Julius Caesar

what rhetorical devices, of a good speaker, does Marullus use to make the people feel shame and guilt to thier lack of loyalty?

Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?

What tributaries follow him to Rome,

To grace in captive bonds his chariot-wheels?

You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!

O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,

Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft

Have you climb'd up to walls and battlements,

To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops,

Your infants in your arms, and there have sat

The livelong day, with patient expectation,

To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome:

And when you saw his chariot but appear,

Have you not made an universal shout,

That Tiber trembled underneath her banks,

To hear the replication of your sounds

Made in her concave shores?

And do you now put on your best attire?

And do you now cull out a holiday?

And do you now strew flowers in his way

That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood? Be gone!

Run to your houses, fall upon your knees,

Pray to the gods to intermit the plague

That needs must light on this ingratitude.

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Last updated by jill d #170087
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The audience is fully aware of the prosperity and prestige that Rome has yet he asks rhetorical questions,

Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?

What tributaries follow him to Rome,

To grace in captive bonds his chariot-wheels?

These are all through this speech.

I think the big thing here is that Marullus is well aware how fical the crowd is and yet he persists in asking questions the crowd knows, or think they know, the answers to.

Marullus, in his own way, is berating the people of Rome he's been elected to serve. He's thumbing his nose at the plebeians who've put him in office because he sees their celebration of Caesar as unwarranted.

He sees the public as gullible and easily led, worshipping a man who has done nothing more than kill the sons of a prospective adversary...... prospective being the operative word, as their father, Pompey has long been a hero of the Roman people. To Marullus this makes no sense.... thus, the rhetoric.

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Julius Caesar