RALPH: Servilia, when Casca says that the two plebeian tribunes were “put to silence,” what do you think he means?

 

SERVILIA: That’s just a euphemism, Ralph—you know, a nicer way of saying something harsh. In this case, putting them to silence” means that Caesar had them killed.

 

RALPH:  Oh right—like when we say that a dog was put to sleep instead of saying it was euthanized. Well, that is how almost everyone interprets this phrase here.

 

SERVILIA: Ralph, I have a sneaking feeling that you have a different interpretation.

 

RALPH: This verb construction—to put someone to something—is a construction we use it today, but it’s not very common.

 

SERVILIA: Right, like …  I put the kids to bed; or ... I put the new employee to work.

 

RALPH: In Shakespeare’s day, this construction was a lot more common. One might have said, “I put John to the market”, meaning, “I sent John to the market”; or “I put Sally to blush”, meaning “I caused Sally to blush”, or even, “I put Greg to silence,” which simply meant “I made Greg shut up.”

 

SERVILIA: So you think that the two tribunes were just made to keep quiet.

 

RALPH:  That would be historically accurate. In fact, Caesar did not have Flavius and Marullus killed; he just removed them from office so that they no longer had the right to address an assembly of plebeians as government officials.

 

SERVILIA: Well, that may be true, Ralph, but every reference to this line that I’ve seen assumes that the tribunes were put to death. Are you saying that all these critics have got it wrong?

 

RALPH: Well, not necessarily. You see, it was just around the time that Shakespeare was writing this play that this expression began to also be used euphemistically to mean “put to death.”

 

SERVILIA: So, some in the audience assumed that the two tribunes were killed, while others thought that they were merely prevented from speaking out officially.

 

RALPH: While for still others, the line was ambiguous, and they were not certain what action Caesar had taken.

 

SERVILIA: Ah, I see where you’re going with this, Ralph. You think Shakespeare intentionally chose this phrase precisely because it was ambiguous.

 

RALPH: That’s right. Ambiguous moments like this one are quite common in Shakespeare. His plays aren’t simple stories of good and bad; he often intentionally leaves room for differing interpretations.

 

SERVILIA: Which is the case here. You might think about how it impacts the unfolding action of the play if Flavius and Marullus were murdered, or, on the other hand, if they were merely eased out of office. How might these different interpretations change what you think of Caesar as a character?