SMILE, SMILE, SMILE (A Note on Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.) "Words, words, words", was the reply of Hamlet, when Polonius (as he would) enquired of him what he read. And Hamlet, whose mind was turned to deeds, spoke contemptuously. Yet none understood better than Shakespeare himself the power of words. He is, indeed, the supreme word-master of all time. This is true, whether he is considered as a poet or a playwright. It is not intended here to attempt to add anything to all that has been written about his poetry. This note is concerned merely with the dramatic value which Shakespeare could extract from words; or, more precisely, from one word in one of his plays—the word "smile" in Julius Caesar. This word "smile" can be as versatile in its significance as any in our language. In its expressiveness it resembles that which it represents. For smiles, in their infinite variety, can reflect almost the whole gamut of human emotions : they can give silent revelation of almost all the niceties of man's thought. There are smiles of disdain, of contempt, of amusement, of happiness, of content; there is the bitter smile, the foolish smile, the ingratiating smile, the ironic smile, the wry smile; the smile malevolent, the smile sardonic, the smile incredulous—the catalogue would have no end. Probably no noun in our language is so comfortably receptive of epithet and qualification, as the pages of our novels testify. And "smile", the word itself, with its initial sibilant and its long open vowel sound closed by an expressive liquid, lends itself to such varied inflexion that it can be made to convey to the ear much of the significance of the visual original. The trained actor, who, it must be supposed, can modulate speech with more refinement than most of us, should make effective play with that expressive monosyllable. Indeed, `smile' is not one word, but many. Hamlet, telling us that "one may smile, and smile and be a villain" scarcely uses the same word as the photographer who adjures us to "Smile, please !". And so to Julius Caesar. A careful reading of the play can hardly fail to convince that Shakespeare deliberately intended to exploit to the full the dramatic possibilities of 'smile' and its equally expressive derivative 'smiling'. The words recur with a frequency and significance which cannot be accidental. After all, it was a play about men who smiled and were villains—or you may take it that way, if, as you surely must, you see Brutus as an insufferable prig, Cassius as a man eaten up with jealousy and ambition, and Casca as a stupid thug. For there is no "hero" to be found among the conspirators perhaps none in the whole play, unless it be Antony, that "plain, blunt man that loved his friend". :
It is by his smile, or, rather, by his reluctance to smile, that Cassius' character is established almost at the beginning :— 35
