You are here

All Site ContentJulius CaesarAct 1Scene 1
Back to the Play
"lowest" and "exalted"
Imagery and Wordplay
Act 1,
Scene 1
Lines 56-60

An explanation of the wordplay and imagery in “lowest” and “exalted” in Act 1, Scene 1 of myShakespeare’s Julius Caesar.

Flavius

Go, go, good countrymen, and for this fault,
Assemble all the poor men of your sort.
Draw them to Tiber banks, and weep your tears
Into the channel, till the lowest stream
Do kiss the most exalted shores of all.

Shakespeare's imagery plays with two senses of this pair of opposite words:

  • The plebeians' tears will raise the level of the Tiber river from its lowest point to the highest (most "exalted") level of the shore.
  • Their tears raise the most humble, or "lowest," stream so it can kiss the shores of the most noble, "exalted" Rome.