Act 5 — Julius Caesar — AQA GCSE English Literature 8702
AQA GCSE English Literature · 8702
Act 5
The plot, part by part
What you need to know
The parley before the battle, Cassius's mistaken suicide, Brutus's defeat and death on his own sword, and the tributes of Antony and Octavius.
Key quotations: 'Words before blows: is it so, countrymen?', 'Coming from Sardis, on our former ensign / Two mighty eagles fell', 'For ever, and for ever, farewell, Cassius! / If we do meet again, why, we shall smile', 'Caesar, thou art revenged, / Even with the sword that kill'd thee', 'O hateful error, melancholy's child', 'O Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet! / Thy spirit walks abroad and turns our swords / In our own proper entrails', 'Caesar, now be still: / I kill'd not thee with half so good a will', 'My heart doth joy that yet in all my life / I found no man but he was true to me', 'This was the noblest Roman of them all', 'the elements / So mix'd in him that Nature might stand up', 'Most like a soldier, order'd honourably'.
Structure: the conspirators turn their swords on themselves, Caesar's spirit is avenged, and the closing tributes leave Octavius in command.