Foreshadowing In Julius Caesar

Ominous warnings are recurrent throughout the play and provide foreshadowing for the ensuing chaos. Since the first ominous warning given by the Soothsayer, “Beware the Ides of March”, Caesar was given several mystical warnings that foreshadowed his imminent death. Shakespeare hints about the approaching assassination, when Calpurnia dreams, “she dreamt tonight she saw my statue...like a fountain with a hundred spouts..run pure blood, and many lusty Romans came and did bathe their hands in it… does she apply for warnings and portents and evils imminent…” (II.iii.75-82) The statue with spouts of blood leaking from it in Calpurnia’s dream, represents Caesar’s bleeding body from the 33 holes made by the conspirators, who afterwards bathed their

hands in Caesar’s body.The foreshadowing of the assassination is further confirmed by the ill predictions of the Augurers’ predictions, “ ‘What say the Augurers?’ They would not have you stir forth today. Plucking the entrails of an offering forth, they could not find a heart within the beast.” (II.iii.

37-40) The missing heart in the beast’s body could foreshadow the betrayal of the conspirators against Caesar and like Calpurnia’s dream, Caesar’s death. The foreshadowing of Caesar’s downfall in the Capitol and the chaos caused by it (the “warnings” and “evils” that are imminent) rely sorely upon the ill omens viewed in Calpurnia’s dream and the Augurer’s predictions; Calpurnia’s dream provides her a glimpse of the future, fueled by the terrifying omens that had occurred the night before, while the Augurers’ sacrifice consists of the ominous sacrifice of a beast with a missing heart- both supernatural events. Later on in Julius Caesar, supernatural omens are used to again foretell an ill event. Before the upcoming battle against Octavius and Antony, Cassius grimly describes a worrisome premonition he had, “ Coming from Sardis...two eagles fell, and there they perch'd gorging and feeding from our soldier’s hands… this morning they fled away… and in their steads ravens, crows, and kites fly over our heads… as we were sickly prey.” (V.i.79-88) Cassius worry over the replacement of the eagles, symbols of victory and triumph, by the ravens,crows, and kites, birds thought to symbolize death, provides foreshadowing for the outcome of the Battle of Philippi against Octavius and Antony; The birds of death perching over Cassius’s and Brutus’s army foreshadow the downfall of their armies

and the deaths of both commanders. The foreshadowing of Caesar’s assassination through Calpurnia’s dreams and the Augerer’s sacrifice and the downfall of the conspirators army rely upon the supernatural signs or event: a premonition, a beast with a missing heart, and the birds of death.