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Tear Him for His Bad Verses

Jacob Kramer

In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, shortly after Marc Antony's rousing speech, an angry mob confronts a poet in the street. When he tells them his name - Cinna - they decide that he is one of the conspirators and resolve to “tear him to pieces.” He protests that he is not Cinna the conspirator, but Cinna the poet. The crowd's reaction is unhesitating and remorseless. His claim is not disputed. In fact, it is conceded. But one of them simply manufactures a reason to proceed with the lynching: “Tear him for his bad verses!” And Cinna is summarily slain.

This is Shakespeare at one of those shame-inducing moments where he is almost baroque in his portrayal of something at once tawdry and humorous. Moreover, it seems to be a scene that does nothing to advance the plot and could be left out of a production to save time.

But it was at precisely such moments that Shakespeare tipped his hand. The murder of Caesar brought about an acute political crisis, and once the crowd had been stirred to anger, satisfaction of the basic desire to achieve revenge was more important than procedural justice. If the crowd killed the wrong person, even if they knew they were killing the wrong person, it would still serve to satisfy their thirst for blood, which was primary. This misdirected passion among the people in the streets was the beginning of the violence that bloomed into a massive civil war.

Writing during the Renaissance, Shakespeare was profoundly concerned with naming and the possibilities of altering hereditary or ascribed social roles. But we can also interpret Shakespeare in ways that are relevant to our own time. Why did John Kerry feel compelled to say that he would have voted for the authorization of the use of force in Iraq even if he knew then what he knows now—that there were no weapons of mass destruction, that there was no cooperation between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, and that there was no involvement of Iraq in the September 11 attacks? One explanation that can be rejected out of hand is that he thought it was the truth. The only reason the “force resolution” was introduced into the Senate was because Hussein was purportedly refusing to comply with weapons inspectors. That he was personally a “bad man” had no bearing on whether or not the US could use force in Iraq. If it had already been known that Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, there would not have been a reason to introduce such a resolution, much less a compelling case in favor of one.

The much more plausible reason is that Kerry believed that if he stated otherwise, he would lose the presidential election. The war in Iraq was initially popular because people wanted the causes of September 11 to be personified so that bloody revenge against the person responsible could be exacted. Hussein is an Arab, a brute and a dictator, and for this purpose, he was close enough.

The war has since become much less popular, with a majority of Americans believing that it was a mistake. But that does not mean they wish to be confronted or to have the incongruity of their views pointed out. Were Kerry to say that he would not have voted for the war, he would in effect be telling Americans that they were attacking Cinna the poet. That they already know this to be the case would only exacerbate the affront.

Like Marc Antony, Bush understands how to appeal to emotions. He also understands that rational discourse about Iraq, September 11, or the response to it is not necessarily of overriding importance when it comes to the public mood. Bush is in effect an inciter of the mob. When he said that despite all the subsequent disclosures he would still have supported going to war because the world is better off without Hussein, he in effect suggested to the crowd, “Tear him for his bad verses.”

Jacob Kramer is a student in the PhD program in History.