Julius Caesar (AQA GCSE English Literature): Exam Questions

They stab Caesar 

CAESAR 

Et tu, Brute? – Then fall, Caesar! 

Dies 

CINNA 

Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead! 

Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets. 

CASSIUS 

Some to the common pulpits, and cry out, 

‘Liberty, freedom, and enfranchisement!’ 

BRUTUS 

People and senators, be not affrighted, 

Fly not, stand still! Ambition’s debt is paid. 

CASCA 

Go to the pulpit, Brutus. 

DECIUS 

And Cassius too. 

BRUTUS 

Where’s Publius? 

CINNA 

Here, quite confounded with this mutiny. 

METELLUS 

Stand fast together lest some friend of Caesar’s 

Should chance – 

BRUTUS 

Talk not of standing. Publius, good cheer, 

There is no harm intended to your person, 

Nor to no Roman else. So tell them, Publius. 

CASSIUS 

And leave us, Publius, lest that the people, 

Rushing on us, should do your age some mischief. 

BRUTUS 

Do so, and let no man abide this deed 

But we the doers.

CASSIUS 

The torrent roared, and we did buffet it 

With lusty sinews, throwing it aside 

And stemming it with hearts of controversy. 

But ere we could arrive the point proposed, 

Caesar cried, ‘Help me, Cassius, or I sink!’ 

Ay, as Aeneas, our great ancestor, 

Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder 

The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber 

Did I the tired Caesar. And this man 

Is now become a god, and Cassius is 

A wretched creature and must bend his body 

If Caesar carelessly but nod on him. 

He had a fever when he was in Spain, 

And when the fit was on him I did mark 

How he did shake. ’Tis true, this god did shake, 

His coward lips did from their colour fly, 

And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world 

Did lose his lustre. I did hear him groan, 

Ay, and that tongue of his that bade the Romans 

Mark him and write his speeches in their books, 

‘Alas’, it cried, ‘give me some drink, Titinius’, 

As a sick girl. Ye gods, it doth amaze me 

A man of such a feeble temper should 

So get the start of the majestic world 

And bear the palm alone.

ANTONY 

I doubt not of your wisdom.

Let each man render me his bloody hand. 

First, Marcus Brutus, will I shake with you; 

Next, Caius Cassius, do I take your hand; 

Now, Decius Brutus, yours; now yours, Metellus; 

Yours, Cinna; and, my valiant Casca, yours; 

Though last, not least in love, yours, good Trebonius. 

Gentlemen all – alas, what shall I say? 

My credit now stands on such slippery ground 

That one of two bad ways you must conceit me, 

Either a coward or a flatterer. 

That I did love thee, Caesar, O, ’tis true. 

If then thy spirit look upon us now, 

Shall it not grieve thee dearer than thy death 

To see thy Antony making his peace, 

Shaking the bloody fingers of thy foes – 

Most noble – in the presence of thy corse? 

Had I as many eyes as thou hast wounds, 

Weeping as fast as they stream forth thy blood, 

It would become me better than to close 

In terms of friendship with thine enemies. 

Pardon me, Julius! Here wast thou bayed, brave hart, 

Here didst thou fall, and here thy hunters stand, 

Signed in thy spoil and crimsoned in thy Lethe. 

O world! Thou wast the forest to this hart, 

And this indeed, O world, the heart of thee. 

How like a deer strucken by many princes

 Dost thou here lie!

MESSALA 

How died my master, Strato? 

STRATO 

I held the sword, and he did run on it. 

MESSALA 

Octavius, then take him to follow thee, 

That did the latest service to my master. 

ANTONY 

This was the noblest Roman of them all: 

All the conspirators, save only he, 

Did that they did in envy of great Caesar. 

He only, in a general honest thought 

And common good to all, made one of them. 

His life was gentle, and the elements 

So mixed in him that Nature might stand up 

And say to all the world, ‘This was a man!’ 

OCTAVIUS 

According to his virtue let us use him, 

With all respect and rites of burial. 

Within my tent his bones tonight shall lie, 

Most like a soldier, ordered honourably. 

So call the field to rest, and let’s away 

To part the glories of this happy day.

BRUTUS

It must be by his death. And for my part

I know no personal cause to spurn at him,

But for the general. He would be crowned:

How that might change his nature, there’s the

question.

It is the bright day that brings forth the adder,

And that craves wary walking. Crown him that,

And then I grant we put a sting in him

That at his will he may do danger with.

Th’ abuse of greatness is when it disjoins

Remorse from power. And, to speak truth of Caesar,

I have not known when his affections swayed

More than his reason. But ’tis a common proof

That lowliness is young ambition’s ladder,

Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;

But, when he once attains the upmost round,

He then unto the ladder turns his back,

Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees

By which he did ascend. So Caesar may.

Then, lest he may, prevent. And since the quarrel

Will bear no color for the thing he is,

Fashion it thus: that what he is, augmented,

Would run to these and these extremities.

And therefore think him as a serpent’s egg,

Which, hatched, would, as his kind, grow

mischievous,

And kill him in the shell.

CAESAR

What can be avoided

Whose end is purposed by the mighty gods?

Yet Caesar shall go forth, for these predictions

Are to the world in general as to Caesar.

CALPHURNIA

When beggars die there are no comets seen;

The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of

princes.

CAESAR

Cowards die many times before their deaths;

The valiant never taste of death but once.

Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,

It seems to me most strange that men should fear,

Seeing that death, a necessary end,

Will come when it will come.

Enter a Servant.

What say the augurers?

SERVANT

They would not have you to stir forth today.

Plucking the entrails of an offering forth,

They could not find a heart within the beast.

CAESAR

The gods do this in shame of cowardice.

Caesar should be a beast without a heart

If he should stay at home today for fear.

No, Caesar shall not. Danger knows full well

That Caesar is more dangerous than he.

We are two lions littered in one day,

And I the elder and more terrible.

And Caesar shall go forth.

CASCA

Speak, hands, for me!

As Casca strikes, the others rise up and stab Caesar.

CAESAR

Et tu, Brutè?—Then fall, Caesar.

He dies.

CINNA

Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!

Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets.

CASSIUS

Some to the common pulpits and cry out

“Liberty, freedom, and enfranchisement.”

BRUTUS

People and Senators, be not affrighted.

Fly not; stand still. Ambition’s debt is paid.

CASCA

Go to the pulpit, Brutus.

DECIUS

And Cassius too.

BRUTUS

Where’s Publius?

CINNA

Here, quite confounded with this mutiny.

METELLUS

Stand fast together, lest some friend of Caesar’s

Should chance —

BRUTUS

Talk not of standing. — Publius, good cheer.

There is no harm intended to your person,

Nor to no Roman else. So tell them, Publius.

ANTONY

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is oft interrèd with their bones.

So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus

Hath told you Caesar was ambitious.

If it were so, it was a grievous fault,

And grievously hath Caesar answered it.

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest

(For Brutus is an honorable man;

So are they all, all honorable men),

Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.

He was my friend, faithful and just to me,

But Brutus says he was ambitious,

And Brutus is an honorable man.

He hath brought many captives home to Rome,

Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill.

Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?

When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept;

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,

And Brutus is an honorable man.

You all did see that on the Lupercal

I thrice presented him a kingly crown,

Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,

And sure he is an honorable man.

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,

But here I am to speak what I do know.

You all did love him once, not without cause.

What cause withholds you, then, to mourn for him? —

O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts,

And men have lost their reason!—Bear with me;

My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,

And I must pause till it come back to me.