The Colossus of Goads
President Obama has been on many tours: The Candidate Tour, The Beer Tour, The Apology Tour. But he has a rival now for the laurel wreath spotlight: The Julius Caesar New England 2010 Tour, compliments of Tour Productions of Shakespeare.
The tour began at Brandeis University on Feb. 11th and will end in Morristown, N.J., on April 21st.
In one of AOL’s political chatrooms, Obamalytes, seeing victory in sight for their beloved Health Care Bill, gloated and jeered at its opponents. “Obama will ram it down your throats!” they exclaimed.
Today’s newspaper depicted Nancy Pelosi gleefully parading about the Capitol, her entourage in tow, bearing a gavel the size of a sledgehammer. Obama was said to be waiting in the wings to triumphantly sign the bill, a legion of his SEIU sycophants eager to throw down palm fronds before him.
“What means this shouting? I do fear the people choose Caesar for their king?”
“He doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus, and we petty men walk under his legs and peep about to find ourselves dishonorable graves.”
The “Colussus” of which Shakespeare wrote is the famous Colossus of Rhodes, one of the seven ancient wonders of the world. The statue was erected in the city of Rhodes on the Greek island of Rhodes by Chares of Lindos between 292 and 280 BC.
Towering above the entrance to the harbor at 107 feet tall, the statue honored Helios, the god of the sun and husband of Rhodos, for whom the island is named.
Helios was his Greek name. Apollo was his Latin name, or Apollon, the destroyer.
Shakespeare’s Caesar was wary of the man who called him a “Colossus.”
“Let me have men about me that are fat,” he tells his loyal friend, Marc Antony. “Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep at night. Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.”
Caesar goes on to say, “He reads much. He is a great observer, and he looks quite through the deeds of men.”
As they exit the scene, Caesar bids Marc Antony to speak in his right ear, because his left ear is deaf. Are all Caesars thus afflicted, that they hear only with one ear and one mind?
Yet when it’s announced that Caesar will be crowned king by the Roman Senate, in essence, deifying him, an angry Cassius plots to spill Caesar’s blood in the marketplace. His contempt for the Romans is a great as it is for Caesar himself.
“He would not be a wolf but that he sees the Romans are but sheep.”
Americans are not Romans with a thirst for blood. Our civilized, federal republic offers a representative government, with a guarantee of the right of free speech. Our citizens are not ignorant and illiterate. We are not sheep, forced to bleat:
“Ohhh – baaaah – maaaah!”
There are sheep amongst us, though, as illiterate, ignorant, and poor as the mobs of ancient Rome. If we are not to be the Cassiuses and Brutuses of our time, driven to a blood-thirsty madness by a pompous egomaniac, then we must continue our civil protests and not give up shouting until the ignorant can be made to understand.
Let Caesar continue to bestride the Capitol, with his nymph Rhodos clearing the way before him with her sledgehammer. Let Americans watch their modern-day Apollon with the searching eyes of Cassius, but the patient wisdom of Christ.
Politics, it appears, is parading along the same two thousand year-old route, with backroom deals, bribes, chicanery, and lies. The Romans, however, had not a single, omnipotent God recording all that passed below, mightier than Apollon and more just.
Our job, our duty to future generations, is to defend freedom to the very last. As long as one heart is left that beats for liberty, they have not won. The battle is for the mind and spirit.
Our modern-day Apollon would will to the people property which they already possess.
We shall will to posterity our freedom.
The tour began at Brandeis University on Feb. 11th and will end in Morristown, N.J., on April 21st.
In one of AOL’s political chatrooms, Obamalytes, seeing victory in sight for their beloved Health Care Bill, gloated and jeered at its opponents. “Obama will ram it down your throats!” they exclaimed.
Today’s newspaper depicted Nancy Pelosi gleefully parading about the Capitol, her entourage in tow, bearing a gavel the size of a sledgehammer. Obama was said to be waiting in the wings to triumphantly sign the bill, a legion of his SEIU sycophants eager to throw down palm fronds before him.
“What means this shouting? I do fear the people choose Caesar for their king?”
“He doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus, and we petty men walk under his legs and peep about to find ourselves dishonorable graves.”
The “Colussus” of which Shakespeare wrote is the famous Colossus of Rhodes, one of the seven ancient wonders of the world. The statue was erected in the city of Rhodes on the Greek island of Rhodes by Chares of Lindos between 292 and 280 BC.
Towering above the entrance to the harbor at 107 feet tall, the statue honored Helios, the god of the sun and husband of Rhodos, for whom the island is named.
Helios was his Greek name. Apollo was his Latin name, or Apollon, the destroyer.
Shakespeare’s Caesar was wary of the man who called him a “Colossus.”
“Let me have men about me that are fat,” he tells his loyal friend, Marc Antony. “Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep at night. Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.”
Caesar goes on to say, “He reads much. He is a great observer, and he looks quite through the deeds of men.”
As they exit the scene, Caesar bids Marc Antony to speak in his right ear, because his left ear is deaf. Are all Caesars thus afflicted, that they hear only with one ear and one mind?
Yet when it’s announced that Caesar will be crowned king by the Roman Senate, in essence, deifying him, an angry Cassius plots to spill Caesar’s blood in the marketplace. His contempt for the Romans is a great as it is for Caesar himself.
“He would not be a wolf but that he sees the Romans are but sheep.”
Americans are not Romans with a thirst for blood. Our civilized, federal republic offers a representative government, with a guarantee of the right of free speech. Our citizens are not ignorant and illiterate. We are not sheep, forced to bleat:
“Ohhh – baaaah – maaaah!”
There are sheep amongst us, though, as illiterate, ignorant, and poor as the mobs of ancient Rome. If we are not to be the Cassiuses and Brutuses of our time, driven to a blood-thirsty madness by a pompous egomaniac, then we must continue our civil protests and not give up shouting until the ignorant can be made to understand.
Let Caesar continue to bestride the Capitol, with his nymph Rhodos clearing the way before him with her sledgehammer. Let Americans watch their modern-day Apollon with the searching eyes of Cassius, but the patient wisdom of Christ.
Politics, it appears, is parading along the same two thousand year-old route, with backroom deals, bribes, chicanery, and lies. The Romans, however, had not a single, omnipotent God recording all that passed below, mightier than Apollon and more just.
Our job, our duty to future generations, is to defend freedom to the very last. As long as one heart is left that beats for liberty, they have not won. The battle is for the mind and spirit.
Our modern-day Apollon would will to the people property which they already possess.
We shall will to posterity our freedom.
posted by Belle | 9:26 PM
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