The connection between Amazon’s shutdown of Parler and Antony’s eulogy of Julius Caesar requires little from me; it’s all there on the page. Of course, since Parler has not yet been able to find a new home, it’s clear that more companies than Amazon were implicated in Parler’s assassination, just as Brutus had help stabbing Caesar to death from Casca, Decius, and Legarius. Let’s jump right in. Julius Caesar is Parler, Brutus is Amazon, and Marc Antony is speaking for all of us:

Antony: “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.”

Parler was ambitious in its aspiration to grow to a size that would rival the scale of Twitter, and to do so in a manner that ensured the free speech rights of its users. We’ll see if the good that Parler managed to do in its short life will be interred with its bones, or if it will rise from the dead:

Antony: “Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest—
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men—
Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.”

Freedom of speech has been our friend for nearly 250 years. And yes, our friend will be sorely missed. Yet his killers believe they are honorable men:

Antony: “I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.”

First Citizen: “Methinks there is much reason in his sayings.”

Second Citizen: “If thou consider rightly of the matter,
Caesar has had great wrong.”

Third Citizen: “Has he, masters?
I fear there will a worse come in his place.”

Fourth Citizen: “Mark’d ye his words? He would not take the crown;
Therefore ’tis certain he was not ambitious.”

First Citizen: “If it be found so, some will dear abide it.”

Second Citizen: “Poor soul! his eyes are red as fire with weeping.”

Third Citizen: “There’s not a nobler man in Rome than Antony.”

Fourth Citizen. “Now mark him, he begins again to speak.”

The citizens are chatting amongst themselves, but of course that’s harder to do now without Parler, and they are reasoning together over the validity of Antony’s argument, and his sincerity (again, now harder to do):

Antony: “But here’s a parchment with the seal of Caesar;
I found it in his closet, ’tis his will:
Let but the commons hear this testament—
Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read—
And they would go and kiss dead Caesar’s wounds
And dip their napkins in his sacred blood,
Yea, beg a hair of him for memory,
And, dying, mention it within their wills,
Bequeathing it as a rich legacy
Unto their issue.”

If free speech could, following its death, speak to us from the grave, what would it say. Alexander Solzhenitsyn might be well placed to answer that question. Antony descends from the podium to speak directly to the crowd, on their level. It’s crowded, the way it was at the Capitol on January 6. As Antony names each of the assassins, and describes what they have done, we can easily substitute CNN, Pelosi, AOC, Schumer, MSNBC, Comey, Brennan; sadly the list is endless, and far longer than the list of enemies that Caesar faced:

Antony: “If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.
You all do know this mantle: I remember
The first time ever Caesar put it on;
‘Twas on a summer’s evening, in his tent,
That day he overcame the Nervii:
Look, in this place ran Cassius’ dagger through:
See what a rent the envious Casca made:
Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabb’d;
And as he pluck’d his cursed steel away,
Mark how the blood of Caesar follow’d it,
As rushing out of doors, to be resolved
If Brutus so unkindly knock’d, or no;
For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar’s angel:
Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him!
This was the most unkindest cut of all;
For when the noble Caesar saw him stab,
Ingratitude, more strong than traitors’ arms,
Quite vanquish’d him: then burst his mighty heart;
And, in his mantle muffling up his face,
Even at the base of Pompey’s statua,
Which all the while ran blood, great Caesar fell.
O, what a fall was there, my countrymen!
Then I, and you, and all of us fell down,
Whilst bloody treason flourish’d over us.
O, now you weep; and, I perceive, you feel
The dint of pity: these are gracious drops.
Kind souls, what, weep you when you but behold
Our Caesar’s vesture wounded? Look you here,
Here is himself, marr’d, as you see, with traitors.”

First Citizen: “O piteous spectacle!”…

Antony: “For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,
Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech,
To stir men’s blood: I only speak right on;
I tell you that which you yourselves do know;
Show you sweet Caesar’s wounds, poor poor dumb mouths,
And bid them speak for me: but were I Brutus,
And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony
Would ruffle up your spirits and put a tongue
In every wound of Caesar that should move
The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny.”

All: “We’ll mutiny.”

Well, I’d settle for free and fair elections in 2022 and beyond, but even that may require a confrontation with authority. In the meantime, we have the classics, Shakespeare chief among them, to keep us connected to the highest and best in Western culture, even as we navigate the remnants of our fallen republic, and gather the strength to reclaim it.

P.S. I wanted to let you all know that my recasting of Hamlet as the 2020 election is now up for sale as an e-book and paperback through this link.

‘Hamlet’s 2020 Vision; A recasting of Hamlet as the tragedy of the 2020 election,’ reimagines Hamlet as the 2020 election by substituting the main players on our national stage for the play’s original cast of characters. I think the result is highly entertaining, but it also provides surprising insights into our current predicament, and it gives readers a chance to enjoy Shakespeare’s great tragedy from an entirely new angle.