Read the extract from 'Julius Caesar' Act 5, Scene 3, given below and answer the questions that follow: Brutus: O Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet! Thy spirit walks abroad, and turns our swords In our own proper entrails. [Alarums] Cato: Brave Titinius! Look whe'r he have not crown'd dead Cassius! Brutus: Are yet two Romans living such as these? The last of all the Romans, fare thee well! It is impossible that ever Rome Should breed thy fellow. Friends, I owe more tears To this dead man than you shall see me pay -- I shall find time, Cassius, I shall find time.
Explain what Brutus means when he says, 'O Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet! Thy spirit walks abroad, and turns our swords In our own proper entrails'.
Topic: Act 5 Scene 3 — Caesar's spirit
Answer
Standing over the body of Cassius, who has killed himself with his own sword, Brutus means that Caesar’s power did not die with him. His spirit is still at work in the world, avenging his murder: it is turning the conspirators’ own weapons back into their own bodies. The very swords that killed Caesar are now killing those who used them — Cassius has died on his, and Brutus will shortly die on his own. Brutus is acknowledging that they cannot escape the consequences of what they did.
Explain the image, then its meaning. "Entrails" are the bowels — the swords are literally being turned inward. Two further points lift the answer: Caesar’s ghost had appeared to Brutus at Sardis promising to meet him at Philippi, so the "spirit walking abroad" is literal as well as figurative; and the line states the play’s theme, that the murder destroys its own perpetrators.