Yet there is nothing stronger in all this than in Shakespeare. There Caesar comes in triumph over Pompey’s sons; not alone the parent, but the offspring have fallen. Brutus says,
“No, not an oath: if not the face of men, The sufferance of our souls, the time’s abuse,— If these be motives weak, break off betimes, And every man hence to his idle bed; So let high sighted tyranny rage on Till each man drop by lottery” (II., 1, 114).
Nor can I, despite all this talk concerning ancient liberties, this vehement denunciation of tyranny, discern any definite republican tendencies in “Cesare.” As has already been pointed out, Pescetti’s treatment of Caesar aroused the resentment of the partisans of Alfonso d’Este, yet the author takes pains to have it understood that princes rule by divine right as God’s vicars on earth. In the fourth act, Brutus and Cassius indulge in a dialogue, entirely superfluous, regarding liberty, and Cassius advances what, to a Roman at least, must have seemed rather a novel view of this much discussed subject.
_Cas._— “La libertà null’altro È, ch’imperio, e dominio di se stesso.”—P. 89.
The interjection of this philosophical conception, seemingly so at variance with classical traditions, serves only further to complicate an already sufficiently complicated issue. In short, the motives of the conspirators are not expressed with sufficient clearness to enable us to indicate their exact nature.
Yet, in spite of his impracticability, in spite of the haziness of his motives, the Brutus of Pescetti, like that of Shakespeare, leaves us in no doubt as to the sincerity of his purpose. Whatever base motives may actuate his follows (and in Pescetti none are discernible), he seems to deserve the same eulogy accorded the Brutus of Shakespeare. The salvation of the common weal alone, even at the expense of his own life, seems to animate him. Thus, he says to Decimus Brutus:
“Albin tanto al morir, quanto al dar morte All’ ingiusto Signor siam preparati: Però succeda, come piace al cielo. Se l’opre de’ mortai rimira Giove Con occhio giusto, à fin felice, e lieto Scorgerà i pensier nostri, ch’all’ altrui Salute, all’ altrui ben rivolti sono.”—Ces., p. 93.
“He only, in a general honest thought And common good to all, made one of them.”—J. C., V., v, 71.