Love Is A Beautiful Thing; Then Your Friends Stab You Essay, Research Paper
The word love has thousands of meaning but in the end it can mean only one thing. Now over the years the word love had totally lost it’s meaning, but that’s not important to this essay. We are looking back at a time when love was a word that you didn’t throw around. When love still had meaning. When togas were still in style.
The word love is repeated in many forms throughout the play Julius Caesar. Unlike the way that we use it today, this word had different meanings. Someone saying it did not usually mean sexual feelings towards another, but it meant friendship in its own sick and twisted way. In all seriousness though, this word truly meant something back then. So that is what we’ll be looking at today, the multiple meanings of the word that is love. Grab your togas and join the fun!
Ok first we will be looking into act one. For those of you who didn’t read or just plain forgot what happened here it is in a nutshell. Ok Caesar just killed Pompay and is the over-all ruler of Rome. Some people do not like this and begin to conspire to kill Caesar. Easy enough, right? We see the word love many times in this act but lets check out the basics. Cassius says, “were I a common laughter or did use to stale with ordinary oaths my live to every new protestor” (line 73, Act I, scene II). What he is saying here is that he loves the people willing to protest the rule of Caesar. Now this isn’t “oh I love you marry me now” type of love. This is a feeling of friendship towards the allies who are willing to up and conspire against this man.
Once again in Act I we see the word love amongst the conspirators. “That you do love me, I am nothing jealous; what you would work me to, I have some aim” (Brutus, Act I, Line 162, Scene II). What Brutus is pretty much saying here is that these people do love me and they want me to rule. Cassuis bring up the plot to kill Caesar and then mentions a famous ancestor of Brutus to win him over. Brutus sees that these people do not “love” him as well a lover. They love him as a would-be ruler. They want him to live up to his famous ancestry and once again defeat an “evil”
“By all your vows of love, and that great vow which did incorporate and make us one” (Portia, Act II, line 273, Scene III). Now here we are with real, true love. What Portia is saying to Brutus is, I love you and I want you to be able to trust me with whatever it is that is bugging you. This is when of course Brutus has made up his mind to betray his friend by killing him. He is going to kill Caesar and he’s not feeling to happy about this. Portia wants her husband to be able to trust her, because of the vows of forever that they took on their wedding day.
“Caesar beware of Brutus; take heed of Cassuis; come not near Casca; have an eye to Cinna; trust not Trebonius; mark well Metellus Cimber; Decius; Brutus love thee not…” (Artemidorus, Act II, Scene III, line 1-4). What “Art” is saying here is that Brutus is not a trustworthy friend. He is not someone that you want to be near and someone who is out to do harm to you. He is not the friend that you think him to be. Beware Caesar.
“Mark Antony shall not love Caesar dead so well a Brutus living” (the words of Mark Antony as told to the murders by a servant, Act III, Scene I, line 33). The big moment has come and gone. Caesar is now dead. What Mark is saying here is that, ‘hey Caesars dead. Yeah I looked up to this guy and he was great but he’s dead. I can’t look up to a dead person, then I’d be looking down. Now I have you, Brutus, to look up to. You are the new cool guy.’
“With this I depart, that, as I slew my best lover for the good of Rome” (Brutus, Act III, Scene II, line 45). Brutus just got through telling all the peasants that the death of Caesar was for the good of all of Rome. Now when he says “my best lover” here he’s not saying that something was going on with him and Caesar. What he is saying is that Caesar was his best friend. Caesar was a great guy and a guy that Brutus look up to, but hey, he had to die!
With all that said you cannot help but have a new outlook on the word love. It just makes you really think. When someone is saying ‘I love you’. What do they mean? Just think of Julius Caesar when you hear those three words that could mean nothing, or everything.