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All Site ContentJulius CaesarAct 1Scene 3
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"sway"
Language
Act 1,
Scene 3
Lines 1-13

An explanation of the wordplay on “sway” in Act 1, Scene 2 of myShakespeare’s Julius Caesar.

[Thunder and lightning. Enter Casca and Cicero.]

Cicero

Good even, Casca.  Brought you Caesar home?
Why are you breathless, and why stare you so?

Casca

Are not you moved, when all the sway of earth
Shakes like a thing unfirm? O Cicero,
I have seen tempests when the scolding winds
Have rived the knotty oaks, and I have seen
Th'ambitious ocean swell, and rage, and foam,
To be exalted with the threat'ning clouds:
But never till tonight, never till now,
Did I go through a tempest dropping fire.
Either there is a civil strife in heaven,
Or else the world, too saucy with the gods,
Incenses them to send destruction.
  • Given all the movement—or "sway"—of the wind, rain, and lightning, it's as if the earth itself is un-firm, or unstable.
  • Folklore of the day maintained that unusual conditions in the government were reflected in unusual weather or astrological signs such as meteors, comets. or eclipses. And since another meaning of the word "sway" is government, the storm indicates that the sway, the government, of Rome is unstable.