These themes are explored most vividly in The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. Throughout the first half of the play Caesar receives all sorts of apparent warning signs—what he calls predictions19 (“beware the ides of March”)—that his coronation could turn into a slaughter. Caesar of course ignores these signs, quite proudly insisting that they point to someone else’s death—or otherwise reading the evidence selectively. Then Caesar is assassinated. “[But] men may construe things after their fashion / Clean
