Antony’s speech is full of lies, deceptions, and ironies. He states that he comes “to bury Caesar, not to praise him” (71). But then he praises Caesar. He tells the Romans that the good things a man accomplishes in life are usually forgotten after he dies, and he adds that such should also be done with Caesar (lines 73-74). But then he goes on to tell the Romans all of the good things that Caesar did for Rome.
Antony uses irony when he states that Brutus is an honorable man (lines 79, 91, 96, 121, and so forth). As he proceeds in his speech, he depicts the assassination of Caesar as a most despicable act perpetrated (or committed) by the most dishonorable of men. At first the Roman crowd accepts Antony’s statement regarding Brutus’ honor as truth. But as the speech progresses, the crowd responds with the opposite. They shout that Brutus and Cassius were traitors, villians, and murderers (lines 150 and 152). Like a contestant in a debate, Antony also uses the words of Brutus to turn the crowd against him. In addition to the word honor, Antony also makes use of the word ambition. Brutus claimed that the conspirators killed Caesar because of his ambition (line 26). Antony contradicts Brutus by stating that Caesar’s victories over his enemies “did the general coffers fill” (86). The coffers refer to the public treasury of the empire. Caesar helped to make Rome wealthy. And so Antony asks, “Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?” (87). Naturally, the crowd responds by thinking that Caesar was certainly not ambitious because he had the good of Rome as his intention. This is not actually true, but this is what Antony wants them to believe. Antony certainly knows that Caesar was an excessively ambitious man. Another wonderful line brimming with irony occurs when Antony criticizes the public for not mourning the death of Caesar:
O judgement, thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason! (101-02)
Antony is suggesting that any reasonable man would mourn or cry over the death of Caesar and that even animals (which are emotional, not rational, creatures) seem to have more judgment or reason. The fine irony here is that Antony does want the crowd to lose their reason. He wants them to become angry and mad so that they will act as a wild mob and enact (or perform) a ruthless revenge against the conspirators. The reader should note the stage direction
after these lines. Antony weeps. He begins to cry. Are these real tears? Most likely not! Antony is putting on a show. He is acting to move the audience. Antony certainly is not appealing to the reason or logic of his listeners. He is appealing to their emotions. And, as most advertisers are aware, an Appeal to Emotions is always more effective than an Appeal to Reason.
A good actor often relies on props, and Antony uses two props to enhance his message. The first prop he uses is a parchment, a document. Antony pulls out the document from his robes and shows it to his listeners, and then he tells them that the document is Caesar’s “will” (126). The careful reader here should be suspicious. Antony did not have any time to go to Caesar’s house and get his will. No one else actually sees what is written on the document. It could be anything. It could even be blank. But the crowd believes Antony’s lies. Antony also knows how to create excitement and suspense in his audience. He relies on their curiosity when he tells them “I do not mean to read” it (128). Antony then hints at the contents and how Caesar had the public good in mind when he wrote his will. But Antony does not yet read this fake will immediately. He first speaks at length about Caesar’s death and the conspirators’ actions. Only after he gets the crowd extremely angry about the assassination does he then reveal the contents of the will (lines 232-40). Antony claims (more lies) that Caesar left money to every citizen of Rome and that he left his private orchards to become parks for public use. Now the angry crowd feels that the conspirators have cheated them, and their anger becomes extreme. They go off in search of revenge. They have become a wild mob that nothing can stop.
The other prop that Antony uses effectively is the bloody corpse of Caesar. He uses the dead body to indicate the horror of the murder and the ingratitude of the assassins. Antony dramatically steps down from the stage or pulpit where he is delivering his speech and stands before the table where the body is lying (line 158). He points to the bloody robe or mantle that is covering the body. Then he states that he remembers the first time Caesar wore the robe: he claims that Caesar first wore that robe on the day that Rome celebrated an important victory over the “Nervii,” their enemy (line 167). Is that true? Probably not! But Antony cleverly uses the robe itself as a prop to remind the public how Caesar helped Rome to defeat their enemies and how the people of Rome celebrated the occasion with a holiday. The Romans had strong and positive feelings for Caesar then, and Antony awakens those feelings.
Antony then points to one of the bloody tears or rips in the robe where one of the assassins’ knives went in. He then asserts that Cassius had run his knife through that spot (line 168). He points to a second tear and claims it was made by Casca, and then he points to a third tear and claims it was made by Brutus (lines 169-70). Again the careful reader should be skeptical here. Antony could not really know which assassin made which tear. The action happened quickly, and Antony left once it started because he was in fear of being assassinated himself.
Antony does not really know who made which tear. Antony is describing a fictional re-creation of the events to rouse or stir up the emotions of his listeners. And, after he has described the horror of the murder, he then pulls the cloak off of the body (line 191). The bloody corpse thus serves to illustrate the horror that Antony had been describing.
The crowd responds exactly as Antony had wished. They rush off to seek a bloody vengeance against the conspirators. Antony is satisfied and says to himself, “Mischief, thou art afoot” (249). Mischief or Trouble is personified here to suggest that trouble, havoc, destruction, and chaos will now be the common activity in the streets of Rome for some time to come.
A brief scene closes the third act to reveal the effectiveness of Antony’s speech. The angry citizens know the names of the conspirators. And so they know that one of the conspirators is named Cinna. But the Roman citizens are crazy with anger and act as a wild mob. They come upon a man named Cinna, but he is not Cinna the conspirator. He is “Cinna the poet” (28). This Cinna had nothing to do with the conspiracy. He is completely innocent of any crime. But the irrational people in the mob do not stop to think. They hear the name Cinna and immediately begin to attack and kill the innocent man. Reason is gone. The people are swept up by their emotions of anger and hate. Cinna symbolically represents the violence and murder that the crazed mob enacts throughout the streets of Rome. This is Mischief, running loose and wild and furious. The conspirators have lost. They can never again recover their place in Roman society.