SHAKESPEARE FOR BEGINNERS: JULIUS CAESAR (IV)

Two crucial issues in the play: ambition and demagogy.

SHAKESPEARE FOR BEGINNERS: JULIUS CAESAR (III)

Main female characters: Portia and Calpurnia.

SHAKESPEARE FOR BEGINNERS:JULIUS CAESAR (II)

Main male characters of the play : Brutus, Cassius , Caesar and Antony.

SHAKESPEARE FOR BEGINNERS: JULIUS CAESAR (I)

 

 

This is the first of a series of videos on Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. In this first chapter we analyse the historical background of the story

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EPILOGUE

EPILOGUE

Calpurnia gave birth to a baby-boy on an undated day, possibly between that year’s Saturnalia and Anna Perenna’s feast .She sent that son of hers to Gades so that he should be brought up there, far from Antonius and Octavius’ interests. Once grown up, he returned to Rome. His wisdom, intense eerie appeal.... and those eyes in which transparent blue could become silvery drove him to seduce Julia, Augustus’ own daughter, who included him among her favourite lovers. They had a daughter who, thanks to her mother’s insistence, was fostered by would-be Emperor Tiberius. When she became an adult woman, she unpredictably fell in love with a common plebeian eques, who, thanks to his privileged marriage, had the chance of becoming the Governor of Judea. Like her grandmother almost eighty years before, this noble matron, whose name was Claudia Procula, did not succeed in convincing her husband, Pontius Pilatus, of the seriousness of the prophetic dream that she had had the night before and in which misfortune would be unlashed all over Judea and the whole world due to an honest man who had been sentenced to death...

FINIS

                    Gades, Ante Diem XIV Kalendas October MMDCCLVIII a.u.c.

CHAPTER LI

                                                                           LI

I spent the day after the Ides in long periods of sleep, among which Cornelia continuously gave me her brewings. The following morning I knew that Antonius and Lepidus had called the Senate to meet up and discuss about the convenience of forgiving the….Plotters. I felt adamant to call them assassins. Just as I rebelled against the fact that that being who – I would rather say which –was lying in the Vestals’ house, reduced to an unrecognizable despoil, had been you. Notwithstanding all this, I could not stop thinking about Portia….

–Yes, Calpurnia…Who knows if, definitely, it is…Cato’s spirit who has handled his son-in-law in this plot… Which role could Portia have played?

Cornelia had taken advantage of the fact that Marcia was not around, so that she could comfort me …. And be sincere to me. I then knew that I had to speak out to her in spite of my prostration.

–Kornel … Here….Before Caesar….

Her look had lost her usual firmness.

–It must have been a desperate decision that he had to take when he saw Decimus Brutus come in… Didn’t you know that he devoted himself to watching over Domus Publica since he learnt about the Senate’s extraordinary summon on the Ides? He asked me to provide him with a group of armed man in order to protect him. Of course, since you have stayed here all the time, you can’t have noticed all that strange stir around Porticus Margaritariae which was aroused by this man, looking like a noble Roman and dressed as an aruspex, hanging around, surrounded by his serfs, even very late at night… Yesterday he also spent all the day sleeping with the help of brewings, as a complement of all those techniques he uses to harmonize both his mental and bodily balance. He’s not the kind of man who externalizes his feelings… But I know how he must have felt. In spite of the distance, he had always been hanging on….your husband, partly because this man so much reminded him of himself, though he was convinced that there were many Mariuses inside Caesar, and also due to his being Aurelia’s son… No, she never aroused any suspicions since, as you know, all Iulii are and have been like Gaius and have had the same bright slender beauty. And I also know that, in spite of returning to his usual life at the temple of Venus-Astarte, things won’t be the same for him… Don’t worry; he won’t forget to say goodbye to you. Something you must do from now on is to start thinking about how to channel your life in the near future. The next Pontifex Maximus will need Domus Publica ….I imagine that…the Egyptian…won’t take long to go back to Egypt. No doubt she must be frightened right now… The house and gardens are superb, you know. Far from Palatine Hill, though. But you can also stay in my place as long as you wish…

I knew that she was sincere. But… living with Kornel’s presence around whenever he came to Rome? Not to mention Cornelia’s fondness of young well-built slaves… I dropped my head on her lap, silent, unable to go on thinking… Yes, perhaps it was true that all of this had not been a wicked plot that Kornel and she had schemed, as you had made me believe. “…He intended me to go on owing him my life and glory till my old age…” He could only get himself a victory over me by depriving me of what’s most precious for me as a man, my trust in an unblemished wife, the most virtuous one of all Roman patricians” Might these have been your last thoughts? How right could you have really been?

–Yes, Calpurnia. –Marcia had just arrived. –Your father is going to take charge of…all. Remember that’s a paterfamilias’ task, but… well, you know .On the other hand, there’s something that…. worries me. You know that it should correspond to him to give the funeral speech. But this will be done by… Antonius! Calpurnia!! How on earth is your father able to yield to whatever thing imposed by that….

–…That fellow who, unlike what should be expected, was not in Curia Pompeiana when everything happened. He certainly owes us some explanation about all this dealing with your husband’s murderers!

–You know that politics and the safety of Rome frequently demand this of him.

–Calpurnia!!!

They both watched me in awe.

– It’s your husband who has been killed! There should not be any room in your heart for any pitiful understanding on this issue at all!

–How couldn’t I realize it? –After so many days’ languor, my voice sounded tense again. – Aren’t you aware of what you’re both hinting at…?.

–What most Roman senators imagine and we don’t dare saying aloud. Who can trust a consul who, being the Dictator’s representative in Rome, takes advantage of it by setting up a wandering circus with elephants, prostitutes, acrobats, fortune-tellers… that he exhibits all around Italy?.

–Fortunately, Caesar reacted on time and dismissed him from his position as his magister militum.

–Quite predictable of him… Can you expect any other response to such a humiliation coming from Clodii’s accomplice?

They both stayed with me and Atia on the stand that had been appointed in the Forum

for the female relatives who would attend the funeral rite. Before that, my family had read your will. As you had told me, youth Octavius had been chosen as your successor

and, besides, there were other heirs such as that unmentionable Decimus Brutus…But why? Was this the way you rewarded fifteen years’ cloistered loyalty? I was not mentioned at all… You obviously relied on my father’s wealth. I felt some kind of sterile relief when I saw that both the Egyptian and your offspring had also been excluded. Besides, I learnt that I would not be sent to the domus on the other riverbank: like your gardens, it had become a public place, thanks to your bountiful donation to Roman people, which also included the fact of guaranteeing each Roman an amount of wheat and a pension which would provide a living for so many parasites who have always hung around Rome, protected by the Senate and their tribunes….

–Gods… my child… My heart was slowly going into pieces as I kept reading it. That’s how your virtue has been paid for… I would never have expected that…. The most painful thing is that neither of us is mentioned in the whole will… Anyway, you know that I will make sure that you may have everything you need. If you like, you can come home or even Herculaneum … or Pompeii, if you wish so.

The musicians were approaching. Their fifes invaded the massive silence around the Forum…. Everybody knew that this was a historical day, specially so many war veterans among whom I could make out an amazing number of swollen faces, reddened with crying… and all those Jews from Subura, as so many other individuals belonging to many different races who may also be Suburans, former neighbours of yours… Then the procession of the imagines came along. They were the Iulii who have preceded you: your father, uncles and aunts, grandmother, cousins… wax faces, so like one another, rhythmically going onwards…Aurelia….What would she have thought… when meeting back that wax ghost who had been her husband, he that had possibly made her shake with passion, and then her own work, her son, statue-like, rigid, with that strangely rebuilt face…. How did they manage to achieve it? Solemnly upright, cushioned on that ivory lectus which was to be laid inside that copy of the temple of Venus which had been erected in front of the rostra .This was the first time that I could see you after the Ides’ morning .Unlike what should be expected, I did not feel any kind of tearing pain or violent shock. I just experienced curiosity and some profound amazement to see myself watching you impassively, as if you were one more funeral mask, but, nevertheless, feeling that icy grey look which did not exist anymore, questioning me, reminding me that Cleopatra had more dignity than I… You had been dressed with the Pontifex Maximus’ toga. Up above, the cold wind stirred the dry blood-drenched remnants of the attire which you were wearing that day when you reminded me my weakness. Maybe you kept on brooding over your frustration, even at the very moment that you collapsed, bleeding yourself away, becoming a lifeless drained carcass.

Finally the glorious moment came for… what could I say about Antonius by now? Your former magister equitum and cousin Lucius’ nephew put on his usual grief-looking face, mounted on the stairs leading to the rostra with grave bearing, slightly stooped… Something quite predictable of someone who is a close friend of actors and acrobats. His voice, which I had never heard publicly before, thundered, keeping fitful pauses to catch the attention of that serenely grief-stricken crowd. The oratio unfolded quite in Antonius’ line, according to some kind of double-dealing, perhaps the same game that he used to play during Senate meetings, considering the plotters’ honour and his doubts about whether you had been a real tyrant or a benefactor. As you can imagine, he did not forget to announce them that you had included Roman people in your will and how generous you had shown yourself to them. –“In fact it’s no more that what each of his legionaries is usually paid after a war campaign “, my father had cleared out. –For the first time in my life, I really started admiring Antonius’ peerless skill…Mainly when, just after finishing his speech, he began to go down the stairs slowly, aware of the tangible effect that his words had made on that human tide…

It was then when he suddenly uttered a shriek which startled even those of us who knew him and fell on the funeral lectus, sobbing like a mourner, shaking convulsively on your purple and crimson toga… All of us, including Atia, looked at each other, both puzzled and embarrassed… According to what we could understand, he seemed to lament that injustice which you had suffered before the dead eyes of all your wax-reincarnated ancestry, consciously swept by his hysteria, which drove the musicians to play their fifes louder and louder, just like accomplices of that histrionic performer who had succeeded in catching everyone’s attention…. A yell beyond human nature, coming not only from me but also from the whole crowd, smothered his performance .I felt my friends’ hands firmly hold me while I was trying to look down and avoid watching what was happening. There you stood: alive again, mechanical, spinning around after Antonius had taken your toga off and, almost with fruition, started to point at each of the twenty-three bloody cracks which had been marked all over your body, still beautiful despite your deadly paleness…

–Gods… I could not imagine this… that he could be so ignominious. Not even from his could I have expected it… Poor Calpurnia….

Marcia’s voice buzzed in my ears… Was yours that eerie, grey-blue, piercing look… That which I made out in the crowd on the other side of the rostra, coming from that ivory face, surrounded by red-golden braids….? Some violent roaring swarm hid the vision that I had before my eyes, followed by a turmoil which was alien to the fifes and Antonius’ shrieks.

-They are destroying the benches and platform! Look, Calpurnia…They intend to burn

it up instead of taking it to Campus Martius !

Yes, I had noticed some huge blazing torches that soon turned into some warm horrible-smelling crackle. Immediately afterward, a forest of flames rose up beyond the temples and all of Rome… I would have stayed there, motionless, if I had not been hastily flown away, with no time to send for my litter. We had to rush to Domus Publica, the only safe place in town that evening… It was then when I grew really aware of what had happened. Your existence had come to an end and I should start to bid my farewell to my life in Domus Publica. Then, I had to say goodbye to the peristylium which Aurelia had filled with trees, over which her hand still seemed to veil, to the triclinium where, several times every week, I had shared my dinner with Cornelia, Marcia…and Portia, to the cubiculum in which I had enjoyed the man who had woken up my body not even one hundred nights… Yes, now that my woe could finally flow throughout my body and I did not mind the traces that it could leave in my health, I could eventually behold my real destiny and felt ashamed of so many years’ aspirations, striving to get an identity which could save me from all of this that stood before me, as ruthless as that night’s flames, which, once having eaten away your body, were swinging in a ritual dance, as if it were part of the funeral ceremony, trying to beg divine clemency on you …

–Calpurnia…. He has come with me.

Cornelia had just returned from her house. Both Marcia and she had decided to spend the night with me. There, in the dark of the room, I made out the cat-like sparkle of those transparent eyes… As it was usual of him, he walked on in silence, as if barefooted.

–Calpurnia… My little one….

I know he was about to hold me but he restrained himself.

– I had to do it…. However, it seems that we can’t escape from what is destined to us. I had heard something about a likely conspiracy but I didn’t want to worry you. Besides, I didn’t know who were involved in it… No, I would have never imagined that Brutus might let himself be convinced by those graffiti…. I think that Cato’s spirit has really won… Why are you looking so surprised, Calpurnia? Beyond this physical life there are plots that we don’t know. Don’t discard your fear that Portia and her husband are no more than simple instruments… I have come not only to show you my affection but also to go with you two if you want to fetch…well, you know. Your father has gone to get himself some rest after all these sleepless days and nights, having to arrange it all.

I had to accept his offering, though I rebelled against the idea of having a fistful of singed bones and undefined ashes in my hands. No, I could not accept it…. We left in Cornelia’s litter at dawn. I watched twilight-tinged Roman sky and air, coloured like those gems....Some sort of creak shook that intangible part of my inner self which was about to crack. In front of the rostra there was only a heap of still smoking ashes.

–The rabble has spent all the night here. Therefore, as you can imagine, they have taken it all. It’s been really mad-like… Even many matrons’ jewels and their children’s bullae. All of them, melted as an oblation to beg divine Julius’ protection… But this wasn’t the only reason why I have made you leave Domus Publica.

The litter turned back up on Palatine Hill. Once we had arrived at the entrance of Cornelia’s domus, we got off and went through the atrium towards the tablinium, just in front of the altar where the imagines of Gens Cornelia’s Sullan branch are kept. As the day before during the funeral ceremony, my friend held me to prevent me from fainting. You were lying there, on a tortoiseshell lectus with purple cushions on it, neatly dressed with your toga trabea. I could even feel those clear piercing eyes under your closed eyelids and scrutinized your wax-like face… But the utter lack of the scarce hair that you still had that fateful morning and your flawless-chiselled features, which had no traces of having been ruthlessly massacred, made me watch you more closely.

– Quite a cunning trick, so predictable of such a schemer as Antonius is… Having a life –size wax articulated effigy devised. Fortunately, I found a place next to the rostra so that I could rescue it just immediately before the pyre started to burn…. No, I don’t think that Antonius, being so enraptured by his own speech, would be aware that his invention had vanished amidst all that uproar, hidden behind all those wooden pieces heaped up in front of the funeral lectus…Nevertheless, having been responsible for the arrangement of the funeral ceremony, your father ought to have foreseen all this….

I am sure that, deep down inside, he knew the reasons why Lucius Calpurnius had not told me anything about this.

–My initial intention was to keep it to myself so that it could be taken to where I know Caesar would have liked to have it, inside the temple of Venus Marina, his patroness, in his favourite town in Hispania… But, first of all, I had to ask you for permission just in case you wished to keep it…

I deeply watched those large-striped folds which hid the vigorous hands that twinned those who had caressed me so occasionally, those angular cheekbones, that sharpened nose…No more aged or worn-out due to campaigning and endless exposure to broad sunlight….

–Cornelia… You have offered me to stay in your home until I can get myself a new domus …

Cornelia looked at me, heartily assenting.

–May I…how could I say it… enjoy its company until Kornel decides to ship it away….? On which exact spot would you put it…?

– Inside the deepest cave, next to his mother Venus, that which was carved with the flashes of several kinds of gems and looks like having been begotten by twilight beams within the sea waves that caress the stairs of the temple… Calpurnia… You mustn’t forget that initiating process you have gone through during all these years and everything you have achieved, something that has never been bestowed on any priestess, no matter how long she might have served her deities….That capacity of yours to let you inner self flow and merge into other forces… Your nature is so like mine, even though half your blood belongs to such a speculator as Lucius Calpurnius Piso is. You’ve got a duty to the life energy that feeds the world … I’m not asking you to cloister yourself away from Rome and your people forever. I just insist that you have the right to devote seasons, maybe in springtime and summer, the time in which sailing away is advisable, to grow and develop that wisdom I know you treasure inside, beyond simple ointments that might have been useful for you in some given circumstances of your nearest past. Only there you’ll be able to thoroughly study how to heal body and mind through the different light shades of each gem… This will lead you to deepen into the knowledge of everything you have been given by your ancestors, the most sublime ones, those who enlightened Tyrrhenians and the inhabitants of Gaul and Britannia… and even those wise men from our oriental provinces and even the lands beyond the Danubius river, still alien to Rome. Do not dismiss it, Calpurnia…You’re bound to learn about your heart rhythms, the beating of that ethereal force you’ve got inside and that potential capacity to generate life… Who knows if your barrenness has only been due to your ignorance about how to channel that force, something that so many years’ limitations forbade you to correct. Calpurnia, now it’s time for you to open yourself to life though these days have been really fateful… Remember we have just celebrated Anna Perenna’s festivity…

I kept staring at the three of them –your effigy, Kornel and Cornelia – for a long while....

And here I am, finally ending this huge epistola that I decided to start writing that day in front of your effigy. First, in Cornelia’s tablinium, then, while sailing towards Gades and, whenever I could do it, in those months that I spent in the temple of Venus Marina....

perhaps driven by your spirit, which might now be trying to penetrate into my inner self, that which you could not possess after so many years’ lifeless marriage and which would have made you blame Kornel for having deprived you of it, even while you were bleeding to death? Yes... who knows if this may be your subtle force, flowing from that place where you might be dwelling , aiming at taking back something that you used to consider legitimately yours, spilling through these silent words... I must silence my voice right now, when my womb is brimming with life. I am not Calpurnia Caesaris any more, though I’m making myself ready to return to Rome and temporarily share a small domus with Marcia on Palatine Hill, next to my father’s. It is now when a new life is about to open up and I have the responsibility to channel it, teaching it all that I have learnt in such a way that it might not be at odds with Roman patrician world.

I have begged Kornel not to remove these manuscripts off your lap. Fortunately, who shaped you hands –so firm and slender –made sure that they were skilfully articulated, so as to properly grip the case containing them. Do not worry about the seal: it is yours, the same one that I used on those scarce occasions when I wrote to you. I managed to save it from Antonius’ claws.

It will be strange not to look at your face in such a long time... Anyway, it will not be longer than when you were alive....

Farewell, my lord...Do enjoy being worshipped by those who also venerate your ancestor, that who was born out of the sea foam, in the town which you loved most apart from Rome

                                                   Calpurnia Pisonis Caesonina

                        

                             October, the year in which Gaius Iulius Caesar became Divus Iulius