Cassius:
a peevish1 schoolboy, worthless of such honor,
joined with a masquer and a reveller2!

antony:
old cassius still!

octavius:
come, antony, away!
defiance, traitors, hurl we in your teeth.
if you dare fight today, come to the field.
if not, when you have stomachs3.

1. silly.
2. party goers.
3. the guts; the nerve.

how does this exchange contribute to shakespeare’s overall purpose in the tragedy of julius caesar?

powerful men are reduced to petty insults and violence.
powerful men are supportive of each others’ goals.
powerful men are interested in their countries be successful.
powerful men fight with rhetoric rather than with violence.

Powerful men are reduced to petty insults and violence.

In this excerpt, we can see that Cassius, Octavius and Antony are fighting. However, they are fighting in silly ways, with petty insults and bad attitudes. This is not normally what we would associate such powerful men with. This contributes to the purpose of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by emphasizing the decline of the Roman Republic. The situation has become so bad that collaboration and even basic respect has become impossible.

the first proposition is to question economic materialism and victorian christianity. the lines are:

“it moves us not.—great god! i'd rather be

a pagan suckled in a creed outworn; ”

wordsworth is stating that nature no longer interests mankind, that the latter is not “moved” by it and explains that ancient western paganism had a more positive attitude concerning nature since it lacked the perv erted judaeo-christian interpretation of having received the world and all its animals and elements from god to use as we , instead of humans actually being not only part of nature but its wardens, meant to appreciate it and protect it.

the next lines are:

“so might i, standing on this pleasant lea,

have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

have sight of proteus coming from the sea;

or hear old triton blow his wreathed horn.”

wordsworth here make it very clear that by actually looking and contemplating nature, human beings would reconnect with happiness, serenity and purpose. the use of mythological figures is quite evocative as well, proteus is a greek mythological god of the changing sea. he personifies the sea that changes, which symbolizes the way nature changes and inevitably can change to be destructive not only due to natural causes but to human pollution. furthermore, the sea is even more symbolic since all life originated in the sea so it is not only our past but our future since no life form in our planet can survive without water and if all water is destroyed in earth all life will be gone as well.

he then uses triton which is symbolic of the synthesis of both nature and mankind. triton is a mythological greek god that has the upper body of a man and the lower body of a fish (a merman). this human fish duality evokes the fact that humans are not only human but also part of nature, the fish tail representing nature. the main attribute of this god was that he used a conch shell as a horn to calm the roaring seas. in other words, triton uses nature through science for the benefit of human sailors who risk death during tempests. with the use of such metaphor, wordworth is conveying the message that human technology   is supposed to use nature to preserve nature and thereby humanity as well.

the answer is most likely c. it shows us that the rules that the pigs make can change on a whim whenever it suits the pigs purpose.

hope this