Since Brutus failed to heed Portia...

The play revolves around two women though they play but minor parts and who tried to save their husbands; one from being an assassin and the other being assassinated. Both men refused to heed their wives and thus began the story of Julius Caesar, the greatest historical tragedy written by William Shakespeare.

The Bard’s Julius Caesar is different from the real one from Roman history. Many thought him to be the greatest ruler of the ancient era and acted as the king of Rome though he was not. Some of his senators in the Capitol thought him to be foolish and vain and not noble enough. They found him to be a threat which finally led him to his fall.

At the beginning of the play, Shakespeare places Calpurnia and Portia in a bid to save the situation but he also elevates the foolish ego and arrogance of the two men, the two most forceful characters of the play.

Yet Shakespeare was convinced in making Caesar less of a hero than he really was because he had to place Brutus on a pedestal to light up his virtuosity so that the audience would identify his downfall with sympathy as a hero placed in wrong circumstances. Shakespeare revealed how a good and noble man like Brutus could be misled in to inevitable chaos and civil war of his time. As it always happened, the Bard was at crossroads when he was faced at a point of treason and found it painful to untangle the web he had strung because he lived at a time the monarchs lived in fear of treachery. So, he used Calpurnia and Portia as the key figures to demonstrate the evil that would befall on Julius Caesar.

I can recall an incident from history that was almost parallel to this tragedy when it was being performed during Queen Elizabeth’s reign where her trusted favourite, the Earl of Essex was accused of treason against her and like Brutus championed the cause of honour and patriotism. Her subjects were aware that like Brutus, the country could have been plunged into unrest and civil war. But unlike Julius Caesar, Elizabeth I survived at the height of her career because she was less ambitious than Caesar and the rightful heir to the English throne.

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world,

Like a Colossus, and we petty men,

Walk under his huge legs and peep about

To find ourselves dishonourable graves.

Act. 1, Scene. 11

Obviously, this explains how the senators felt about Caesar who has already confined in his young friend, Mark Antony why he dislikes Cassius. Later in the play we find Cassius taking up the role as the initiator of the assassination and convincing Brutus to lead the downfall of Caesar.

Brutus is a troubled man. He walks about in the small hours of the night in his garden brooding over Cassius suggestion to rid Rome of Caesar. Towards morning and at the dawn of the Ides of March, the conspirators meet Brutus. They all agree that Mark Antony should be spared. When the conspirators depart, Portia who had seen the men finds her husband irritable and confused. She is anxious for Brutus and pleads with him to confide in her about his problems. Portia who is angry chides him:

Am I yourself...

But, as it were, in sort of limitation

To keep with you at meals, comfort you bed

And talk to you sometimes...

Act. 11, Scene 1

Portia, daughter to Cato who was a famous statesman is an educated woman who shared and hear about the affairs of the state from her husband and often opinioned her feelings and advice.

When finally Brutus tells her of the plot to kill Caesar, she is deeply disturbed but prays for success. When the enemies appear to be winning, her feelings get the better of her. In desperation, she commits suicide rather than face dishonour.

Calipurnia

The weaker of the two women, Calpurnia has a dream, a nightmare when she sees Caesar’s statue pouring in blood. She begs Caesar not to go to the Capitol. He agrees first but change his mind later. Her influence on Caesar is not as that of Portia as Caesar prepares to leave. He tells her not to be afraid of death. She is a study in fear and anxiety.

Cowards die many times before their deaths;

The valiant never taste of death but once.

Of all the wonders that I yet have heard

It seems to me most strange that men should fear;

Seeing that death, a necessary end,

Will come when it will come...

Act. 11 Scene. 11

Both women, as Shakespeare planned, failed to persuade their husbands not to kill Caesar.

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