The final scene begins with Brutus realizing that he has lost. He asks his men to assist him with suicide, but his men love and respect him so much that none of them want to see Brutus die. Each of his officers refuse him: Clitus (line 6), Dardanius (line 8), and Volumnius (line 29). In speaking to Volumnius, Brutus also mentions that the ghost of Caesar returned to him on the battlefield (lines 17-19). And Brutus realizes that the appearance of the ghost is a sign that he will lose: “I know my hour is come” (20). The alarums – the sounds of the approaching
enemy – cause Brutus’ officers to flee for their lives. Brutus knows that the enemy will soon capture him, so he asks Strato, the one remaining soldier, to hold his sword while he runs onto it (line 50). Brutus’s final words are these:
Caesar, now be still.
I killed not thee with half so good a will.
(50-51)
The use of rhyme draws the attention of the audience to the words. By will, Brutus means wish or desire. He is saying that he finds it far easier to kill himself than it was to kill Caesar. Brutus was extremely reluctant to kill Caesar. Such an act went against his conscience and his moral core. He regrets that assassination far more than the loss of his own life. Soon, the enemy finds the body of Brutus. Antony, his own enemy, makes this short speech about Brutus:
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.’
(67-74)
Despite Antony’s angry words to Brutus before the battle, Antony understands the true nature of Brutus. He is saying that all of the other conspirators acted out of selfish reasons. Brutus alone acted out of good intentions. Brutus became one of the conspirators because of his public zeal, because of his desire to help everybody in Rome (the “common good”). Antony speaks of Nature, personified as the creation goddess, in his lines. Nature is proud of her creation. Brutus is the model of man that all other men should seek to emulate (or imitate). All men should try to be like Brutus, for he was the ideal man. He stood for the best that is in man.