This famous quotation is mentioned in Shakespeare’s play ‘Julius Caesar’. It is part of the speech by Caesar in response to Calpurnia’s warning that he should not move out of doors as evil omens point to some danger to his life. Caesar refuses to be perturbed declaring that death has no terror for him. He is able to rise above cowardice because he ignores the dangers that threaten him. The word ‘fear’, he says, does not exist in his vocabulary. He throws a challenge at death and refuses to be frightened by it. He could never have been a great soldier if he had stood in fear of death.
A coward lives in constant dread; his heart sinks at the prospect of death which is like a sword of Damocles hanging over his head. The outbreak of war, a riot, the tremors of an earthquake, the prospects of a famine or a flood—all these make the coward shudder with fear because he thinks that he will be the first target of these death instruments. He eyes his food with suspicion because there might be poison in it. If he stands on the sea shore, or a river bank, a wave of fear sweeps over him at the idea of being accidentally drowned. As he walks along a road, he is overcareful not to step down the pavement lest he should be run over by an omnibus. He knows that death pounces upon a man suddenly and in a variety of ways and therefore his life is continuous a night-mare. Every time he hears that someone else has died; he secretly congratulates himself on his own escape.
Vocabulary
Ignores—to refuse to take notice
Suspicion—unconfirmed belief
Pavement—paved footway
