How we do misquote sayings, or misunderstand them when quoted rightly!
For instance, we “wait for something to turn up, like Micawber,”
careless or ignorant of the fact that Micawber worked harder than all
the rest put together for the leading characters' sakes; he was the
chief or only instrument in straightening out of the sadly mixed state
of things--and he held his tongue till the time came. Moreover--and
“_Put a pin in that spot, young man_,” as Dr “Yark” used to say--when
there came a turn in the tide of the affairs of Micawber, he took it at
the flood, and it led on to fortune. He became a hardworking settler, a
pioneer--a respected early citizen and magistrate in this bright young
Commonwealth of ours, my masters!
And, by the way, and strictly between you and me, I have a shrewd
suspicion that Uriah Heep wasn't the only cad in David Copperfield.
Brutus, the originator of the saying, took the tide at the flood, and
it led him and his friends on to death, or--well, perhaps, under the
circumstances, it was all the same to Brutus and his old mate, Cassius.
And this, my masters, brings me home,
Bush-born bard, to Ancient Rome.
And there's little difference in the climate, or the men--save in the
little matter of ironmongery--and no difference at all in the women.
We'll pass over the accident that happened to Caesar. Such accidents had
happened to great and little Caesars hundreds of times before, and have
happened many times since, and will happen until the end of time, both
in “sport” (in plays) and in earnest:
Cassius: ....How many ages hence
Shall this our lofty scene be acted over
In states unborn and accents yet unknown?
Brutus: How many times shall Caesar bleed in sport,
That now at Pompey's basis lies along
No worthier than the dust!
Shakespeare hadn't Australia and George Rignold in his mind's eye when
he wrote that.
Cassius: So oft as that shall be,
So often shall the knot of us be call'd
The men that gave their country liberty.
Well, be that as it will, I'm with Brutus too, irrespective of the
merits of the case. Antony spoke at the funeral, with free and generous
permission, and see what he made of it. And why shouldn't I? and see
what I'll make of it.
Antony, after sending abject and uncalled-for surrender, and grovelling
unasked in the dust to Brutus and his friends as no straight mate should
do for another, dead or alive--and after taking the blood-stained hands
of his alleged friend's murderers--got permission to speak. To speak for
his own ends or that paltry, selfish thing called “revenge,” be it for
one's self or one's friend.
“Brutus, I want a word with you,” whispered Cassius. “Don't let him
speak! You don't know how he might stir up the mob with what he says.”
But Brutus had already given his word:
Antony: That's all I seek:
And am moreover suitor that I may
Produce his body to the market place,
And in the pulpit, as becomes a friend,
Speak in the order of his funeral.
Brutus: You shall, Mark Antony.
And now, strong in his right, as he thinks, and trusting to the honour
of Antony, he only stipulates that he (Brutus) shall go on to the
platform first and explain things; and that Antony shall speak all the
good he can of Caesar, but not abuse Brutus and his friends.
And Antony (mark you) agrees and promises and breaks his promise
immediately afterwards. Maybe he was only gaining time for his good
friend Octavius Caesar, but time gained by such foul means is time lost
through all eternity. Did Mark think of these things years afterwards in
Egypt when he was doubly ruined and doubly betrayed to his good friend
Octavius by that hot, jealous, selfish, shallow, shifty, strumpet,
Cleopatra, and Octavius was after his scalp with a certainty of getting
it? He did--and he spoke of it, too.
Brutus made his speech, a straightforward, manly speech in prose, and
the gist of the matter was that he did what he did (killed Caesar),
not because he loved Caesar less, but because he loved Rome more. And I
believe he told the simple honest truth.
Then he acts as Antony's chairman, or introducer, in a manly
straightforward manner, and then he goes off and leaves the stage to
him, which is another generous act; though it was lucky for Brutus, as
it happened afterwards, that he was out of the way.
Mark Antony gets all the limelight and blank verse. He had the “gift of
the gab” all right. Old Cassius referred to it later on in one of those
“words-before-blows” barneys they had on the battlefield where they hurt
each other a damned sight more with their tongues than they did with
their swords afterwards.
We've all heard of Antony's speech: