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. Cassius begins his speech by responding to Brutus, who has just himself responded to the sound of applause that can be heard, honouring Julius Caesar.
There was a common belief that this statue straddled the harbour in Rhodes, although this is almost certainly wrong. And their whole lives are spent not conquering the world as Caesar has done but in merely finding some quiet spot to die, insignificant and forgotten.
Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings. Here we come to one of the most famous lines in Julius Caesar , and perhaps in all of Shakespeare, and an expression which the contemporary US novelist John Green turned on its head for the title of his book The Fault in Our Stars.
Indeed, Julius Caesar is such a man; though it is worth noting that the whole play is about the tension between individual action and preordained destiny. What role did fate play in making his death inevitable, given that the soothsayer clearly had a premonition that that day was fated to be unlucky for him?
Men can be masters of their fate. Why should that name be proclaimed more than yours? Write them together—yours is just as good a name. Pronounce them—it is just as nice to say.
Test your knowledge Take the Act 1, scene ii Quick Quiz. Popular pages: Julius Caesar. Take a Study Break. Original Text. On the bat's back I do fly After summer merrily: Merrily, merrily, shall I live now, Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.
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This poem is in the public domain. Venus and Adonis [But, lo! Imperiously he leaps, he neighs, he bounds, And now his woven girths he breaks asunder; The bearing earth with his hard hoof he wounds, Whose hollow womb resounds like heaven's thunder; The iron bit he crushes 'tween his teeth Controlling what he was controlled with. Now is it Rome indeed and room enough, When there is in it but one only man. O, you and I have heard our fathers say, There was a Brutus once that would have brook'd The eternal devil to keep his state in Rome As easily as a king.
His name might be Cassius, but we'll just call him "the ringleader. The truth is that Cassius hates the way Caesar is running around town acting like a god, and he wants it to stop. So what does he do? Cassius convinces Brutus to join him in getting rid of read: murdering Caesar with an impassioned speech. First, he says his good friend Brutus hasn't seemed very friendly recently. Brutus reassures Cassius that "it's not you, it's me," claiming that he's been preoccupied with some thoughts that he'd rather keep to himself.
Cassius then starts to suggest things that Brutus's own humbleness won't let him acknowledge. Cassius hints that Brutus has a reputation for being a really honorable guy, and that everybody agrees about this except Caesar. As Brutus begins to catch the whiff of treachery in Cassius's talk, Cassius assures Brutus he's being serious about the whole "noble" thing and not just flattering him.
Without saying so, Cassius suggests that a lot of respected Romans think it would be really nice if someone like Brutus led Rome, even though it would mean "disposing" of Caesar.
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