Caesar revisited

While browsing the Internet the other day, I came across a very fine rendition of Mark Antony’s speech. To mark the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death, the acclaimed British actor, Damian Lewis, delivered it. These lines were from Act III, scene 2 of the play, Julius Caesar. 

Now, people of my generation, who went to schools that were run by Catholic sisters, had this speech drilled into our heads. The book “The tragedy of Julius Caesar” was a part of our curriculum, and we were made to conduct an in-depth analysis of it. So intense was our study that we were supposed to know every bit of the “reference to context” that was presented to us at any point in time. In fact, some of the quotes that we were made to learn were quite out of context too. 

Why did our English teacher, who was a formidable nun in a starched white uniform, make us memorise Mark Antony’s speech? What did “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him…” have to do with the gangly and giggly 14 year olds? Where was the necessity to understand the difference in pitch between “For Brutus is an honourable man” to “And Brutus is an honourable man” to the final “And, sure, he is an honourable man”? How was it considered imperative to learn “My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, And I must pause till it come back to me”? Also, grammatically speaking, should it not have been “comes back to me” rather than “come back to me”? 

I don’t know the answers to these questions because I never had the courage to ask them. Our educators were made of sterner stuff. The friendly interaction that I witnessed, between the teachers and students in our daughter’s International school, did not exist during our time. When we were told to do something by our tutors, we simply did it. The nuns did not beat us, of course not. They did not need to. One heavily arched eyebrow over a piercing gaze, combined with a curl of the upper lip, was enough to instil fear in our childish hearts. The thud of a thick wooden ruler on a table top, followed by a “mug-up this paragraph for tomorrow” instruction, gave us sleepless nights. If we forgot to do so, we had to endure the assault of chalk bullets that were swiftly hurled in our direction.

All these memories came rushing back when I toured my nephew’s school in India recently. Two kids were walking up and down the corridor trying to learn Mark Antony’s speech by rote. When a nun appeared from the side room, they paused to wish her deferentially, and then continued once she moved off. 

I stopped to watch as time stood still for me. 

“You all did love him once,” the boy muttered. 

“Not without cause, not without cause,” the girl repeated. 

“What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?” asked the boy

“O judgement! Thou art fled to brutish beasts, And,” the girl said. 

“Thou art fled to brutish beasts, And?” the boy mimicked.

“And, I’ve forgotten the next line,” she whispered. 

“And men have lost their reason,” I supplied. 

“Bear with me, thank you ma’am,” they smiled in gratitude. 

“My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,” I prompted. 

“And I must pause till it come back to me,” they chorused.