‘There is a Tide in the Affairs of Men’
Brutus tells Cassius to act while everything is going his way, or be left with nothing but regrets.
set in 42 BC
Brutus tells Cassius to act while everything is going his way, or be left with nothing but regrets.
set in 42 BC
Brutus, Caesar’s assassin, is urging Cassius to march on Philippi to meet Octavius (Octavian) and Anthony in the struggle for power in Rome. Cassius is reluctant, but Brutus argues that it must be now or never.
OUR legions are
brim-full, our cause is ripe:
The enemy increaseth every day;
We, at the height, are ready to
decline.
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows, and in miseries:
On such a full sea are we now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.