Plutarch’s Importance in Interpreting Julius Caesar’s LastWords in Shakespeare

Abstract

One of the historical events of Antiquity most popular in the Western imagination is the murder of Julius Caesar and this is due to the expression “even you, Brutus”, which is commonly understood as the experience of betrayal felt by the Roman dictator. The saying comes from Shakespeare when he attributed, in The Tragedy of Julius Caesar dated of 1599, the last words to his dramatic hero: “Et tu, Brute? Then, fall Caesar”. The aim here is to show, contrary to the common understanding of literary criticism, that Shakespeare reshapes the tradition of Caesar's last words in Greek, kai su téknon (“Even you, my son!”), preserved by Suetonius and Cassius Dio, to dissociate this idea of ​​Brutus' betrayal from Caesar's final dictum, in an attempt to recreate what the Roman statesman could have really felt. Our way to reach this end is to demonstrate that, in addition to the literary aspects that problematize such an understanding in the play, there is a conception in the Shakespearean text that must be studied in the light of the significant topic to its main historical source: how Plutarch, in their Parallel Lives, avoids committing himself to the information that feeds the idea of ​​Brutus's ingratitude. The conclusion highlights Plutarch’s importance for the interpretation of the Shakespearean dictum: first, in understanding why Caesar differentiated Brutus among the conspirators; and second, in understanding which sentiment the dictator could have really felt in his last breath of life.