistent deities. She sensed the truth about Caesar’s flatterers, and she saw their dire intentions enacted in her dreams.

What are some omens in Julius Caesar?

One very famous omen is provided by a soothsayer, who warns Caesar, who is participating in a procession for Luepercal, to "beware the Ides of March." Caesar dismisses the man as a "dreamer," and the procession goes on. Of course, Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March (March 15) so like many omens in the play, this one should have been heeded, or correctly interpreted. 

A number of evil omens are described in the third scene of Act I, when Cassius begins to outline his plot against Caesar. First, there is a horrible thunderstorm that rocks the city, "raining fire" on Rome. Casca then describes several other frightful omens, including a slave whose hand burns yet remains "unscorch'd," a lion walking through the streets, a "hundred ghastly women" who described "men in fire" walking through the city, and a "bird of night" that sat in the city marketplace at noon, "howling and shrieking." Casca fears these omens, but Cassius seems to attribute them to Caesar's apparent usurpation of power in the Republic, and claims not to be afraid of them. In retrospect, however, they are clearly omens that Caesar's murder will bring unnatural consequences. 

Still more omens are described when Caesar hears his wife, Calpurnia, screaming in her sleep the night before the ides of March. According to Caesar, she shouts "Help, ho! They murder Caesar!" When Calpurnia awakes, she beseeches Caesar not to leave his house, citing many terrible omens witnessed by Romans that evening: 

A lioness hath whelped in the streets; 
And graves have yawn'd, and yielded up their dead; 
Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds, 
In ranks and squadrons and right form of war,
Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol; 
The noise of battle hurtled in the air, 
Horses did neigh and dying men did groan, 
And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets. 
O Caesar! These things are beyond all use,
And I do fear them.

When Caesar asks the priests to perform a sacrifice to determine what these events augur, they inform him that they could not find a heart among the entrails of the bull they sacrificed. Caesar determines not to leave his house, but is persuaded to do so by Decius, who claims that the omens, including a dream Calpurnia had in which Romans bathed their hands in Caesar's blood, were actually good omens. Caesar's decision to go to the Senate, of course, costs him his life.

What are three examples of omens influencing characters in Julius Caesar?

At the end of Act I, a terrible storm comes up.  Casca and Cicero each believe that the storm foreshadows events surrounding Caesar's impending assassination.  Casca is fearful of a host of strange sightings and believes that these signs prognosticate evil.  Cicero believes that the storm's power mirrors the power of the conspirators.  Cassius is also energized by the storm.

Caesar's wife, Calpurnia has a dream about a statue of her husband that was full of holes that bled profusely.  Fearing evil, she tried to convince Caesar that her dream was a warning for him not to go to the senate that day.  Ceasar even has one of his servants go to the priests to do a sacrifice to see what they have to say about Calpurnia's fears.  When the animal was sacrificed, there was no heart in it... a bad omen indeed.  Caesar even ignores this omen when Decius Brutus re-interprets Calpurnia's dream to have a favorable meaning just to entice Caesar to come to the Senate (and to his doom).

Brutus' conscience conjours up the ghost of Ceasar who tells Brutus that he will see him at Philippi.  Brutus is feeling guilty for his part in the conspiracy and his conscience manifests his guilt in the form of a ghost.  It is at Philippi that Brutus meets his end, so the appearance of the ghost foreshadows his demise.

In Julius Caesar, what is meant by "bad omens"?

Some of the bad omens in Julius Caesar include the thunderstorm, the seer warning Julius Caesar to beware of the ides of March, an earthquake, and strange behavior of animals. 

In Julius Caesar, what is meant by "bad omens"?

Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare is not set in Elizabethan England, but in ancient, pagan Rome, and is based on ancient sources such as Plutarch. In this period, most Romans believed in the existence of a wide variety of gods, goddesses and spirits, each of whom might actively intervene in human lives either in a benevolent or malevolent manner. Because the gods were powerful and capricious it was important to try to know their intentions and what they wished of you. 

The Romans believed that the gods often communicated with humans by sending various signs or signals that they called omens. The study of such communications was called "divination" and came in many different forms. 

First, because the heavens were believed close to the abodes of the gods, astrology was very important and certain astrological signs were considered good or bad omens or signs of the gods' intentions. Also, anything that violated the course of nature, such as a two-headed chicken, animals behaving strangely, major storms, or eclipses could be bad omens. Finally, whenever animals were sacrificed to the gods, an expert haruspex would exam the liver of the animals for good or bad omens.