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98. In praise of Shakespeare.— I could not say anything more beautiful in praise of Shakespeare as a human being than this: he believed in Brutus and did not cast one speck of suspicion upon this type of virtue! It was to him that he devoted his best tragedy—it is still called by the wrong name—to him and to the most awesome quintessence of a lofty morality. Independence of the soul!—that is at stake here! No sacrifice can be too great for that: one must be capable of sacrificing one’s dearest friend for it, and even if he should also be the most glorious human being, an ornament of the world, a genius without peer—if one loves freedom as the freedom of great souls and he threatens this kind of freedom:—that is what Shakespeare must have felt!. The height at which he places Caesar is the finest honor that he could bestow on Brutus: that is how he raises beyond measure Brutus’ inner problem as well as the spiritual strength that was able to cut this knot!

Could it really have been political freedom that led this poet to sympathize with Brutus—and turned him into Brutus' accomplice? Or was political freedom only a symbol for something inexpressible? Could it be that we confront some unknown dark event and adventure in the poet's own soul of which he wants to speak only in signs? What is all of Hamlet's melancholy compared to that of Brutus!—and perhaps Shakespeare knew both from firsthand experience! Perhaps he, too, had his gloomy hour and his evil angel, like Brutus!— But whatever similarities and secret relationships there may have been: before the whole figure and virtue of Brutus, Shakespeare prostrated himself, feeling unworthy and remote:—his witness of this is written into the tragedy. Twice he brings in a poet, and twice he pours such an impatient and ultimate contempt over him that it sounds like a cry—the cry of self-contempt. Brutus, even Brutus, loses patience as the poet enters—conceited, pompous, obtrusive, as poets often are—apparently overflowing with possibilities of greatness, including moral greatness, although in the philosophy of his deeds and his life he rarely attains even ordinary integrity. "I'll know his humor when he knows his time. / What should the wars do with these jiggling fools? / Companion, hence!"—shouts Brutus. This should be translated back into the soul of the poet who wrote it.