by David Blixt
No?
CAESAR
Far too fatalistic. ‘The die is cast.’ I was quoting Menander. Anerriphtho kubos. ‘Let the dice fly high!’ I embrace risk.
BRUTUS
While I resign myself to fate. I want this over. What the Ides of March started, tomorrow will finish. End. Complete. (beat) What is death like?
CAESAR
Restless. Frustrating. Above all, surprising. I never subscribed to an Underworld or Elysium. I expected, if not peace, then a vast nothingness. I believed that the end of life was the end of existence.
BRUTUS
Apparently you were mistaken.
CAESAR
Apparently. What about you?
BRUTUS
What about me?
CAESAR
Was my death what you thought it would be?
BRUTUS
---No.
CAESAR
You thought that with me dead, everything would return to what they used to be. Back to normal. The scales balanced.
BRUTUS nods.
CAESAR
And now it’s chaos.
BRUTUS
You warned me as much. But then you always had the power to foresee consequences. Can you still? Can you tell me what will happen tomorrow?
CAESAR
(whispering portentiously) There will be a battle. Men will die.
BRUTUS
(sourly) Very helpful.
CAESAR spreads his hands apologetically.
BRUTUS
Can you see the outcome? The fate of Rome?
CAESAR
Rome? Rome will endure, Rome will fall, only to rise again in another nation, another age. Rome is an ideal, Brutus. You know that better than any man. Rome will endure as long as men have the will to die for an idea.
BRUTUS
What idea?
CAESAR
You tell me. It was for that idea that I was sacrificed.
BRUTUS
Sacrificed?
CAESAR
Sacre fice - to make holy. I understand I’m now a god of the Roman pantheon. I’m fairly certain I don’t approve.
BRUTUS
You were worshipped in life. You’re surprised that death made you a martyr? (sotto voce) People keep dying.
CAESAR
(darkly amused) Did you think my death would end all earthly cares? Death gives life meaning. Without it, we would all be gods and our existence would be a series of pointless bickerings and liasons.
BRUTUS
Aren’t they that already? (irritably) Can’t you sit down?
CAESAR
Forgive me. I am - rest less.
BRUTUS
Do you visit anyone else? Dole out vague warnings and expert military advice?
CAESAR
No one else has need of me.
BRUTUS
Need of you? I thought you were here to murder me. My evil spirit.
CAESAR
Perhaps I am. The villain of your life, you said.
BRUTUS
My wife is dead.
CAESAR
---I’m sorry.
BRUTUS
I have a letter here. From my mother.
CAESAR
I can’t imagine she broke the news kindly.
BRUTUS
(laughing) No. Not kindly at all. She says that Portia had been growing frantic ever since I came East. When no one was looking, she swallowed hot coals.
CAESAR
Shades of Crassus! Brutus--
BRUTUS
It isn’t true. It can’t be true. When the Parthians poured molten gold down Crassus’ throat, they used a special device - a tube, wasn’t it?
CAESAR
Yes.
BRUTUS
Because the human body can’t swallow fire. Physically, it can’t. No, I know what happened. She knows my fears. An airless death… Unable to punish me directly for killing you, my loving mother forced those burning coals down Portia’s throat.
CAESAR
That sounds - just like Servilia.
BRUTUS
My fault. Unintended consequences. I don’t think I loved her. I married her in some feeble show of defiance. I exepcted you to lash out. But it was my mother who made me pay. We live in horrible times. (considers) Is that true? Or are the times always horrible, and I’ve just never noticed?
CAESAR
Men are men. We are capable of great beauty. But it is far easier to destroy.
BRUTUS
I’m not out to destroy anything! I thought I was putting things right! (puts his head in his hands) Such a fool. They were all lying. Cassius, Trebonius, Casca - said it was for honor, for the Republic. Lies.
CAESAR
Politics.
BRUTUS
Cicero’s brother - he published a pamphlet on getting elected, advising candidates to promise lavishly, promise anything to anyone. Far better to break a promise, he said, than to tell them the truth from the start. A very successful political strategy, as it turns out. Such a fool! ‘We must restore the Republic,’ they said. I listened to their words, never hearing their greed, their envy, their anger. Did you die for revenge? For personal gain? Did we strike down the greatest man in the world for something so petty as money?
CAESAR
Do motives matter?
BRUTUS
Of course motives matter! Motive is the heart of--
CAESAR
A man on trial can justify his actions, prove his motives were pure. But no matter what he says, the deed exists.
BRUTUS
You always justified your actions.
CAESAR
Which didn’t change them. Just made them easier to live with.
BRUTUS
Maybe that’s their comfort - they can say they did it for liberty and justice. But somehow I’m not comforted.
CAESAR
You are honest.
BRUTUS
Does that doom me? Must I die for honesty?
CAESAR
That depends on if Truth is worth dying for.
BRUTUS
In the abstract, of course, yes. But when faced with it…
CAESAR
Death is not an abstraction. Death is very real.
BRUTUS
I don’t want to die with my work unfinished.
CAESAR
When you die, your work is finished.
BRUTUS
If that’s true, why are you here? Isn’t this unfinished business? Why are you here?!
CAESAR is silent for a moment. Then he picks up a book.
CAESAR
Cicero? What is this?
BRUTUS
A gift from young Marcus. All his father’s speeches against Antony after - after the Ides. He called them his Philipics--
CAESAR
After Demosthenes. Amusing. Philipics at Philipi. (sighs) Poor Cicero. So scared, yet so clever. That golden tongue of his was both gift and curse - he always let it run away with him.
BRUTUS
Antony cut out that golden tongue. And the hands that wrote those words. Free speech is dead. (shaking his head) When did it go wrong? When did we stop being the people we say we are? When did that happen? Was it cheap bread to the masses? Was it the provinces? The standing armies? When did we lose our way? When did we stop being the people we claim to be, want to be - believe ourselves to be?
CAESAR
You know my answer.
BRUTUS
When we stopped believing in the Law.
CAESAR
A legal system only works so long as all men agree to it. When those charged with making the laws hold them in contempt, it is chaos. I saw it coming, so I acted.
BRUTUS
And in so doing, broke the law.
CAESAR
If motives matter, condemn my deed, but not the motive.
BRUTUS
You said once that Rome is the deeds of Romans. I condemned you for fighting injustice with more in
justice. You crossed a river. I murdered a man. How am I different?
CAESAR
You did as your honor demanded.
BRUTUS
My honor! None of the others thought of their honor. And the worst part? They were right! I should have killed Antony. Probably Octavian and Lepidus too. If I’d been just a little more practical, we might not be here tonight.
CAESAR
You are a dreamer.
BRUTUS
Brutus’ Dream.
CAESAR
You saw the cynics and practical men as you saw yourself.
BRUTUS
Did I? Or was I just eager to cloak my deeds in their words? They wanted you dead for envy, jealousy, revenge. Were my motives any better?
CAESAR
Do motives matter?
BRUTUS
When I struck I wasn’t thinking of honor or kings or my great ancestor. The gods forgive me, I was thinking of my mother, of my sister, of the humiliation. Of your arrogance, pardoning men as though you were a god already. I was thinking of all the hundred wrongs you’d done me through my life. The wreckage my life had become. All because of you.
CAESAR
You were thinking of Julia.
BRUTUS
That, above all! You’re the one famous for clemency, Caesar. Not me! I don’t forgive you, not for that! You stole her--
CAESAR
Brutus, she never--
BRUTUS
She could have learned to love me!
CAESAR advances towards BRUTUS, hand outstretched. BRUTUS recoils.
BRUTUS
Stay back!
CAESAR stills. BRUTUS weeps.
CAESAR
She could have, yes. She was the perfect Roman woman. She knew her duty towards her husband. But you would never have known if she loved you for you, or because I told her to.
BRUTUS sags.
CAESAR
I had no idea how much you hated me. It seems so clear now. When I crossed the Rubicon, you joined with Pompey, the very man who not only killed your father, but also married your great love. I thought you did it because you believed in the cause. Now I see it was personal.
BRUTUS
Everything is personal.
CAESAR
Would it comfort you to know that my death was not the cause of this war?
BRUTUS
What?
CAESAR
Rather I should say, this war would have happened regardless. Alive or dead, there would have been war. Antony’s ambition is too great. Had I lived, he would have risen against me. Perhaps you would have joined him. Cassius, certainly. When the battles were done, they would have turned on each other. The result is the same.
BRUTUS
It’s not the same. I’m not the same. It doesn’t matter about the war - I mean, it does, but-- I’m different. Me. I murdered a man. Not just any man, but the greatest Roman that ever lived.
CAESAR
Brutus--
BRUTUS
Let’s not fool ourselves. You tower over Rome like a god. Cassius called you a Colossus, with the rest of us peeping out from between your feet. You’re a once in a lifetime mind - a hundred lifetimes. A Wonder of the World.
CAESAR
The Colossus of Rhodes fell. Feet of clay.
BRUTUS
Oh, you were flawed, Caesar. But that doesn’t change who you were. You say the war would have come anyway. Is that supposed to be a comfort? If that’s true, then our actions are meaningless. That means this stain on my soul is pointless. (beat) I’m so tired. Is endurance really a virtue? (with a half-smile) I wonder, will my shade come back to haunt Antony in his final hour?
CAESAR
You don’t love Antony.
BRUTUS
Are you saying you love me?
CAESAR
As much as I love Roma herself.
BRUTUS
And isn’t that a glowing testament of affection! Civil war, the government shattered, countless lives ruined! Oh, please, Caesar, do not love Rome so dear. Rome cannot endue any more of your love. Nor can I. Go. Leave me, spirit.
CAESAR
As you wish.
CAESAR starts to exit.
BRUTUS
(startled) That’s it? I say go and you go?
CAESAR is silent.
BRUTUS
Will I see you again?
CAESAR
This is the last time we shall speak, you and I.
BRUTUS
Not quite what I asked. (beat) I understand, now. How it felt. Crossing the Rubicon.
CAESAR
Yes, I imagine it was much the same. Steeling your will to what must be done, while--
BRUTUS
While regretting the necessity. (touches his breast) I felt what you were talking about. That broken piece inside. Such a little thing, taking a life. And yet monumental. A greater crime by far than crossing a river.
CAESAR
A death is a death, be it the death of a man or a death of a dream.
BRUTUS
Brutus’ Dream. That’s certainly dead. In the space of a single generation, we’ve wrecked it.
CAESAR
(sardonically) Well, we did have help… Perhaps we shattered the Republic. But, Brutus, as we sit here in the horrendous aftermath of our lives, you must admit that it was cracked and leaking before we came along.
BRUTUS
My life is not over!
CAESAR
Of course not. Not until you are finished with it.
BRUTUS looks sharply at CAESAR.
BRUTUS
Now we come to it. That’s why you’re here. You know what I’m thinking - you always know.
CAESAR
I may have misjudged your thoughts once or twice.
BRUTUS
(unwilling to be diverted) Ending a life - so simple, so huge. Antony’s question on the eve of the Ides. I didn’t have an answer then. I still don’t. How does Brutus die?
CAESAR
If you win tomorrow, you shall die an old man, surrounded by friends, just the way Lepidus wished for us all.
BRUTUS
Pretty to think so. I have an ill-divining spirit. If, as seems likely, we lose, what do I do? Run, like Pompey did? No. I’m not such a coward. How does Brutus die? Go to Rome in chains and be thrown from the Tarpean Rock? Die like Cato, hard and chin up?
CAESAR
You see why I spared you that tale.
BRUTUS
Protecting me was never your job. You are not my father.
CAESAR
You approve, then, of Cato’s death?
BRUTUS
I’m as horrified as I am disgusted. Zeno calls suicide a Right Act. A man’s ultimate power, choosing to end one’s own life. But it seems wrong.
CAESAR
So don’t do it. Find a stout enemy sword and die upon it instead. Nothing simpler.
BRUTUS
That’s no better! Tantamount to the same thing, only it puts my death on another man’s soul. Oh, how does a Brutus die?
CAESAR
What does it matter, so long as it’s quick.
BRUTUS
It matters, Caesar. If not to the dead, then certainly it does to the living. Your death turned you into a martyr.
CAESAR
A martyr to what?
BRUTUS
I had hoped, to democracy. To the Republic. But it didn’t turn out that way.
CAESAR
No. Because you failed to heed your own advice. Democracy cannot be imposed. That’s as true for Brutus as it is for Caesar. True democracy starts at the heart of a society - with the Plebs, the common man. Why do you think I tried so hard to provide for them?
BRUTUS
To gain their love.
CAESAR
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. No, Brutus. I worked for them because if they are prosperous, so is Roma. Neglecting them is doom - something the Senate forgets to their peril. I provided for the
Plebs to preserve Rome. That they loved me for it was gratifying, but was not the cause.
BRUTUS
They burned down half of Rome with your funeral. By murdering you at the height of your power, I gave you immortality. If the gods struck men dead with irony, we’d be shades together. I doubt I’ll be made a god after my death. You were a god among men. I, a man among gods.
CAESAR
Apt. I never sought worship, you know. Merely respect. Those who can should be allowed to do.
BRUTUS
Now who’s the dreamer? In what world did you live? Men’s egos are as fragile as Aegyptian glass. You shattered men’s pride, seduced their wives, upended their laws, defeated their armies. You expected to win their forgiveness too?
CAESAR
Theirs? I suppose not.
BRUTUS
What am I doing? You’re not even here. The night before the battle, and I’ve lost my wits--
CAESAR
You are not mad, Brutus. For all our fury, we are not mad.
BRUTUS
Fury?
CAESAR
We are pursued, you and I, by the Furies. The Kindly Ones. The gods’ revenge for killing those we love.
BRUTUS
If you’ve come to kill me, do it! No matter who wins tomorrow, Rome cannot survive. Like you, too many blows have been struck to its heart.
CAESAR
I wish you weren’t so determined to condemn yourself. It makes for tedious conversation. And this from someone starved for talk.
BRUTUS
Don’t you see other shades?
CAESAR
From time to time. But I’ve not been able to speak to them. They open their mouths, sometimes, and I hear - something. It’s very like music. But no words, no thoughts. If I address them, they simply shake their heads and move on.
BRUTUS
Something to look forward to.
CAESAR
I am not used to such indifference. Anonymity is not for me. Better reviled than forgotten.
BRUTUS
So you would have taken the crown.
CAESAR
I told you, Rex is a word. To be myself was far more than king. King is a title little men give themselves to show their power. Poor Gnaeus Pompeius was the embodiment of what I speak.
BRUTUS
Pompey never called himself king. He wouldn’t have dared.
CAESAR
Indeed not! But what was his name? Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus. The Great. A name given to himself, by himself. So deeply insecure, his own name would never suffice. Instead, like a child dressed in an adult’s toga, he gave himself a magnificent title. But there are names that ring out down the ages louder than Rex or Magnus. Pericles. Alexander. Hannibal. Achilles. Hector.
BRUTUS
Caesar.
CAESAR
