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Metaphor
Explanation and Analysis—A Wolf in Roman Clothing:
In Act 1, Scene 3, Cassius offers his withering opinion of Caesar. Using a set of nested metaphors, he sets up his rival as a lowly man who nonetheless presents a threat to the people of Rome if they do not pay attention:
And why should Caesar be a tyrant, then?
Poor man, I know he would not be a wolf
But that he sees the Romans are but sheep;
He were no lion, were not Romans hinds.
Those that with haste will make a mighty fire
Begin it with weak straws. What trash is Rome,
What rubbish, and what offal when it serves
For the base matter to illuminate
So vile a thing as Caesar!
Cassius demeans Caesar’s political prowess by accusing him of taking advantage of the weak Roman public using comparisons between the Romans being prey animals (sheep and hinds, or deer) who enable Caesar to act as a wolf or lion. Caesar “hastily” attempts to gain power, like the building of a fire, by manipulating the Roman populace like “weak straws,” fuel for his fire. Romans must be "rubbish," in Cassius’s view, to empower someone like Caesar.
This mixed metaphor conveys Cassius’s passionate angst as as he runs through a set of comparisons to convey his disdain for Caesar. Shakespeare also takes this opportunity to emphasizes a certain weakness in Cassius as an orator—his comparisons overlap in a bit of a jumble, though they do show the extent of Cassius's loathing.
Shakespeare pays particular attention to various uses of language and argument in Julius Caesar, as he examines the power of speech to affect political sentiment. This sequence presents Cassius at his most passionate and least refined. It also underscores a major point of pride for the political power players in Shakespeare's fictionalized Rome: manhood and honor are at the core of everything, and Cassius is keen to portray Caesar as a dishonorable and weak "wolf in sheep's clothing."
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