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catilinaIt's The Anniversary Of Cicero's Death. this is an experiment! i'm gonna write my Thoughts on This Play as i read it. there are gaps in the text there but i have the complete text in "drama of the english republic 1649-60" edited by janet clare.
CAESAR'S GHOST:
So,
Now stubborn Rome, I'll thunder forth they woe.
Caesar must be revenged, and to thy cost.
Alas, thy canst not bribe my wronged ghost
With the vain fiction of thy Julian star.
this is after a whole bunch of omens Very similar to in shakespeare's jc. caesar's ghost opening the play is jc hours, but also similar to sulla's ghost opening catiline his conspiracy! but the cool stuff here is. thunder imagery: yea i just like it. how in all these plays people align themselves with storms for whatever reasons. "were my tongue thunder, i would cry—revenge!" and all that. "caesar must be revenged" reminds me of the play caesar's revenge. the idea of cost/bribes is uhhhhh a jc mood what with all the Imagery Of Price And Value in that play. and of course the julian star: "when beggars die, there are no comets seen", as the kids say!
caesar would
cast a ray
Should light a sun to rule the Roman world
Without a colleague
and uh. you know what sun sounds like. and you know who's gonna be in this play. nice. also in cicero's speech immediately after he says
Methinks in this
I see some gleam of liberty shine forth
and promise to the State a milder sunshine
i think that's neat! also tragic irony that caesar's ghost says "piety [shall] be treason to the state", only for cicero to open his speech with "now ought we to give thanks unto the gods". there are other little ironies and they all hurt me
I DID DEFEND, WHILE BUT A YOUTH, THE STATE;
I WILL NOT, NOW I AM GROWN OLD, FORSAKE IT.
I HAVE CONDEMNED THE SWORDS OF CATILINE;
I WILL NOT NOW FEAR HIS.
this slaps!!! check out that half line!!! yea!
*Laureas voice* A Hog Of Epicure's Fraternity,
LAUREAS:
Give me one shall look
With as severe a countenance as Cato
When he unshackled his Heroic soul.
CICERO:
No more of him, I pray, unless yOu would
Make fountains of my eyes
this is sad!!! i really like how cicero in this play just feels Tired but still responsible for the republic. :(
LAUREAS:
The commonwealth is full of tumours,
And each day repugnant humours
Threaten the downfall of this frame;
Her constitution is too weak
To harbour such guests and not break,
Unless some pitying deity quench the flame.
oh you know!!! oh!!! and of course it's laurea who sings the poem because of his fragments of poetry!
QUINTUS:
Sir, Octavius
Is with an army at the gates.
CICERO:
Octavius?
Why, that's not Hannibal.
OCTAVIUS AD PORTAS.... THIS IS FUNNY.... this is the kind of joke i can actually imagine cicero making
SALVIUS:
I am persuaded Caesar's heart and countenance
Are not correlatives.
THIS SLAPS ACTUALLY.......
ok i think in general it's kinda weird that cicero's freedmen are characters in this play, quintus is here, pomponia is here, and yet. No Atticus. no playwright is audax enough to put him in their play!!! mike poulton even wrote him Out of his play! this is homophobia
Unhappy Rome, did Julius die
For affected tyranny?
And must Antonius inherit
The aims of his ambitious spirit?
"did not great julius bleed for justice' sake?" ambition. "caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge". this is actually so cool..... like what a triple julius caesar reference.... ESPECIALLY with the appearance of caesar's ghost at the start!
CICERO: [about Antony]
Oh, I should
Have seen the very visage and aspect
Of civil war itself.
"poor brutus with himself at war" "his countenance was a civil war itself"
antony as an "archpirate of the state"..... goals
POMPONIA:
As for myself, I'm none of those which waste
Whole mornings in the fruitless contemplation
Of their supposed beauties in a glass.
[...] My ornaments
And jewels are the virtues of my Quintus.
this is so wild to me!!! like first of all, whoever wrote this actually decided to put pomponia in the play. nice. and THEN they wrote her like this!!! like is that a reference to cornelia mater gracchorum? she's cool! why is it that every new piece of reception on cicero that i read makes robert harris' characterisation of women seem worse. like if some dude from 1651 can write women that aren't either "cicero's enemy and therefore a bitch" or "Just Plain Stupid"...... mr harris i would like to have some words
TIRO (TYRO) IS HERE and he's "poring on a fragment of Herodotus" ugh i love him
act 2 scene 2 (which i will not type out because it's Big) from lines 94-119 is like. goose puns that rely on knowledge of 17th century slang. then laurea and philologus try to convince tiro to get drunk
CICERO:
Sure though art deceived:
'Tis meant some ambitious thief, or sword player,
Or some new minted Catiline.
TYRO:
No, my lord;
You are the man.
CICERO:
O heavens, that I who ruined
The counsels of base Catiline, should now
Turn Catiline myself!
OH??? OH???????? this is so wild!!!
i've got to octavian's first speech, which interestingly enough contains this:
CAESAR:
I'll do what Pansa on his deathbed wished me,
Even this, acquaint myself with Antony,
And Lepidus, to whom no doubt he is joined.
like im sorry.... pansa said WHAT,
act 3 scene 3 from line 94 is tiro doing some Historical Exposition through the device of the history he is writing.
TYRO:
Now, as it is the custom of historians,
Let me a little descant on this business.
There is a whispering rumour that Octavius
Slew Hirtius in the tumult of the battle,
And poisoned Pansa at Bononia
[...]
So, now I care not if I go and read
Two or three pages of that liquid volume
Commended to me by my cousin Laureas.
tiro finally taking laurea's advice and, as the stoics say, Getting Smashed. but i do think it's really interesting that tiro has been used as a narrator about cicero since like. 1651 at least!!! fools seldom differ!
note on act 4 scene 2 line 60: "there is a persistent association between the body politics and cicero's body" dare i say..... a body soon to be without a head? he really IS catilina now!
CICERO:
This language melts me into fire and air;
I am sublimed and ready to take flight
In ecstasy from this unwieldy lump.
[...] 'twill make
My soul disdain with earthy mould comply,
and raise her thoughts to immortality
"i am fire and air; my other elements i give to baser life". "i have immortal longings in me". and both cases are in response to the threat of octavian's tyranny!
cicero asks some etruscan haruspices exactly how much rome has gone to shit, and gets the response:
THE ANCIENTEST OF THE SOOTHSAYERS:
Then fathers, hear your dismal fate.
Your freedom shall be lost, your state
Converted to a monarchy,
And all be slaves but only I.
Stops his breath, and falls down dead.
WHICH IS HILARIOUS
QUINTUS:
To the huge volume of Antonius' faults
Add one crime more, even Cicero's death; 'twill stick
Upon his name with a more lasting blot
Than the most heinous of his other villainies.
[...]
Yet, for a period to each glorious sentence,
Some honest standerby shall sighing say,
But he killed Cicero. [...]
Let Antony proscribe thee, let him, Marcus,
Why, he can do it but once, and that's some comfort;
But thou shalt proscribe him unto eternity.
NOW I'M SAD
oh we don't even get cicero's death scene! but we DO get
POPILIUS:
Is this that Cicero's head that thundered so
In our tribunals? Ha! Is this that mouth
Was wont to spit such lightning?
and like. you know.
LAUREAS:
Come, Tyrio, since our day is set forever,
We'll live like owls, those citizens of night.
Like owls indeed, but like Athenian owls;
Thou shalt sublime thy pen, and write the life
Of our deceased lord, that spotless life,
Which virtue's self might make her meditation.
Tyro, thou shalt, and I, poor Laureas, I
Will sit and sigh forth mourning elegies
Upon his death.
this is. i am still shocked by how much detail the author of this went into about the lives of cicero's household!!! like wow you really found laurea's two epigrams from the palatine anthology? huh!!! but still no atticus!
the play has a.... weird ending. pomponia drags philologus off to cut him up until he dies. a soldier shows up to tell antony than another proscribed person has escaped and antony's like nah it's chill now that cicero is dead. and then that's the end!
(started reading ~6pm, finished 10:41pm)
