Act 3 — Julius Caesar — AQA GCSE English Literature 8702
AQA GCSE English Literature · 8702
Act 3
The plot, part by part
What you need to know
The assassination at the Capitol, Antony's handshake with the conspirators, the two funeral speeches in the Forum, and the mob that kills Cinna the poet.
Key quotations: 'The ides of March are come', 'Ay, Caesar; but not gone', 'I am constant as the northern star', 'Et tu, Brute! Then fall, Caesar!', 'Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!', 'Stoop, Romans, stoop, / And let us bathe our hands in Caesar's blood / Up to the elbows', 'O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, / That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!', 'let slip the dogs of war', 'Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more', 'Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears', 'For Brutus is an honourable man', 'This was the most unkindest cut of all', 'Now let it work. Mischief, thou art afoot, / Take thou what course thou wilt!', 'Tear him for his bad verses'.
Structure: the assassination as the play's midpoint and turning point, Brutus's prose speech against Antony's verse, and Cinna the poet's death as the cost of mob rule.
Context: how Shakespeare's funeral speeches use rhetoric to win the crowd.
