withCaesar, Brutus kills Caesar because he thinks the country will be better without a king. Brutuscontinues this ritual act by having rejecting the suggestion that they should swear an oath ofallegiance. His ground for objection was that honorable man acting in a just cause need no suchbond. “Swear priests and cowards and men cautelous, Old feeble carrions and such suffering sould That welcome wrongs; unto bad causes swear Such creatures as men douubt; but do not stain The even virtue of our enterprise, Nor th’ insupressive mettle of our spirits, To think that or our cause or our performance Did need an oath; when every drop of blood That every Roman bears, and nobly bear, Is guilty of a several bastardy If he do break the smallest particle Of any promise that hath passed from him. (Shakespear, Act 2, scene 1, 129 - 140)Also, he objects the suggestion for killing Antony along with Caesar because he thinks thatAntony will be nothing without Caesar and he does not want to kill anyone unnecessarily. Brutussays, “ Let us be sacrificers, but not butchers.” (Shakespear, Act 2, scene 1, 166) Here, we cansee Brutus’ idealism is strong and Cassius is overruled again. (Although Cassius persuadesBrutus to lead the conspiracy, it was Brutus, blinded by his idealism, who persuaded himself tojoin the conspiracy.) (Wright, P. 22)(The trouble with idealism is that it can so easily blind those who possess it, and Brutus isblinded by his idealism. His tragic flaw, idealism, makes him to make initial decision, arrived atwith such difficulty, that Caesar has to die. Brutus is wrong. Yet when we read carefully, thesoliloquy in the garden, it becomes obvious that Brutus is deceiving himself. He confesses that hehas “no personal cause” to fear Caesar and furthermore, that he has never known of potential oftyranny in Caesar. His honor and nobility were manipulated by Cassius and at the...
