Shaw's Caesar is a shrewd politician and a devout pragmatist. Every decision he makes is carefully calculated to fulfill some overarching, long-term goal. He pursues nothing for pleasure alone: everything must serve some larger purpose, and benefits must always outweigh the cost. For instance, in Act IV, Rufio reveals that Caesar holds phony "birthday" parties for himself whenever he wants to catch the attention of a woman he's interested in, or if there's "an ambassador to be conciliated." In fact, Rufio reveals that Caesar has had seven birthdays over the past 10 months alone. Caesar has no patience for romance and sentimentality, subscribing, instead, to a personal and political ideology of pragmatism that informs all of his actions and sterilizes all of his relationships. While such an attitude serves Caesar well in the political realm—in the end, he effectively defeats the Egyptians and reinstates Cleopatra's total control of the throne—the play also suggests that Caesar loses some human element of himself to his pathological commitment to pragmatism. In Act IV, when Caesar demands to know if Cleopatra has had anything to do with Pothinus's slaying (she has), Cleopatra lies and promises Caesar that she has not betrayed him. Caesar replies that Cleopatra could not have betrayed him anyway, since Caesar never trusted her in the first place. Caesar's guarded relationship with Cleopatra effectively prevents him from becoming the victim of Cleopatra's betrayal and disappointment. However, it also limits their capacity to know each other as friends, much less the impassioned lovers that conventional retellings of their saga make them out to be. Caesar's unwavering pragmatism might guarantee him more success in the political realm than Cleopatra, whose impulsivity and passion ultimately lead to unnecessary bloodshed and tragedy. At the same time, the play suggests that people lose a vital, human part of themselves when they approach every encounter as a game of odds, eschewing sentimentality and vulnerability for pragmatism and protection.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Pragmatism vs. Sentimentality ThemeTracker
Pragmatism vs. Sentimentality Quotes in Caesar and Cleopatra
They care nothing about cowardice, these Romans: they fight to win. The pride and honor of war are nothing to them.
Cleopatra is not yet a woman: neither is she wise. But she already troubles men’s wisdom.
In the little world yonder, Sphinx, my place is as high as yours in this great desert; only I wander, and you sit still; I conquer, and you endure; I work and wonder, you watch and wait; I look up and am dazzled, look down and am darkened, look round and am puzzled, whilst your eyes never turn from looking out—out of the world—to the lost region—the home from which we have strayed. Sphinx, you and I, strangers to the race of men, are no strangers to one another: have I not been conscious of you and of this place since I was born? Rome is a madman's dream: this is my Reality.
Of course not: I am the Queen; and I shall live in the palace at Alexandria when I have killed my brother, who drove me out of it. When I am old enough I shall do just what I like. I shall be able to poison the slaves and see them wriggle, and pretend to Ftatateeta that she is going to be put into the fiery furnace.
Ptolemy: Yes—the gods would not suffer—not suffer—[He stops; then, crestfallen] I forgot what the gods would not suffer.
THEODOTUS: Let Pothinus, the King’s guardian, speak for the King.
POTHINUS [suppressing his impatience with difficulty] The King wishes to say that the gods would not suffer the impiety of his sister to go unpunished.
CAESAR [recovering his self-possession] Pardon him, Theodotus: he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
CAESAR. Vengeance! Vengeance!! Oh, if I could stoop to vengeance, what would I not exact from you as the price of this murdered man's blood. (They shrink back, appalled and disconcerted.) Was he not my son-in-law, my ancient friend, for 20 years the master of great Rome, for 30 years the compeller of victory? Did not I, as a Roman, share his glory? Was the Fate that forced us to fight for the mastery of the world, of our making? Am I Julius Caesar, or am I a wolf, that you fling to me the grey head of the old soldier, the laurelled conqueror, the mighty Roman, treacherously struck down by this callous ruffian, and then claim my gratitude for it! (To Lucius Septimius) Begone: you fill me with horror.
CAESAR. Cleopatra: I really think I must eat you, after all.
CLEOPATRA (kneeling beside him and looking at him with eager interest, half real, half affected to show how intelligent she is). You must not talk to me now as if I were a child.
CAESAR. You have been growing up since the Sphinx introduced us the other night; and you think you know more than I do already.
CLEOPATRA (taken down, and anxious to justify herself). No: that would be very silly of me: of course I know that. But, (suddenly) are you angry with me?
CAESAR. No.
CLEOPATRA (only half believing him). Then why are you so thoughtful?
CAESAR (rising). I have work to do, Cleopatra.
CLEOPATRA (drawing back). Work! (Offended) You are tired of talking to me; and that is your excuse to get away from me.
THEODOTUS. What is burning there is the memory of mankind.
CAESAR. A shameful memory. Let it burn.
THEODOTUS (wildly). Will you destroy the past?
CAESAR. Ay, and build the future with its ruins.
APOLLODORUS. I do not keep a shop. Mine is a temple of the arts. I am a worshipper of beauty. My calling is to choose beautiful things for beautiful Queens. My motto is Art for Art's sake.
CAESAR. In the fire. Would you have me waste the next three years of my life in proscribing and condemning men who will be my friends when I have proved that my friendship is worth more than Pompey's was—than Cato's is. O incorrigible British islander: am I a bull dog, to seek quarrels merely to show how stubborn my jaws are?
CHARMIAN. He makes you so terribly prosy and serious and learned and philosophical.
CLEOPATRA: When I was foolish, I did what I liked, except when Ftatateeta beat me; and even then I cheated her and did it by stealth. Now that Caesar has made me wise, it is no use my liking or disliking; I do what must be done, and have no time to attend to myself. That is not happiness; but it is greatness. If Caesar were gone, I think I could govern the Egyptians; for what Caesar is to me, I am to the fools around me.
POTHINUS (looking hard at her). Cleopatra: this may be the vanity of youth.
CLEOPATRA: Love me! Pothinus: Caesar loves no one. Who are those we love? Only those whom we do not hate: all people are strangers and enemies to us except those we love. But it is not so with Caesar. He has no hatred in him: he makes friends with everyone as he does with dogs and children.
POTHINUS. From her own lips I have heard it. You are to be her catspaw: you are to tear the crown from her brother's head and set it on her own, delivering us all into her hand—delivering yourself also. And then Caesar can return to Rome, or depart through the gate of death, which is nearer and surer.
CAESAR (calmly). Well, my friend; and is not this very natural?
POTHINUS (astonished). Natural! Then you do not resent treachery?
CAESAR. Resent! O thou foolish Egyptian, what have I to do with resentment? Do I resent the wind when it chills me, or the night when it makes me stumble in the darkness? Shall I resent youth when it turns from age, and ambition when it turns from servitude? To tell me such a story as this is but to tell me that the sun will rise to-morrow.
CLEOPATRA (sinking back trembling on the bench and covering her face with her hands). I have not betrayed you, Caesar: I swear it.
CAESAR. I know that. I have not trusted you.
CAESAR. If one man in all the world can be found, now or forever, to know that you did wrong, that man will have either to conquer the world as I have, or be crucified by it. […] These knockers at your gate are also believers in vengeance and in stabbing. You have slain their leader: it is right that they shall slay you. […] then in the name of that right (He emphasizes the word with great scorn.) shall I not slay them for murdering their Queen, and be slain in my turn by their countrymen as the invader of their fatherland? Can Rome do less than slay these slayers too, to show the world how Rome avenges her sons and her honor? And so, to the end of history, murder shall breed murder, always in the name of right and honor and peace, until the gods are tired of blood and create a race that can understand. […]
APOLLODORUS. I understand, Caesar. Rome will produce no art itself; but it will buy up and take away whatever the other nations produce.
CAESAR. What! Rome produces no art! Is peace not an art? Is war not an art? Is government not an art? Is civilization not an art? All these we give you in exchange for a few ornaments. You will have the best of the bargain. […]
CAESAR (energetically). On my head be it, then; for it was well done. Rufio: had you set yourself in the seat of the judge, and with hateful ceremonies and appeals to the gods handed that woman over to some hired executioner to be slain before the people in the name of justice, never again would I have touched your hand without a shudder. But this was natural slaying: I feel no horror at it.
