George Washington University

"In the Spirit of Men there is no Blood": Blood as Trope of Gender in Julius Caesar
Author(s): Gail Kern Paster
Source: Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 40, No. 3 (Autumn, 1989), pp. 284-298
Published by: Folger Shakespeare Library in association with George Washington University
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"In the spiritof men thereis no
blood": Blood as Trope of Genderin
Julius Caesar
GAIL KERN PASTER

HAT FOLLOWS IS INTENDED TO FURTHER TWO PROJECTS of historical

reconstruction of theearly-modernperiod:thefirstinvolveswritingthe
body intoculturalhistory;thesecond, decipheringthecomplexannotationof
genderdifference in apparentlyunambiguouslygenderedcharacters. In this
essay these two projects come together through an interrogationof
Shakespeare's use of the bodily signs of blood and bleeding,particularlyin
Julius Caesar. At certain discursive occasions in the play, these signs
functionas historicallyspecificattributesof gender,as importanttropesof
patriarchaldiscourse.The meaningof blood and bleedingbecomes partof an
insistentrhetoricof bodilyconductin whichthebleedingbody signifiesas a
shamefultokenof uncontrol,as a failureof physicalself-mastery particularly
associated withwoman.
The bleeding body most relevantto my purposes here is that of Julius
Caesar himself,in part because Caesar's corpse-that "bleeding piece of
earth" (3.1.257)-undergoes a kindof exchangeand displaythatis virtually
unique for male protagonistsin Shakespeareantragedy.2But the gender-
specific meaningsfor blood and bleeding that I am tryingto adduce and
groundhistoricallylead inevitablybeyond Caesar to other Shakespearean
Romans whose wounds, like Caesar's, bear the marksof genderdifference
and hintat thewiderculturalmeaningsof blood and bleedingin early-modern
Europe.
I am notclaimingthatthetopos of Caesar's bodyis at all hiddenin thetext
of theplay; theRomansthemselvesobsessivelythematizeit. Nor can I claim
thatdiscussionof imageryof blood in JuliusCaesar has any criticalnovelty,
at least not since 1961 whenMaurice Charneyarguedthatthe "central issue
aboutthemeaningofJuliusCaesar is raised . . . by theimageryof blood."3
But I would arguethatthetopos of Caesar's body, whichconnectsobviously
withthe semanticsof blood, takes on new significancein lightof Mikhail
Bakhtin'snow-familiar distinctionbetweentwobodilycanons and in lightof

1 Earlier, titledversionsof this paper were presentedat the 1987 MLA Special
differently
Session on Genderand Sexualityin Shakespeareand at a seminaron "Theorizing History" at
the 1988 ShakespeareAssociationof Americameeting.I am gratefulto the chairsof these two
sessions, R L Widmannand Karen Newmanrespectively,fortheirinvitationsand interest.
2 QuotationsfromShakespeareare fromThe CompleteWorks,eds.
StanleyWells and Gary
Taylor (Oxford:ClarendonPress, 1986), and are cited parenthetically.
3 Shakespeare's Roman
Plays: The Functionof Imageryin the Drama (Cambridge,Mass.:
HarvardUniv. Press, 1961), p. 48.

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 BLOOD AS TROPE OF GENDER IN JULIUS CAESAR 285

the recent work of Caroline Walker Bynum on the openness of gender

symbolismin late-medievalreligiousdiscourseand iconography.4
Bakhtindescribes the grotesque,essentiallymedieval conceptionof an
unfinished,self-transgressing open body of hyperactiveorifices, against
which he sets an emergingconception of the "classical" body, a body
distinguishedby somaticcompletednessand an opacityof surfacethatcloses
it offto undesiredphysicaland social interaction.5 While Bakhtinhimselfis
silent on gender as logically a major element of bodily canons, Peter
Stallybrasshas recentlydemonstratedhow some sixteenth-century concep-
tions of womanrenderher "naturally 'grotesque.' "6 I would like to tease
out the implicationsof Stallybrass's argumentin order to assimilate the
classical and grotesquebodily canons to the whole hierarchicalstructureof
genderdifference.If woman is naturallygrotesque-which is to say open,
permeable,effluent-manis naturallywhole, closed, opaque, self-contained.
In JuliusCaesar thesebodilycanons are evokeddiacriticallyas one way of
articulating"the crisis of difference"which engages the Roman state.7
Shakespeare's constructionof the bodily canons differsfrom Bakhtin's,
however, in possessing a metonymicspecificitythat transvalueswhat is
essentiallycomic in Bakhtin'sformulation into a tragicand also a religious
idiom. For Bakhtinthe importantfluidsthatthe grotesquebody takes such
pleasure in producingbelong to a symbolic categorythat he calls "gay
matter"-dung, urine, sweat, and other bodily effluviaof the "lower
stratum."8In thehighdiscourseof Shakespeare's Roman tragedy,however,
the semioticallyvital fluid is blood and the essential bodily process is
bleeding. Thus, I would agree with Charneythatone way of phrasingthe
play's centralpolitical struggleup to thepointat whichcivil war breaksout
is to say thatit occurs discursivelyas a struggleover kindsand meaningsof
blood and bleeding. But I would add thatthediscursivestruggleis waged in
increasinglygender-inflected terms.Both beforeand afterthe assassination,
the conspiratorsuse blood as a signifierthatdifferentiates theirbodies from
Caesar's. They arrogateto themselvesreferencesto blood thatbelong to the
symbolicorder,and theyjustifytheirrepudiationof Caesar by markinghim
discursivelywiththe shamefulstigmataof ambiguousgender,especially the
signof womanlyblood. The assassination,then,discloses theshamefulsecret
of Caesar's bodiliness:by stabbingand displayinghis body, theconspirators
cause the fallen patriarchto reveal a womanlyinabilityto stop bleeding.

4 See Mikhail Bakhtin,Rabelais and His

World,trans.H6elne Iswolsky (1968; rpt. Bloom-
ington:Indiana Univ. Press, 1984); and Caroline Walker Bynum,"The Body of Christin the
LaterMiddle Ages: A Replyto Leo Steinberg,"Renaissance Quarterly,39 (1986), 399-439, and
Jesusas Mother:Studiesin theSpiritualityoftheHigh MiddleAges (Berkeleyand Los Angeles:
Univ. of CaliforniaPress, 1982).
5 Bakhtin,
pp. 19-30.
6 "PatriarchalTerritories:
The Body Enclosed" in RewritingtheRenaissance: The Discourses
of Sexual Differencein Early ModernEurope, eds. MargaretW. Ferguson,MaureenQuilligan,
and Nancy Vickers (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1986), pp. 123-42, esp. p. 126.
7 I borrowthis termfromRen6 Girardin
Violence and the Sacred, trans. PatrickGregory
(Baltimoreand London: JohnsHopkinsUniv. Press, 1977), pp. 49-52. For relevantdiscussions
of JuliusCaesar, see the briefbut suggestivecommentsof C. L. Barberand RichardWheeler
in The WholeJourney:Shakespeare's Power ofDevelopment(Berkeleyand Los Angeles: Univ.
of CaliforniaPress, 1986), pp. 26, 36, and 236, and my The Idea of the City in the Age of
Shakespeare (Athens:Univ. of Georgia Press, 1985), pp. 69-78.
8
Bakhtin,pp. 334-35.

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 286 SHAKESPEARE QUARTERLY

Thus, in the funeraloration,Antony'srhetoricaltask is not only to decon-

structthe term"honourable," which Brutushas appropriatedfor the con-
spirators,but to recuperateCaesar's body for his own political uses by
redefiningCaesar's blood and Caesar's bleeding.
It is important
to beginby specifyinghow blood and bleedingcould imply
gender inflectionin the culturalcodes of early-modernEngland, because
influentialrecentaccounts of Renaissance anatomyand physiologycan be
construedas implyingjust thereverse.ThomasLaqueur's work,forinstance,
emphasizesthe"fluxand corporealopenness" usuallyassociatedwithhuman
physiologyand thefungibility of such bodilyfluidsas blood, mother'smilk,
and semen. Both men and women produced semen, the fluidessential for
conception;bothmen and womenpurgedthemselvesof excess blood which
theirbodies could not turninto nutriment.Of course, women's purgative
bleedingsoccurredmonthly,while men's bleedingswere merelyoccasional
responses to a diagnosis of nutritionalrepletion. But for Laqueur this
distinctiondoes not affectthe fundamentalhomology between male and
femalephysiology.9
Laqueur's work offersa useful correctiveto accounts of Renaissance
notionsof woman-such as thatof Ian Maclean-that reduce genderdiffer-
ences to a rigid and relativelysimple set of binary oppositions.10The
hierarchicalmodel by which woman's cold, moist body was an imperfect
versionof the hot, dry, well-regulatedman's requiresanalogy ratherthan
polarityas the essential conceptualmode. Further,as I have argued else-
where,otherbodilyfluidsbesides semenand blood-such fluidsas tearsand
urine-were also thoughtto be fungible.1 But I would point out that
Laqueur's versionof thephysiologyof genderin Renaissance culturefails to
account for the possibilityof simultaneousand contradictory ways of con-
ceptualizing sexual difference,and that the matterof bleeding in Julius
Caesar and elsewhereis a relevantcase in point.Thus, whilemenstrualblood
mightin medical or scientificcontextsbe regardedas identicalin natureto
blood produced in other ways, popular culture often followed scriptural
prescriptionsin demonizingmenstrualblood and the menstruating woman
witha varietyof taboos. And even medical science could use the menses to
prove the naturalinferiority of women.12Furthermore, because menstrual
blood was thoughtto representa plethora,menstruation as a process took on
an economyof impurityand waste, so thatupper-classwomenwho ate rich,
moist foods were thoughtto flow more heavily than their lower-class
counterparts.13
For mypurposeshere,however,themostimportant
pointabout menstrual

9 "Orgasm, Generation,and the Politics of ReproductiveBiology," Representations,14

(1986), 1-41, esp. pp. 8-9.
10 See Maclean's TheRenaissance Notionof Woman:A Studyin theFortunesofScholasticism
and Medical Science in European IntellectualLife (Cambridge:CambridgeUniv. Press, 1980).
11 "Leaky Vessels: The IncontinentWomen of City Comedy," Renaissance Drama, n.s.
XVIII (1987), 43-65, esp. pp. 49-50.
12 I do not mean to
suggestthatthe physicalinferiority of womenwas universallyaccepted;
Ian Maclean (pp. 43-46) has demonstrated the extentof disagreementamongancient,patristic,
and Renaissance authoritieson this question. But I am interestedto show how menstruation
functionsideologicallyto supporta theoryof inferiority.
13 PatriciaCrawford,"Attitudesto Menstruation in Seventeenth-Century
England," Past and
Present, 91 (1981), 47-73, esp. pp. 70-72.

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 BLOOD AS TROPE OF GENDER IN JULIUS CAESAR 287

bleeding is that,unlike the bleedings to which men resortedfor purgative

purposes,menstruation is an involuntary
and thusto some degreea punitive
process. Indeed, attitudestowardsmenstruation in the early-modernperiod
oftenexhibita double bind: while thefactof menstrualflowcould be used to
demonstrate thenaturalinferiority of women,thecessationor suppressionof
menses was also blamed forall mannerof physicaland emotionalmaladies
peculiarto the sex.14 It seems to me, then,pace Laqueur, thatphysiological
homologybetweenmenstrualbleedingin womenand occasional bloodlettings
in men serves not to deny but to establishthe differencebetween the two
processes as an issue of self-control.Monthlybleedingsignifiesas a partic-
ularlychargedinstanceof the female body's predispositionto flowout, to
leak. Menstruation comes to resemblethevarietiesof femaleincontinence-
sexual, urinary,linguistic-which served as powerful signs of woman's
inabilityto exercise controlover the workingsof her own body.15
The relevance of this distinctionto Caesar may become clear through
comparison with other Shakespeare charactersin whom shedding blood
signifiesself-controlor its lack. One such instance occurs in Volumnia's
vehementpraise of male bloodshed:
... It morebecomesa man
Thangilthis trophy.
The breastsof Hecuba
Whenshe did suckleHectorlookednotlovelier
ThanHector'sforeheadwhenit spitforthblood
At Greciansword,contemning.
(Coriolanus, 1.3.41-45)
JanetAdelman has seen in this strikingimage the deep linkage between
feeding and phallic aggression in the play, which throughthe unspoken
mediationof theinfant'smouthtransforms theheroicHector"frominfantile
feedingmouthto bleedingwound."16 But also at issue, I would argue, is a
barelysuppressedanxietythat,in bleeding,themale bodyresemblesthebody
of woman.17 The physiologicalfungibilityof blood and milkbecomes crucial
herein twoways, foritprovidesthesymboliclinkagethatVolumnia,aroused
by Virgilia's femininesqueamishness,mustacknowledgein orderto deny.
Foreheads,like breasts,can yieldpreciousfluids.But in thepatriarchalethos
for which Volumnia speaks, male foreheadcan and apparentlymust be
differentiatedfromfemale breast by raising the question of self-control,

14 AudreyEccles, Obstetrics and Gynaecologyin Tudorand StuartEngland (Kent, Ohio: Kent

State Univ. Press, 1982), pp. 49-50. An earlierdiscussionis Hilda Smith, "Gynecology and
Ideology in Seventeenth-Century England" in LiberatingWomen's History: Theoretical and
Critical Essays, ed. Berenice A. Carroll (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1976), pp. 97-114.
15
Paster, "Leaky Vessels," pp. 49-51.
16 "
'Anger's My Meat': Feeding, Dependency,and Aggressionin Coriolanus" in Shake-
speare: PatternofExcellingNature, eds. JayL. Halio and David Bevington(Newark: Univ. of
Delaware Press, 1978), pp. 108-24, esp. p. 110.
17 Another instanceof thebloodybodyas femaleis themurderedDuncan; see JanetAdelman's
recentessay, " 'Born of Woman': Fantasies of MaternalPower in Macbeth" in Cannibals,
Witches,and Divorce: EstrangingtheRenaissance, ed. MarjorieGarber(Baltimoreand London:
JohnsHopkins Univ. Press, 1987), pp. 90-121, esp. p. 95. That blood is the agent of gender
transformation, however, is only implicit in Adelman's remarks,which focus instead on
Macduff's referenceto Duncan's body as a "new Gorgon." Perhaps more relevant to my
purposesis thesleepwalkingLady Macbeth's exclamation:"Yet who wouldhave thoughttheold
man to have had so muchblood in him?" (5.1.38-39).

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288 SHAKESPEARE QUARTERLY

self-possession,voluntarism.Male bleeding is representedas a "spitting

forth," the combative verb serving to deny any causative power to the
Grecian swordsand to endow the foreheaditselfwithvoluntaryagency and
passion. If struck,the seat of reason will bleed voluntarilyfromcontempt
ratherthaninvoluntarily froman enemy's externalblow. Hecuba gives her
milk to Hector, but Hector does not give his blood to Grecian swords. His
would seem to be the kind of blood which in its agency and power "more
becomes a man," the kind of bleeding that differentiates manliness from
motherhood.
It is true, as Caroline Bynumhas pointed out, that manliness could be
assimilatedto motherhoodin late-medievalreligiousdiscourse,particularly
in theconventionaliconographyof Christlactatingblood. 18Later,we will see
therelevanceof thisimage to thebleedingCaesar. Here it is important only
to notethatChrist'sbleedingwas necessarilyperceivedas a freelywilled act
and thatChrist,unlikeHector,bleeds out of pity,not contempt.To bleed in
contempt,then,is to reversetheimputationof woundednessand vulnerabil-
ity,todenypermeability-ortodisplaceone kindofbodilycanonwithanother.
Though an unwantedphysical contact has occurred, the more negative
implicationsof male bleedingcan be effacedin narrativerepresentation.
A similarinferencecan be drawnwhenMartiushimselfappears, bleeding
but seekingto definethephysicalprocess as bothvoluntaryand therapeutic:
"The blood I drop is ratherphysical/ Than dangerousto me" (1.6.18-19).
The evident fact of permeabilitycan be effacedthroughthe assertion of
personal control in a therapeuticidiom; he has allowed to flow, he has
droppedonlytheexcess. Such blood is voluntaryin two senses: it is shed as
a resultof actionengagedin freely,and it is shedvirtuallyat will, "the blood
I drop." When Martiuslaterbeseeches Cominius "[b]y th' blood we have
shed together"to returnhimto thefight(1.7.57), his invocationreleases all
the latent causal ambiguityof a verb that simultaneouslysignifiesblood
flowingfromothersand oneself,and blood beingcast off,"shed" like surface
exuvia. To have excess blood to shed, therefore,does not create gender
difference; whatdoes is thepossibilityof sheddingit at will. The male subject
can regardsuch an action, therapeutically, as purgativeand thusdefineit as
enhancing rather thanendangering somatic integrity.
The psychicprecariousnessof thiskindof definition is clear in Coriolanus'
refusalto show theplebeianshis woundsand beg theirvoices in his election.
JanetAdelmanis surelyrightto see thishorroras rootedin Coriolanus' fear
of dependency,a dependencywe have seen imaged in the play throughthe
identification of feedingmouthand bleedingwound.19The play's language
seems particularlysevere in this regard,allowing forno saving categorical
distinctions betweennew and old wounds,betweenblood and scars. It is only
logical then that the imputationof dependencyconjoins with the fact of
compulsion:the autonomythatCoriolanushas claimed in sheddingblood in
battleis threatenedby his forced,involuntary displayingof his wounds.
The political implicationof involuntarydisplay is even clearer on those
frequentoccasions whenShakespeareassociates blood freelyflowingwiththe

18 See Jesusas
Mother,pp. 112-13, and "The Body of Christin theLater Middle Ages," p.
403.
19 " 'Anger's My Meat,' " pp. 114-15.

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 BLOOD AS TROPE OF GENDER IN JULIUS CAESAR 289

body of woman or witha bodily passivitylinked to the subject position of

woman.In TitusAndronicus,forinstance,Lavinia's bleedingbodyis likened
to "a conduitwiththreeissuing spouts" (2.4.30); in her mouth,

Alas, a crimsonriverof warmblood,

fountain
Like to a bubbling stirred
withwind,
Dothriseandfallbetweenthyrosedlips,
Comingandgoingwiththyhoneybreath.
(2.4.22-25)
The fountain,AlbertTricomiremindsus, "is conventionallyassociated with
the female sexual organs." In scripturalimagerya stopped fountainsym-
bolizes virginityand the flowingor bubblingfountainthereforerepresents
in serviceto
"lost virginity."20 But thelanguageof Tricomi'sinterpretation,
a moral-allegoricalcritical practice, sublimatesthe physicalityof what is
representedso bloodily onstage: in a precise and whollyconventionalmet-
onymicreplacementof mouthforvagina, the blood flowingfromLavinia's
mutilatedmouthstands for the vaginal wound which cannot be staged or
representedbut whichhas chargedtheseimages of warmth,movement,and
breathwitha peculiar eroticism.
Furthermore, to the extentthat images of fountainsand rivers connote
ceaseless, naturalflowratherthansexual violence, theymask or subordinate
thefactof bodilypenetration.But blurringtheidea of causalityforLavinia's
woundednessdoes not work to reversethe imputationof vulnerability,to
enhance Lavinia's agency, as was the case withHector's forehead.On the
contrary,to liken Lavinia's body to "a conduitwiththreeissuing spouts"
(emphasis mine) is to make her blood seem to issue from an absent,
transcendent source,to makeherblood seem hardlyherown. As a result,the
blood flowingfromLavinia's mouthseems almostto become the sign of an
immutablecondition-the condition of womanhood-just as the sexual
woundof defloration itselfis symbolicallya woundthefemalebodycan never
heal. But these meaningsare inseparableultimatelyfromthe more conven-
tional meaningof vaginal blood as a sign of male masteryover the body of
woman or (as here) of male sexual violence.21In a chain of metonymies,
Lavinia's inabilityto preventher rape is equivalentto her inabilityto stop
bleeding,is equivalentalso to herinabilityto speakherown bodilycondition.
Thatthebleedingbodyof hersexual violationsymbolizes-even as it results
from-thepolitical incapacityof themale Andronicimaypartlyexplain why
Titus' own mutilationresembleshers,representshis overmastering by oedi-
pally drivenyoungermales. Even here,though,we oughtto notethat,unlike
Lavinia, Titus mutilateshimself,and his wound is at some level, therefore,
like Coriolanus' or Hector's, willed.
If we can see genderinflectionin the symbolismof flowingblood, we can
thensee thedramaticrole of blood in whatI would call thebodily canon of

20 "The MutilatedGardenin Titus

Andronicus,"ShakespeareStudies,9 (1976), 89-105, esp.
p. 94.
cogent discussion of the symbolismof vaginal blood and its relation as well to
21 For a

menstrualblood, see the now-classicessay by Louis AdrianMontrose," 'Shaping Fantasies':

Figurationsof Genderand Power in ElizabethanCulture" in RepresentingtheEnglishRenais-
sance, ed. StephenGreenblatt(Berkeleyand Los Angeles: Univ. of CaliforniaPress, 1988), pp.
31-64, esp. pp. 62-63, n. 44.

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290 SHAKESPEAREQUARTERLY

the tragic grotesque-a canon representedmost obviously by the physical

transformation of JuliusCaesar. The gender-inflectedness of flowingblood
bears significantly upontheassassinationof Caesar, for,like Lavinia, Caesar
cannotpreventhis political victimization,cannotstop bleeding,and-when
his body is displayedceremonially-is dependenton the voices of othersto
speak themeaningof his wounds. That theseconditionscombineto position
Caesar as a woman in relationto the conspirators-withall the attendant
political disabilities-becomes clear bothin theplay's bodily discourseand
in the presentationalcontrastof Caesar's woundswiththe self-woundingof
Portia.It is a contrastthatpreciselyreversesthecontrastsbetweenLavinia on
the one hand and Coriolanus and Titus on the other,a contrastthatunder-
scores the play's markedredistribution of genderattributes.
In the explicitlypoliticizedidiom of JuliusCaesar, the ideological poten-
tialityof thebodilycanons and theiruse in theattribution of genderbecome
especially apparent.For the conspiratorsthe most disturbingimplicationof
Caesar's desire to be crowned is that it would replace differenceswith
Difference.That is, it would replace a horizontalstructure of highlyindivid-
uated males within a traditionallyself-authorizingclass with a vertical
structurethat effacesall formsof patriciandifferentiation except that of
not-being-Caesar.Furthermore, because theconspiratorstendto presenttheir
own political integrityin somatic terms,theirbody images and Caesar's
necessarilybecome functionally interrelated.If Caesar grows,the conspira-
tors shrink;if Caesar reveals bodily weakness, the conspiratorsgain in
strength; ifCaesar is sick, theconspiratorsare whole. The processas it works
herepoliticallybears an obvious structural resemblanceto social and medical
constructions of gender-strongman, weak (even sick) woman. Not surpris-
ingly,then,elementsof Renaissance sexual binarismcome increasinglyinto
play, particularlythatgenderedequationby whichmen are associated with
spiritand the symbolic order generally,women with matter.22To allow
Caesar sway overthemselves,Cassius implies,is thussymbolicallyto accede
to a shamefulfeminization:
. . . Romansnow
Have thewsandlimbsliketo theirancestors.
But woe the while! Our fathers'mindsare dead,
And we are governedwithour mothers'spirits.
Our yoke and sufferanceshow us womanish.
(1.3.79-83)
While thebodyof thefatherseemsto be reproducedphysicallyin thepresent,
the gender of thatbody-says Cassius-has become shamefullyand obvi-
ously ambiguous: "Our yoke and sufferance show us womanish."
The conspiratorscan only remakethemselves,it would seem, by regen-
dering Caesar; they can throw off the appearance of womanishnessby
displacing theirown sense of gender-indeterminacy onto the body of their
adversaryand renegotiatingthedifferencesbetweenthemselvesand Caesar in
the diacritical termsof the bodily canons. From this point of view, the
much-noticedinstabilityof Cassius' representation
of Caesar in 1.2 is less a
symptomof Cassius' own psychicfragility thanit is thenecessarydiscovery

22
Maclean, p. 2 and passim.

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 BLOOD AS TROPE OF GENDER IN JULIUS CAESAR 291

of grotesquenessin Caesar, who is notablyweak "[a]s a sick girl" (1.2.130)

yetprodigiouslyappetitiveand swollento immenseproportions:"Upon what
meat doththisour Caesar feed / That he is grownso great?" (1.2.150-51).
This contradiction betweenCaesar's physicalinferiorityto theotherconspir-
atorsand his politicaldominationof thembearsan obviousresemblanceto the
chiefpolitical paradox of ElizabethanEngland-the queen herself.Elizabe-
than political theory,of course, managed the paradox by mystifying the
and her
queen's virginity distinguishing body iconographically from those of
other women.23 In Julius Caesar this contradictionremains necessarily
unresolvedas Cassius' speechoscillatesbetweenliteralnarrativesof Caesar's
physical infirmitiesand explicitlyfigurativeassignmentsof power, size,
godhead:
Whencouldtheysaytillnow,thattalkedof Rome,
Thatherwidewallsencompassed butone man?
Now is it Romeindeed,androomenough
Whenthereis in it butone onlyman.
(1.2.155-58)
The speech displays Cassius' need to findCaesar imperilingdiscursiveas
well as social boundaries. Caesar transgressesagainst the social body: by
occupyingmorethanhis shareof Rome, he offendsagainstthose normsfor
interpersonalbehaviorthatNorbertElias tellsus werebeingpromulgatedwith
increasing efficiencythroughoutEurope in the sixteenthcentury.24The
famousfirstscene has alreadyshownthattherightto urbanspace, to a place
withinthe wide walls of Rome, is a functionof vested class interests.The
plebeians' enthusiasmforCaesar offendsagainstbothtimeand place, inde-
corouslyleading themto wear thewrongclothes,to cull a holiday "out" of
timeand strewflowerswhenand wheretheydo notbelong.25For Cassius such
structuraldisruptionsoriginatein Caesar's own lack of decorumjust as his
rude refusalto "contain" himselfbespeaks a threatto the exclusive com-
munityof gender:he would be "but one only man."
This imputationof bodily offencein Caesar-with all its repercussionsin
the social formation-has two immediateconsequences. First, it allows
Cassius to place the apparentcontradictionbetweenCaesar's political size
and strength,on one hand,and his physicalweakness,on theother,withinthe
discursivelogic of the bodily canons, to thematizehis body as monstrously
grotesqueand structurally disruptive.Even thestrangemeteorologicalevents
on the eve of the assassinationarise symbolicallyfromCaesar's grotesque
bodily uncontainment:
. . .Now couldI, Casca,
Nameto theea manmostliketo thisdreadful night,
Thatthunders,lightens,opensgraves,androars
As doththelionin theCapitol;

23 See
Montrose,pp. 49-50; on the cult of Elizabeth, see Roy C. Strong,Portraitsof Queen
ElizabethI (Oxford:ClarendonPress, 1963) and his The Cult ofElizabeth (London: Thames and
Hudson, 1977).
24 The CivilizingProcess, trans.EdmundJephcott, 2 vols. (Oxford:Basil Blackwell, 1978),
Vol. I (The Historyof Manners), 53-55.
25 RichardWilson, " 'Is This a Holiday?': Shakespeare'sRomanCarnival," ELH, 54 (1987),
31-44, esp. p. 32.

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292 SHAKESPEARE QUARTERLY

A manno mightier thanthyself

or me
In personalaction,yetprodigious
grown,
Andfearful, as thesestrange
eruptionsare.
(1.3.71-77)
Second, it allows Cassius and theotherconspiratorsto maintaina sense of
somatic integrity,primarilyby distinguishingbetween theirown physical
self-control and Caesar's lack of it. Caesar is nottheonlyRomanto manifest
illness or handicap,butmanyof theplay's referencesto Caesar's bodybefore
the assassinationseek to interrogatehis bodily conditionin termsof self-
control.WhenCaesar chooses to swimtheTiber out of rivalrywithCassius,
his bodyfailshim,as it laterdoes by contracting feveron campaignin Spain,
and as it will do in the marketplacewhen the plebeians uttertheir"deal of
stinkingbreath" (1.2.246). The aged conspirator,Ligarius, by contrast,
comes to Brutus' house to "discard [his] sickness" (2.1.320) with the
kerchiefthatwas its emblem.
More important,Brutus consistentlyframesthe conspiracyitself in the
canonicaltermsof theclassical body-specifically,in termsof whatthebody
containsor "bears": Brutuswould be surethattheconspiratorsindividually
"bear fireenough/To kindlecowardsand to steel withvalour/The melting
spiritsof women . .." (2.1.119-21). In such bodies vital fluidsare repre-
sentedas havinglost the stigmaof materialityin orderto become symbolic
signifiedsof patriarchalauthority.Similarly,the assertionof somaticinteg-
rityin theconspiracy,imagedas a patriarchalbodyof thewhole, requiresthat
oath-takingbe superfluousto the commonbodily seal of fellowship:
... do notstain
The evenvirtueof ourenterprise,
North'insuppressive mettleof ourspirits,
To thinkthator ourcause or ourperformance
Did needan oath,wheneverydropof blood
ThateveryRomanbears,andnoblybears,
Is guiltyof a severalbastardy
If he do breakthesmallestparticle
Of anypromisethathathpassedfromhim.
(2.1.131-39)
To break is to bleed shamefully,to be revealed as bearing other than
patriarchalblood. Patriarchalblood in such a formulationis the blood one
cannotbleed, theblood thatcannotbe spilledwithoutchangingitsnature."In
the spiritof men," says Brutuswithmorethantautologicalforce,
thereis no blood.
0, thatwe thencouldcomebyCaesar'sspirit,
Andnotdismember Caesar!But,alas,
Caesarmustbleedforit.
(2.1.168-71)
Later in thesame scene, Portia's self-woundingand voluntaryself-display
corroboratethe significanceof bodily intactnessas an ideological formatof
gender.Portiastakesherclaim to knowledgeof theconspiracyby seekingto
effacethephysicaldifference thatseparatesherfromherhusband,difference
that Brutus himselfseems intentupon marking.Since Shakespeare's text
omits any priorreferencesto Portia's illness (which Plutarchexplains as a

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 BLOOD AS TROPE OF GENDER IN JULIUS CAESAR 293

fever broughton by her self-wounding),Brutus' greetingof her is less

explicableas a referenceto specificillnessthanas an invocationof difference:
Portia,whatmeanyou?Wherefore riseyounow?
It is notforyourhealththusto commit
Yourweakcondition to therawcold morning.
(2.1.233-35)
Her response-"Nor for yours neither" (1. 236)-by effectivelydenying
difference in theirconditions,undermines bothhierarchy and genderas causes
forherexclusion.In factPortia,appropriating theterm"condition," remarks
upon Brutus'own bodilybehaviorswhencontemplating the conspiracy-his
suddengestures,sighs,stares,head-scratching, foot-stamping.She attributes
themto the involuntary, even potentiallytransforming effectsof "humour"
(1. 249). It is an explanationthatopens to questionBrutus'own bodily state,
even perhapshis own determinacyof gender.The humor
. . will notletyoueat,nortalk,norsleep;
Andcouldit workso muchuponyourshape
As it hathmuchprevailedon yourcondition,
I shouldnotknowyouBrutus.
(2.1.251-54)
Portia's desire is to assimilate the bond of marriagewith the bond of
conspiracy,to have roomin Rome ratherthandwell in thesuburbsof Brutus'
good pleasure. She thusresortsto theonly move by whichwoman's alterity
could be effectively blurredor modified;she replaces the categoricalrestric-
tionsof definition by gender-which, as Stallybrasssays, constructwomen-
as-the-same-withthe privilegesof definitionby class, or, even more nar-
rowly,of definitionby family:26
I grantI am a woman,butwithal
A womanthatLordBrutustookto wife.
I grantI am a woman,butwithal
A womanwellreputed, Cato's daughter.
ThinkyouI am no stronger thanmysex,
Beingso fatheredand so husbanded?
(2.1.291-96)
Of course, in this claim to exceptional status, Portia affirmspolitically
constraininggendernormsforthe rest of her sex, as Queen Elizabeth did.
What she must distance herself from, above all, is woman's proverbial
talkativeness,a conditionlinkedculturallywiththe whoreswho dwelled in
the suburbs and who were conventionallyemblematizedby the leaking
barrel.27It was woman's normativeconditionto leak; Lavinia's bleeding
body, as we have seen, constitutesthetragicrepresentationof thetrope.But
Portia, unable by talkingto prove her ability to keep still, turnsto self-
mutilation.The gestureseems intendedto imitatein littlethe suicides that
Romanpatriarchy valorizedas thesupremeexpressionof personalautonomy.
It thusadumbratesherown and theothersuicides at theend of theplay. Still,
thereis an apparentparadoxicalityin Portia's act-opening one's body to

26 "PatriarchalTerritories,"p. 133.
27
Paster, "Leaky Vessels," p. 52.

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294 SHAKESPEARE QUARTERLY

provea capacitynotto leak or break-which is worthnotingforits relevance

to images of Caesar beforeand aftertheassassination.In Plutarch'saccount
is graphic,a littlegrotesque(thanksto the
thescene of Portia's self-wounding
barber),and impressivelybloody:
. . .she tooka littlerazorsuchas barbersoccupyto paremen'snails, and,
causinghermaidsandwomentogo outofherchamber, a greatgash
gaveherself
all ofa gore-blood;
withalin herthigh,thatshewas straight and,incontinently
after,a vehementfevertookher,byreasonofthepainof herwound.28
In the play, however, though the wound must somehow be physically
demonstrable,Shakespearechooses to presentit only afterthe fact-far less
bloodilythandoes Plutarchand withoutemphasizingthe"incontinent"fever
thatPortia's pain broughton. Portia does not standlike muteLavinia with
blood flowinguncontrollably, and she does notrequirea male voice to signify
her bodily condition:"I have made strongproofof my constancy,/ Giving
myselfa voluntarywound/Here in thethigh" (2.1.298-300). In thisreading
.Portia calls attentionto thisbodily site not to remindBrutusof her female-
ness, her lack of the phallus, but ratherto offerthe wound as substitute
phallus. Hers is nottheinvoluntary woundof theleakingfemalebodybutthe
honorifically gendered,purgative,voluntarywoundof themale. She has bled
not, like Lavinia, witha wound thatcannotheal, but like Coriolanus, like
Hector.29
In her painfulimitationof patriarchalbodily canons, Portia valorizes the
conspirators'need to stigmatizeCaesar's bodydiscursivelywiththemarksof
difference, and, by takingon maleness, she furthers the conspirators'ideo-
logical project of regenderingCaesar. This projectbecomes most overt in
Decius Brutus'interpretation of Calphurnia'sdream,which,as David Kaula
has argued,representsCaesar typologicallyas the redeemerChristshedding
blood forhis people. Kaula is right,I think,to see thespecificinfluencehere
of themedieval cult of theHoly Blood, whichpublicized miraculousstories
of bleeding statues and paintingsof Christ.30Caesar, as Decius Brutus
anticipates,respondspositivelyto thissacerdotalimage of himself(perhaps
even becoming a victim of wittyanachronismon Shakespeare's part in
Caesar's ignorance of basic Christiantypologyabout the self-sacrificial
natureof the Christhe is made to resemblehere).
But even more significantin the exegesis, I would argue, is a detail that
Kaula and otherinterpreters have passed over or evaded: i.e., thatDecius
BrutusspecificallyallegorizesCaesar as a lactatingfigure,a statueor fountain
lactatingblood:

passage fromThe Life of Marcus Brutus in Thomas North'sPlutarch's Liues of the

28 This

Noble Grecians and Romanes [1579] is reprinted,along with several others, in the Oxford
ShakespeareJuliusCaesar, ed. ArthurHumphries(Oxford:ClarendonPress, 1984), p. 236.
29 I thusagreewithMadelon Sprengnether manlinessis equated
thatin Portia's self-wounding,
with injury,"that the sign of masculinitybecomes the wound" ("AnnihilatingIntimacyin
Coriolanus" in Women in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: Literary and Historical
Perspectives,ed. MaryBethRose [Syracuse,N.Y.: SyracuseUniv. Press, 1986], p. 96). For an
extendedriffon possible (if improbable)sexual puns in this speech, see FrankieRubinstein's
entryfor"thigh" inA DictionaryofShakespeare's Sexual Puns and theirSignificance(London:
Macmillan, 1984), p. 273.
30 ," 'Let Us Be Sacrificers':ReligiousMotifsinJuliusCaesar," ShStud,14 (1981), 197-214,
esp. p. 204.

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 BLOOD AS TROPE OF GENDERIN JULIUSCAESAR 295

Yourstatuespouting bloodin manypipes,

In whichso manysmilingRomansbathed,
thatfromyougreatRomeshallsuck
Signifies
Revivingblood,andthatgreatmenshallpress
Fortinctures,
stains,relics,andcognizance.
(2.2.85-89, emphasismine)
Caroline Bynumhas recentlydemonstrated thatimages and textualrepresen-
tationsof a lactatingChristwerefamiliarin late-medievalChristianworship.
The idea tookvaryingforms:thebody of thechurch,itselfdepictedsymbol-
ically as ecclesia lactans, was identifiedwiththebody of Christ;or Christ's
nurturing fleshwas identifiedwithnurturing femaleflesh;or thebodilywound
sufferedat the Crucifixionwas depictednear thebreastin orderto suggesta
bleeding nipple.31(All these images are related, furthermore, to the self-
sacrificialemblemdrawnfromnaturallore-the motherpelican who, Christ-
like, pecks herown breastto feed her young.) This iconographydepends in
the firstplace on medievalphysiology,which,as we have seen, reducedall
bodily fluidsto blood. Justas medievaltypology,forexample, could assim-
ilate theblood Christshedon thecrosswiththeblood shedat his circumcision
and even with the monthlybleedings of women, so too could medieval
Christianity throughthepatristicanalogyof spirit:flesh::male:female see the
humanizedChristas havinga femalebody.32WhatBynum'sbrilliantanalysis
allows us to recognizeis thedistancebetweenourframeof referenceand that
of our forebears,who, farmorethanwe, tendedto perceivethe femalebody
as food and who "assumed considerablemixingof the genders."33
But, whilelate-medievalChristiansmaynothave seen anyindecorumin the
idea of a male deitygivingsuck froma flowingbreastto spirituallyhungry
worshippers,such may notbe the case withmodernstudentsof Shakespeare
who have avoided commentingon Decius Brutus' crucial choice of verb
here-or even withearly-modern Londonerswhose culturalattitudestowards
the female breast and breast-feeding,as DorothyMcLaren has suggested,
were changing.34It was still possible, for instance, for King James in
BasilikonDoron to recommendas one of a king's "faireststyles,to be called
a louing nourish-father to the Church."35 Yet, the idea expressed here by
Jamesis left somaticallyindefinite,a referenceto maternalfunctionapart
frommaternalanatomy.Jamesdoes not, like the lactatingChrist,offerhis
body, even symbolically,as food, norwas he depictedwitha flowingbreast.
On thecontrary,as thebreastbecame increasinglyeroticizedand as suckling
of infantsor sick adultsbecame the nearlyexclusive provinceof lower-class
women,the image of the flowingbreastwas becomingmore strictlyassoci-

31 "The Body of Christin the Later Middle Ages," pp. 414-17 and plate 9, p. 429.
32
"The Body of Christin theLaterMiddle Ages," pp. 421-22. Bynum'slatestdiscussionof
thisthemeappearsin Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The ReligiousSignificanceofFood to Medieval
Women(Berkeleyand Los Angeles: Univ. of CaliforniaPress, 1987), pp. 263-65.
33 "The
Body of Christin the Later Middle Ages," p. 435.
34 "Marital and lactation1570-1720" in Womenin English Society1500-1800, ed.
fertility
Mary Prior(London and New York: Methuen,1985), pp. 22-53, esp. pp. 27-28.
35 The Political Works James ed. CharlesHowardMcIlwain
of I, (Cambridge,Mass.: Harvard
Univ. Press, 1918), pp. 3-52, esp. p. 24; quoted also in StephenOrgel, "Prospero's Wife,"
Representations,8 (1984), 1-12, esp. p. 9.

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 296 SHAKESPEARE QUARTERLY

ated withwoman.36It is arguable,then,thatpartof the complex ironyhere

in the image of a sucklingCaesar lies in its semioticambiguityin the matter
of gender. Caesar respondsto an interpretation of the image thatseems to
construehis body, like Christ's, as a magicallypowerful,ungenderedsym-
bolic sourceof nurturance; theimage seems, in one possible construction, to
offerthechildlesspatriciana suitablypowerfulpatriarchalstylization.But the
image also servesto give expressionto the conspirators'moreobscure need
to re-markCaesar's body withfemalenessand to cause his body-even if, as
here, only discursively-to leak like a woman's. Such bleeding-since it
would signifythe conspirators'overmasteringof Caesar-cannot trulyre-
semble the freelywilled eucharisticofferingof Christnor the patriarchal
self-stylization of James. Yet this is exactly how Decius Brutusinterprets
blood-flowto Caesar here, flatteringhim with an ambiguous, equivocal
self-imagein whichthereis a concealed irony:theimage of god yields to an
image of woman.
The ironic instabilityof Caesar's final,haughtyaffirmation of patriarchal
constancy and phallic power-"Hence! Wilt thou lift up Olympus?"
(3.1.74)-is manifestin the feminizingeffectof his bloody death. For there
is a precise and evocativeresemblancebetweenthe flowingbody of Lavinia,
with its "three issuing spouts," and the bleeding corpse of Caesar, its
streamingwoundsmetaphorizedas bodilyorifices,"Weeping as fastas they
streamforththyblood" or "like dumbmouths[which]ope theirrubylips /
To beg the voice and utteranceof mytongue" (3.1.202, 263-64). These are
no "voluntarywounds," nor do theyspeak forthemselves.
Indeed, Antony's recognitionthat Caesar's body depends on Antony's
voice is at the centerof Antony'sresponseto its newlyfeminizedcharacter
as a "bleeding piece of earth" (3.1.257). For AntonycannotdenyCaesar's
vulnerability, cannot,like Volumniaor Coriolanus,transform theflowof this
blood into a combative spittingforth.On the contrary,both Brutus and
Antonyrespondto thebloodycorpseand to theblood-markedconspiratorsin
the eroticizedtermsof male initiationceremonies-the blooding of maiden
hunters,maiden warriors.A familiarcanonical analogy is probablyPrince
Hal, who salutes his brotherafterthe battle with "full bravely hast thou
fleshed/Thymaidensword" (1 HenryIV, 5.4.128-29). Here Brutusurgeshis
conspiratorsto "bathe our hands in Caesar's blood / Up to the elbows"-as
if enteringCaesar's body-"and besmearour swords" (3.1.107-8). Antony
urgestheconspiratorsto "[f]ulfilyourpleasure" (1. 160) by killinghimtoo.
Standingover the body of Caesar and speakingthe meaningof his death,
theconspiratorsseem momentarily to have resolvedthecrisisof difference for
themselvesin honorifically genderedterms.But theconspiratorsdiscoverthat
to feminizeCaesar by killinghim is not to disable him; because, unlikeany
body's finitematerialexistence,thatbody's discursivityis subjectto seem-
inglyendless renegotiation-andregendering.In a sense, to thematizeCae-
sar's body-as theconspiratorshave done virtuallyfromthebeginningof the
play-is alreadyto have conceded thefutility of actuallykillinghimand the

36
See Marina Warner,Alone ofAll Her Sex: The Mythand theCult of theVirginMary (New
York: Knopf, 1976), p. 203, who arguesforan increasinglyclass-specificsemiosis of nursing.

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 BLOOD AS TROPE OF GENDER IN JULIUS CAESAR 297

impossibilityof controllingthesemioticuses to whichhis bodyand his blood

can be put.37
While thehostileconstruction of Caesar as femalehas helpedto sustainthe
conspiracy, the terms of thatconstruction are neitherstablenorexclusionary:
Caesar dead is no less obscurelyor complexlygenderedthanCaesar alive, and
his femalenessempowersAntonyno less thanthe conspiratorsthemselves.
Thus, it maybe true,as RichardWilson has recentlyargued,thattheplebeian
riotafterseeingCaesar's bodyand hearingAntony'sorationresultsfrom"the
exposureof Caesar's naked will"; the signifier"will," whichWilson reads
as a "phallic pun," is repeated,both as verbal auxiliaryand as substantive
twenty-seven times in thirty-sixlines (3.2.126-61).38 Yet, even if Antony
does seek discursivelyto reinvestthe body with a portionof its original
phallic power,he and Shakespearemake even moresignificant use of whatI
regard as that body's (connotatively) female Even
affectivity. to receive
Caesar's body fromthe conspiratorsas a token of political exchange and
denial of hostile intentsuggests Antony's acceptance of its use-value as
femaleand his own new patriarchalresponsibilitiesto it.39
Dead, CaeSar can be for Antonythe perfect,mute Petrarchanobject,
demonstrably unable (like woman generally)to controlthe workingsof his
own bodybuttherebycallingintobeingwhateverpowersof articulateclosure
his body's speakerpossesses. Thus, the PetrarchanvocabularythatAntony
deploys in signifyingCaesar's corpse, firstin the Capitol and later in the
forum,acknowledges femaleness as a source of Caesar's differencebut
refigures his bodyas a discursivesite notof contemptor anxietybutratherof
desire. Instead of denyingCaesar's femalevulnerability,he reifiesit in the
rentsand tearsof Caesar's mantle:"Look, in thisplace ran Cassius' dagger
through./ See what a rent the envious Casca made" (3.2.172-73). In
Antony'ssentimental allegoricalnarrative,Caesar's blood respondsto Brutus
as to an unkindsuitor,with a ratheradolescent, even girlishnaivete. As
Brutus

pluckedhis cursedsteelaway,
Markhowthebloodof Caesarfollowedit,
As rushing outof doorsto be resolved
If Brutusso unkindlyknockedor no-
ForBrutus,as youknow,was Caesar'sangel.
(3.2.175-79)

Particularlytellingin this context,then,is Antony'suse of the trope of

"put[ting]a tonguein everywoundof Caesar," a figurethatseems to oppose
femalenesswitha phallicized image of speech. These wounds,however,are
"poor poor dumb mouths," as tongueless and silent as Lavinia. Antony
"bid[s] themspeak for" him, ironically,as if to marktheiraffectivepower
as constitutedby femalesilence. But thewoundshereare also bodilyorifices,

37 For a relateddiscussion of the semiotic uses of Caesar's toga, see Alessandro Serpieri,
"Reading the signs:towardsa semioticsof Shakespeareandrama" in AlternativeShakespeares,
ed. JohnDrakakis (London and New York: Methuen,1985), pp. 119-43, esp. p. 133.
38 Wilson (cited in n. 25, above), p. 39.
39 On womanas object of exchange,see Gayle Rubin, "The Trafficin Women: Notes on the
'Political Economy' of Sex" in Toward an Anthropology of Women,ed. Rayna R. Reiter(New
York: MonthlyReview Press, 1975), pp. 157-210.

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298 SHAKESPEARE
QUARTERLY

sites of potentialinterrogation,
places to puttonguesin. By fetishizingthem
to thecrowd,Antonycan eroticize"sweet" Caesar's femalewoundednessas
the explicitmotiveof his rhetoricalpower, the source of his voice. It is he
who puts the tonguein Caesar's wounds:
ForI haveneitherwit,norwords,norworth,
Action,norutterance,northepowerof speech,
To stirmen'sblood.I onlyspeakrighton.
I tellyouthatwhichyouyourselvesdo know,
ShowyousweetCaesar'swounds,poorpoordumbmouths,
Andbid themspeakforme. ButwereI Brutus,
AndBrutusAntony, therewerean Antony
Wouldruffleup yourspirits,andputa tongue
In everywoundof Caesarthatshouldmove
The stonesof Rometo riseandmutiny.
(3.2.216-25)
The outbreakof civil mutinyin Rome can be seen, then,to resultnot so
much from the disclosure of Caesar's will-his maleness-as from the
disclosureof his wounds,his femaleness,and fromtheaffectivepowerthese
wounds have in flowingto transformAntonyfrompart to whole, from
dependentlimb to motivatedspeaker. Antony's orationcannot re-member
Caesar nor restoreto his bleeding corpse the intactideal maleness of the
classical body. Instead it takes up and redirectsthe political valences of the
conspirators'own rhetoricof blood and bodilyconduct,denyingtheconspir-
ators exclusive rightsto the Roman body politic. Womanlyblood, however
sublimatedby Petrarchandiscourse,has thusmarkedCaesar withthe bodily
sign of the tragicgrotesque,but this markinghas not achieved the conser-
vative political resultsthe conspiratorshad aimed for. Like all hegemonic
efforts to limitsignification and controltheproceduresof differentiation, the
patriarchalattemptto limitand controlthe semioticsof Caesar's body was
open to challenge. When Caesar was alive, his grotesquenesshad served as
justificationfor assassination; afterhe is dead, his grotesquenessdiffuses
throughout the body politic in the self-transgressions
of civil war.

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