PLAYS 
 
 OF 
 
 SHAKESPEARE 
 
 SELECTED AND PREPARED FOR USE IN 
 
 SCHOOLS. 
 
 WITH INTRODUCTIONS AND NOTES. 
 
 BY 
 
 THE REV. HENRY N. HUDSON. 
 NTJMBEB II. 
 
 JULIUS 
 
 BOSTON: 
 GINN AND HEATH. 
 
 1878. 
 
ni 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, 
 
 BY HENRY N. HUDSON, 
 
 in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
INTRODUCTION TO JL^IUS , 
 
 THIS tragedy was first printed in the folio of 1623, and with the 
 text in so clear and sound a state, that editors have but little 
 trouble about it, most of the errors being easily corrected. The date 
 of the writing has been variously argued ; some placing the work in the 
 middle period of the author's labours, others among the latest. I was 
 fully satisfied long ago, from the style alone, that it belonged with the 
 former. But, as no clear contemporary notice or allusion had been 
 produced, the question could not be determined. It is now pretty 
 certain, however, that the play was written as early as 1601, Mr. Hal- 
 liwell having lately produced the following from Weever's Mirror of 
 Martyrs, which was printed that year : 
 
 " The many-headed multitude were drawn 
 By Brutus' speech, that Caesar was ambitious: 
 When eloquent Mark Antony had showri 
 His virtues, who but Brutus then was vicious ? " 
 
 As there is nothing in the history that could have suggested this, we 
 can only ascribe it to some acquainfance with the play : so that the 
 passage may be justly regarded as decisive of the question. 
 
 The historical matter of this play was taken from the Lives of Julius 
 Caesar, of Brutus, and of Antony, as set forth in Sir Thomas North's 
 translation of Plutarch, first published in 1579. In nearly all the 
 leading incidents the charming old Greek is minutely followed, though 
 in divers cases those incidents are worked out with surpassing fertil- 
 ity of invention and art. Any abstract of the Plutarchian matter 
 may well be spared, since it would be little else than a repetition, in 
 prose, of what the drama gives in a much better shape. On the 15th 
 of February, B. C. 44, the feast of Lupercalia was held, when the 
 crown was offered to Caesar by Antony. On the 15th of March fol- 
 lowing, Caesar was slain. In November, B. C. 43, the Triumvirs, 
 Octavius, Antony, and Lepidus, met on a small island near Bononia, 
 and there made up their bloody proscription. The overthrow of Bru- 
 tus and Cassius, near Philippi, took place in the Fall of the next year. 
 So that the events of the drama cover a period of something over two 
 years and a half. 
 
 Several critics of high judgment have found fault with the naming 
 of this play, on the ground that Brutus, and not Csesar, is the hero 
 of it. It is indeed true that Brutus is the hero ; nevertheless the play 
 is, L think, rightly named, inasmuch as Caesar is not only the subject 
 but also the governing power throughout. He is the centre and 
 spring-head of the entire action, giving law and shape to all that is 
 eaid and done. This is manifestly true in what occurs before hig 
 death ; and it is true in a still deeper sense afterwards, since his geniuj 
 then becomes the Nemesis or retributive Providence, presiding over 
 the whole course of the drama. Accordingly, the key-note of the 
 play is rightly given by Brutus near the close : 
 
 " O, Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet ! 
 Thy spirit walks abroad, and turns our swords 
 In our own proper entrails." 
 
 The characterization is, I confess, in some parts not a little per- 
 plexing to me. I do not feel quite sure as to the temper of mind in 
 which the Poet conceived some of the persons, or why he should have 
 given them the aspect they wear in the play. For instance, Caasar is 
 far from being himself in these scenes hardly one of the speeches 
 
 417179 
 
428 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 put into his rn ouch car De recorded kc historically characteristic; tak 
 ing all of them together, they are little short of a downright caricature, 
 As here represented, he is indeed little better than a grand, strutting 
 piece of puff-paste ; and when he speaks, it is very much in the style 
 of a glorious vapourer and braggart, full of lofty airs and mock 
 thunder ; than which nothing could be further from the truth of the 
 man, whose character, even in his faults, was as compact and solid as 
 adamant, and at the same time as limber and ductile as the finest 
 gold. Yet we have ample proof that the Poet understood " the might- 
 iest Julius " thoroughly. He has many allusions to him scattered 
 through his plays, all going to show that he regarded him as, what 
 Merivale pronounces him, " the greatest name in history." And in- 
 deed it is clear from this play itself, that the Poet's course did not 
 proceed at all from ignorance or misconception of the man. For it is 
 remarkable that though Caesar delivers himself so out of character, 
 yet others, both foes and friends, deliver him much nearer the truth ; 
 so that, while we see almost nothing of him directly, we nevertheless 
 get, upon the whole, a pretty just reflection of him. Especially, in 
 the marvellous speeches of Antony, and in the later events of the 
 drama, both his inward greatness and his right of mastership over 
 the Roman world are fully vindicated. For in the play, as in history, 
 Caesar's blood just cements the empire which the conspirators thought 
 to prevent. He proves indeed far mightier in death than in life ; as 
 if his spirit were become at once the guardian angel of his cause, and 
 an avenging angel to his foes. And so it was in fact. For nothing 
 did so much to set the people in love with royalty, both name and 
 thing, as the reflection that their beloved Caesar, th greatest of their 
 national heroes, the crown and consummation of Roman genius and 
 manhood, had been murdered for aspiring to it. 
 
 Now I have no doubt that Shakespeare perfectly understood the 
 whole height and compass of Caesar's vast and varied capacity. And 
 I sometimes regret that he did not render him as he evidently saw 
 him, inasmuch as he alone, perhaps, of all the men who ever wrote, 
 could have given an adequate expression of that colossal man. And 
 this seeming contradiction between Caesar as known and Caesar as 
 rendered by him, is what, more than anything else in the drama, per- 
 plexes me. But there is, I think, a very refined, subtle, and peculiar 
 irony pervading this, more than any other of the Poet's plays ; not 
 intended as such, indeed, by the speakers, but a sort of historic irony 
 the irony of Providence, so to speak, or, if you please, of fate ; much 
 the same as is implied in the proverb, " A haughty spirit goes before 
 a fall." This irony crops out in many places. Thus we have Caesar 
 most blown with self-importance and godding it in the loftiest style 
 when the daggers of the assassins are on the very point of leaping at 
 him. So too, all along, we find Brutus most confident in those very | 
 things where he is most at fault, or acting like a man " most ignoiaut II 
 of what he's most assur'd;" as when he says that Antony "canr 
 do no more than Caesar's arm when Caesar's head is off." This, to 
 be sure, is not meant ironically by him ; but it is turned into irony 
 by the fact that Antony soon tears the cause of the conspirators all to 
 pieces with his tongue. So, again, of the passage where Cassius 
 mockingly gods Caesar: the subsequent course of events has the 
 effect of inverting his mockery against himself ; as much as to say, 
 " You have made fine work with your ridding the world of great 
 Caesar : since your daggers pricked the gas out of him, you see what 
 a grand humbug he was ! " 
 
 As regards the historical aspect of the matter, I have met wiiu 
 nothing better than some remarks by Dr. Schmitz, a recent historian 
 
INTRODUCTION. 429 
 
 of Rome. " The death of Caesar," says he, " was an irreparable loss, 
 not only to the Roman people, but to the whole civilized world ; for 
 the Republic was utterly ruined, and no earthly power could restore 
 it. Caesar's death involved the State in fresh struggles and civil 
 wars for many a year, until in the end it fell again (and this was the 
 best that, under the circumstances, could have happened to it) under 
 the supremacy of Augustus, who had neither the talent, nor the will, 
 nor the power, to carry out all the beneficial plans which his great- 
 uncle had formed. It has been truly said, that the murder of Caasar 
 was the most senseless act the Romans ever committed. Had it 
 been possible at all to restore the Republic, it would unavoidably 
 have fallen into the hands of a most profligate aristocracy; who 
 would have sought nothing but their own aggrandizement; would 
 have demoralized the people still more ; and would have established 
 their own greatness upon the ruins of their country. It is only nec- 
 essary to recollect the latter years of the Republic, the depravity and 
 corruption of the ruling classes, the scenes of violence and blood- 
 shed which constantly occurred in the streets of Rome, to render it 
 evident to every one that peace and security could not be restored, 
 except by the strong hand of a sovereign ; and the Roman world 
 would have been fortunate indeed, if it had submitted to the mild 
 and beneficent sway of Caesar." 
 
 To this may be fitly added Merivale's summing-up of Caesar's char- 
 acter. " While other illustrious men have been reputed great for 
 their excellence in some one department of human genius, it was de- 
 clared by the concurrent voice of antiquity, that Caesar was excellent 
 in all. He had genius, understanding, memory, taste, reflection, in- 
 dustry, and exactness. He was great, repeats a modern writer, in 
 every thing he undertook; as a captain, a statesman, a lawgiver, a jurist, an 
 orator, a poet, an historian, a grammarian, a mathematician, and an archi- 
 tect. The secret of his manifold excellence was discovered by Pliny 
 in the unparalleled energy of his intellectual powers, which he could 
 devote without distraction to several objects at once, or rush at any 
 moment from one occupation to another with the abruptness and 
 rapidity of lightning. Caesar could be writing and reading, dictating 
 and listening, all at the same time ; he was wont to occupy four 
 amanuenses at once ; and had been known, on occasions, to employ 
 as many as seven together. And, as if to complete the picture of the 
 most perfect specimen of human ability, we are assured that in all 
 the exercises of the camp his vigour and skill were not less conspicu- 
 ous^ He fought at the most perilous moments in the ranks of the 
 soldiers ; he could manage his charger without the use of reins ; and 
 he saved his life at Alexandria by his address in the art of swimming." 
 
 From all which it may well be thought that Caesar was too great 
 for the hero of a drama, since his greatness, if brought forward in 
 full measure, would leave no room for any thing else, at least would 
 preclude any proper dramatic balance and equipoise. It was only a* 
 a sort of underlying potency, or a force withdrawn into the background 
 that his presence was compatible with that harmony and reciprocity 
 of several ^ characters which a well-ordered drama requires. At all 
 events, it is pretty clear that, where he was, such figures as Brutus 
 and Cassius could never be very considerable, save as his assassins. 
 They would not have been heard of in our day, if they had not 
 '* struck the foremost man of all this world." Now, in the drama, 
 whatever there was in Brutus and Cassius that was noble, and there 
 was much that was noble in them, has a full and fair showing; and 
 
 Caesar is sacrificed to them, the reason may be that there WHS 
 more danger of doing injustice to them than to him, inasmuch a* 
 Caesar co lid better take care of himself. 
 
430 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The honesty of Brutus and the ability of Cassius are very strong 
 features in the drama. The latter is indeed much the worse man, 
 but much the better conspirator. Accordingly, in every case where 
 Brutus crosses him, Brutus is wrong, and he is right, right, that is 
 if success be their aim. Cassius judges, and rightly, I think, that 
 the end should give law to the means ; and that " the honorable men 
 whose daggers have stabb'd Caesar " should not be hampered much 
 with conscientious scruples. Still Brutus overawes him by his 
 moral energy and elevation of character, and by the open-faced recti- 
 tude and purity of his principles. The character of Brutus is indeed 
 full of beauty and sweetness. In all the relations of life he is upright, 
 gentle, and pure ; of a sensitiveness and delicacy of principle that 
 cannot bosom the slightest stain; his mind enriched and fortified 
 Trith the best extractions of philosophy; a man adorned with all the 
 virtues which, in public and private, at home and in the circle of 
 friends, win respect and charm the heart. Being such a man, of 
 course he could only do what he did under some sort of delusion. 
 And so indeed it is. Yet this very delusion serves, apparently, to en- 
 noble and beautify him, as it takes him and works upon him through 
 his virtues. At heart he is a real patriot, every inch of him. But 
 his patriotism, besides being somewhat hidebound with Patrician 
 pride, is of the speculative kind, and dwells, where his whole charac- 
 ter has been chiefly formed, in a world of poetical and philosophical 
 ideals. He is an enthusiastic student of books. And what a delightful, 
 what a noble creature, his Portia is ! How little we see of her, yet 
 how complete is our impression of her character ! Well might the 
 poet Campbell say, " For the picture of that wedded pair, at once 
 august and tender, human nature and the dignity of conjugal faith 
 are indebted." I am not sure, however, but the boy Lucius is the 
 best character in the play. So loving and so dutiful, so careful for 
 his master and so careless of himself, he is indeed a mighty dear 
 little fellow ! Shakespeare's great soul was especially at home with 
 children. 
 
 V As a whole, this play does not, to my mind, stand among the Poet's 
 masterpieces. But it abounds in particular scenes and passages 
 fraught with the highest virtue of his genius. Among these may be 
 specially mentioned the second scene of the first Act, where Cassius 
 lays the egg of the conspiracy in Brutus' mind, warmed with such a 
 wrappage of instigation as to assure its being quickly hatched. 
 Also the first scene of the second Act, unfolding the birth of the con- 
 spiracy, and winding up with the interview, so charged with domestic 
 glory, of Brutus and Portia. The oration of Antony in Caesar's 
 funeral is such an interfusion of art and passion as realizes the very 
 perfection of its kind. Adapted at once to the comprehension of the 
 lowest mind and the delectation of the highest, and running its pa- 
 flios into the very quick of them that hear it, it tells with terrible 
 tfffeei on the people ; and when it is done, we feel that Csesar's bleed- 
 ing vounds are mightier than ever his genius and fortune were. 
 The quarrel of Brutus and Cassius is deservedly celebrated. Dr. 
 Johnson thought it " somewhat cold and unaffecting." Coleridge 
 thought otherwise. " I know," says he, " of no part of Shakespeare 
 that more impresses on me the belief of his genius being superhuman, 
 than this scene." I am content to err with Coleridge here, if it be an 
 error. But there is nothing in the play that seems to me touched 
 more divinely than the brief scene of Brutus and his boy Lucius, in 
 Act iv. The gentle and loving nature of Brutus is there out in it* 
 noblest and sweetest transpiration. 
 
JULIUS CAESAR. 
 
 PERSONS REPRESENTED. 
 
 JULIUS (LESAR. 
 OOTAV 
 
 MARCU 
 
 CICERO, PUBLIUS, POPILIUS LENA, Sen- 
 ators. 
 
 MARCUS BRUTUS, 
 CASSIUS, 
 CASCA, 
 
 TREBONIUS, I Conspirators 
 
 LIQARIUS, | against Caesar. 
 
 DECIUS BRUTUS, 
 METELLDS CIMBER, 
 
 ClNNA, 
 
 FLAVIUS and MARULLUS, Tribunes. 
 ARTEMIDORDS, a Sophist of Cnidos. 
 A Soothsayer. 
 CINNA, a Poet. Another Poet. 
 
 LUCILIUS, TlTINIUS, ME88ALA, JOUn| 
 
 CATO, and VOLUMNIUS, Friends t* 
 
 Brutus and Cassius. 
 VARRO, CLITUS, CLAUDIUS, STRATO, 
 
 Lucius, DARDANIUS, Servants to 
 
 Brutus. 
 PINDARUS, Servant to Cassius 
 
 CALPURNIA, Wife to Caesar. 
 PORTIA, Wife to Brutus. 
 
 Senators, Citizens, Guards, Attendants, &c. 
 
 SCENE, during a great part of the Play, at Rome ; afterwards at Sardis ; and near 
 Philippi. 
 
 ACT I. SCENE I. Rome. A Street. 
 Enter FLAVIUS, MARULLUS, and a Throng of Ctiixens. 
 
 Flav. HENCE ! home, you idle creatures, get you home ! 
 Is this a holiday ? What ! know you not, 
 Being mechanical, 1 you ought not walk 2 
 Upon a labouring-day without the sign 
 Of your profession ? Speak, what trade art thou ? 
 
 1 Git. Why, sir, a carpenter. 
 
 Mar. Where is thy leather apron and thy rule ? 
 What dost thou with thy best apparel on ? 
 You, sir ; what trade are you ? 
 
 2 Git. Truly, sir, in respect of a fine workman, I am 
 as you would say, a cobbler. 
 
 Mar. But what fcrade art thou ? Answer me directly. 8 
 
 1 Shakespeare uses certain adjectives in the singular with the sense of 
 the plural noun; as mechanical here for mechanics. So, in Hamlet, ii. 2: 
 " 'Twas caviare to the general." The sense in the text is, *' Know you not 
 that, being mechanics, you ought not," &c. 
 
 2 In infinitive verbs the Poet sometimes omits the to, where the verse so 
 carries it. Thus, in The Merchant of Venice, i. 3: " Whose own hard deal- 
 ing teaches them suspect the thoughts of others." 
 
 3 Cobbler, it seems, was used of a coarse workman, or a botcher, in any 
 mechanical trade. So that the Cobbler's answer does not give 'die informa- 
 tion required. 
 
432 JL'LiUS O^SAK. ACT 1 
 
 2 Oil. A inicktvsir,' tlrafc Llidp& ! may use with a safe con- 
 science ; which is indeed, sir, a mender of bad soles. 
 
 Mar. What trade, thou knave ? thou naughty knave, what 
 trade ? 
 
 2 Git. Nay, I beseech you, sir, be not out with me : yet, if 
 you be out, sir, I can mend you. 4 
 
 Mar. What meanest thou by that ? Mend me, thou saucy 
 fellow ! 
 
 2 Git. Why, sir, cobble you. 
 
 Flav. Thou art a cobbler, art thou ? 
 
 2 Git. Truly, sir, all that I live by is with the awl : I med- 
 dle with no tradesman's matters, nor women's matters, but 
 with all. 5 I am indeed, sir, a surgeon to old shoes ; when 
 they are in great danger, I re-cover them. As proper men 
 as ever trod upon neat's-leather have gone upon my handy- 
 work. 6 
 
 Flav. But wherefore art not in thy shop to-day ? 
 Why dost thou lead these men about the streets ? 
 
 2 Git. Truly, sir, to wear out their shoes, to get myself into 
 more work. But indeed, sir, we make holiday, to see Caesar, 
 and to rejoice in his triumph. 
 
 Mar. Wherefore rejoice ? What conquest brings he home ? 
 What tributaries follow him to Rome, 
 To grace in captive bonds his chariot- wheels ? 
 You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things ! 
 O, you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome, 
 Knew you not Pompey ? Many a time and oft 
 Have you climb'd up to walls arid battlements, 
 To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops, 
 Your infants in your arms, 7 arid there have sat 
 The live-long day, with patient expectation, 
 To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome : 
 And when you saw his chariot but appear, 
 Have you not made an universal shout, 
 
 4 Of course there is a play upon the two senses of out here. To be out 
 with a man is to be at odds with him ; to be out at the toes is to need a mend- 
 ing of one's shoes. 
 
 5 The original reads, "but urithal;" which modern editions generally 
 change into with awl. In Shakespeare's quibbles, it is often difficult to tell 
 which word should be used; and, as they were meant rather for the ear than 
 the eye, it jpnakes little difference. 
 
 6 Proper is commonly used by Shakespeare for handsome or goodly. See 
 page 194, note 5. So in Hebrews xi. 23, it is said that the parents of Moses 
 hid him ''because they saw he was a proper child." Neat was applied to 
 all ca'tie of the bovine genus, such as bulls, cows, and oxen. So, in The 
 
 Whiter' 1 s Tale, i. 2: "The steer, the heifer, and the calf, are all call'd 
 neat." 
 
 7 What is called the nominative independent: " Your infants being in 
 your arms." 
 
BC. I - JULIUS CAESAR. 433 
 
 That Tyber trembled underneath her banks,* 
 
 To hear the replication of your sounds 
 
 Made in her concave shores ? 
 
 And do you now put on your best attire ? 
 
 And do you now cull out a holiday ? 
 
 And do you now strew flowers in his way 
 
 That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood ? 9 
 
 Be gone ! 
 
 Run to your houses, fall upon your knees, 
 
 Pray to the gods to intermit the plague 
 
 That needs must light on this ingratitude. 10 
 
 Flav. Go, go, good countrymen ; and, for this fault, 
 Assemble all the poor men of your sort ; 
 Draw them to Tyber banks, and weep your tears 
 Into the channel, till the lowest stream 
 
 Do kiss the most exalted shores of all. \_Exeunt Citizen* 
 See, whe'r their basest metal be not mov'd ! n 
 They vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness. 
 Go you down that way towards the Capitol ; 
 This way will I. Disrobe the images, 
 If you do find them deck'd with ceremony. 12 
 
 Mar. May we do so ? 
 You know it is the feast of Lupercal. 18 
 
 8 The Tyber being always personified as a god, the feminine gender is 
 here, strictly speaking, improper. Milton says: " The river of bliss rolls o'er 
 Elysian flowers her amber streams." But he is speaking of the water, and 
 not of its presiding power or genius. Drayton describes the presiding powers 
 of the rivers of England as females ; Spenser more classically represents 
 them as males. 
 
 9 The reference is to the great battle of Munda, in Spain, which took 
 place in the Fall of the preceding year. Caesar was now celebrating his 
 fifth triumph, which was in honour of his final victory over the Pompeian 
 faction. Cnseus and Sextus, the two sons of Pompey the Great, were leaders 
 in that battle, and Cnseus perished. Flowers, in the preceding line, is a 
 dissyllable. The Poet uses this, and also various other words of like form, 
 power, dower, bower, &c., as one or two syllables indifferently, to suit his 
 Terse. 
 
 10 It is evident from the opening scene, that Shakespeare, even in dealing 
 with classical subjects, laughed at the classic fear of putting the ludicrous 
 and sublime into juxtaposition. After the low and farcical jests of the saucy 
 cobbler, the eloquence of Marullus "springs upwards like a pyramid of fire." 
 Campbell. 
 
 11 Whe'r is occasionally used by the Poet as a contraction of whether. 
 The idea is, that even such stupid souls as these have yet the grace to be 
 ashamed of their conduct. 
 
 12 These images were the busts and statues of Caesar, ceremoniously 
 decked with scarfs and badges in honour of his triumph. 
 
 18 This festival, held in honour of Lupercus, the Roman Pan, fell on the 
 15th of February, which month was so named from Februus, a surname of 
 the god. Lupercus was, primarily, the god of the shepherds, said to have 
 been so called because he kept off the wolves. His wife Luperca, was the 
 deified she-wolf that suckled Romulus. The festival, in its original idea, 
 was meant for religious expiation and purification, February being at thai 
 time the last month of the year. 
 
 28 
 
434 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT J 
 
 Fla.v. It is no matter ; let no images 
 Be hung with Csesar's trophies. 14 I'll about, 
 And drive away the vulgar from the streets : 
 So do you too, where you perceive them thick. 
 These growing feathers pluck'd from Caesar's wing, 
 Will make him ily an ordinary pitch ; 
 Who else would soar above the view of men, 
 And keep us all in servile fearfulness. \ExeurJU 
 
 SCENE II. TJie Same. A Public Place. 
 
 Enter, in Procession with Music, CAESAR ; ANTONY, for the 
 Course ; CALPURNIA, PORTIA, DECIUS, CICERO, BRUTUS, 
 CASSIUS, and CASCA ; a great Crowd following, among 
 them a Soothsayer. 
 
 Cces. Calpurnia, 
 
 Oasca. Peace, ho ! Caesar speaks. [Music ceases. 
 
 Cces. Calpurnia, 
 
 Cal. Here, my lord. 
 
 Cces. Stand you directly in Antonius' way, 
 When he doth run his course. 1 Antonius, 
 
 Ant. Caesar, my lord ? 
 
 Cces. Forget not, in your speed, Antonius, 
 To touch Calpurnia ; for our elders say, 
 The barren, touched in this holy chase, 
 Shake off their sterile curse. 2 
 
 Ant. I shall remember : 
 
 When Caesar says Do this, it is performed. 
 
 Cces. Set on ; and leave no ceremony out. [Music. 
 
 Sooth. Caesar! 
 
 Cces. Ha ! who calls ? 
 
 Casca. Bid every noise be still. Peace yet again ! 
 
 [ Music ceases. 
 
 Cces. Who is it in the press that calls on me ? 
 
 14 "Caesar's trophies" are the scarfs and badges mentioned in note 12; ja 
 appears in the next scene, where it is said that the Tribunes " are put to 
 ilence for pulling scarfs off Caesar's images." 
 
 1 Marcus Antonius was at this time Consul, as Ca3sar himself also was. 
 Each Roman gens had its own priesthood, and also its peculiar religious rites. 
 The flarnens, or priests, of the Julian gens (so named from lulus the son of 
 .^Eneas) had lately been advanced to the same rank with those of the god 
 Lupercus; and Antony was at this time at their head It was probably as 
 chief flamen of the Jnlian house that he officiated on this occasion in " the 
 holy course." 
 
 2 It was an old custom at these festivals for the flamens, all naked except 
 a girdle about the loins, to run through the streets of the city, waving in the 
 hand a thong of goat's hide, and striking with it such women as offered 
 themselves for the blow, in the belief that this would prevent or avert 'the 
 iterile curse." 
 
BC. II. 
 
 JULIUS CAESAR. 48ft 
 
 I hear a tongue, shriller than all the music, 
 Cry Gcesar ! Speak ; Csesar is turii'd to hear. 
 
 Sooth. Beware the ides of March. 
 
 Gees. What man is that ? 
 
 Bru. A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March. 8 
 
 Cces. Set him before ine ; let me see his face. 
 
 Gass. Fellow, come from the throng ; look upon Caesar. 
 
 Gees. What say'st thou to me now ? speak once again 
 
 Sooth. Beware the ides of March. 
 
 Gees. He is a dreamer ; let us leave him : Pass. 
 
 [Sennet. Exeunt all but BRUTUS and CAS SIC a. 
 
 Cass. Will you go see the order of the course ? 
 
 Bru. Not I. 
 
 Gass. I pray you, do. 
 
 Bru. I am not gamesome : I do lack some part 
 Of that quick spirit that is in Antony. 
 Let me not hinder, Cassius, your desires ; 
 I'll leave you. 
 
 Gass. Brutus, I do observe you now of late : 
 I have not from your eyes that gentleness 
 And show of love as I was wont to have : 4 
 You bear too stubborn and too strange a hand 
 Over your friend that loves you. 
 
 Bru. Cassius, 
 
 Be not deceived : if I have veil'd my look, 
 I turn the trouble of my countenance 
 Merely upon myself. Vexed I am 
 Of late with passions of some difference, 
 Conceptions only proper to myself, 
 Which give some soil, perhaps, to my behaviours 
 But let not therefore my good friends be griev'd, 
 (Among which number, Cassius, be you one,) 
 Nor construe any further my neglect, 5 
 
 8 Coleridge has a remark on this line, which, whether true to the subject 
 or not, is very characteristic of the writer: "If my ear does not deceive me, 
 the metre of this line was meant to express that sort of mild philosophic con- 
 tempt, characterising Brutus even in his first casual speech." The metrical 
 analysis of the line is, an Iamb, two Anapests, and two Iambs. 
 
 * The demonstratives this, that, and such, and also the relatives which, 
 that and as, had not become fully differentiated in the Poet's time, and so 
 were often used interchangeably. So, a little later in this scene : " Under 
 these hard conditions as this time is like to lay upon us." See page 224. 
 note 20. This man, Caius Cassius Longinus, had married Junia, a sister 01 
 Brutus. Both had lately stood for the chief Praetorship of the city, and 
 Brutus, through Caesar's favour, had won it; though Cassius was at the same 
 time elected one of the sixteen Praetors or judges of the city. This is said to 
 have produced a coldness between Brutus and Cassius, so that they did not 
 speak to each other, till this extraordinary flight of patriotism brought them 
 together. 
 
 6 Construe is, I belisve, always used by Shakespeare with the first sylla- 
 ble long. 
 
436 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT L 
 
 Than that poor Brutus, with himself at war, 
 Forgets the shows of love to other men. 
 
 Oass. Then, Brutus, I have much mistook your passion ; 
 By means whereof 6 this breast of mine hath buried 
 Thoughts of great value, worthy cogitations. 
 Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face ? 
 
 Bru. No, Cassius ; for the eye sees not itself 
 But by reflection from some other thing. 7 
 
 Oass. 'Tis just: 
 
 And it is very much lamented, Brutus, 
 That you have no such mirror as will turn 
 Your hidden worthiness into your eye, 
 That you might see your shadow. I have hea*d, 
 Where many of the best respect in Rome, 8 
 Except immortal Caesar ! speaking of Brutus, 
 And groaning underneath this age's yoke, 
 Have wish'd that noble Brutus had his eyes. 
 
 JBru. Into what dangers would you lead me, Cassius, 
 That you would have me seek into myself 
 For that which is not in me ? 9 
 
 Oass. Therefore, good Brutus, be prepar'd to hear : 
 And, since you know you cannot see yourself 
 So well as by reflection, I, your glass, 
 Will modestly discover to yourself 
 That of yourself which you yet know not of. 
 And be not jealous on me, 10 gentle Brutus : 
 Were I a common laugher, or did use 
 To stale with ordinary oaths my love u 
 To every new protester ; if you know 
 That I do fawn on men, and hug them hard, 
 And after scandal them; or if you know 
 That I profess myself, in banqueting, 
 To all the rout, 12 then hold me dangerous. 
 
 [Flourish and Shout. 
 
 6 Means was sometimes used in the sense of cause or reason. Whereof 
 refers to the preceding clause. 
 
 * By an image or " shadow " reflected from a mirror, or from water, or 
 ome polished surface. 
 
 8 Respect is very often used by the Poet for consideration. See page 101, 
 note 16. The parenthetical clause, " except immortal Csesar," is very em- 
 phatic, and intensely ironical. 
 
 9 Brutus likes to hear Cassius talk in that strain, and here moves him to 
 go on, and amplify the matter. 
 
 10 On and of were used indifferently in such cases. 
 
 11 To stale is to make common, to prostitute. The word is often used in 
 that sense. 
 
 12 The order, according to the sense, is, " if you know that, in banquet- 
 Vftg, I profess myself to all the rout." To make his flattery work the bet- 
 ter, Cassins here assures the "gentle Brutus" that he scorns to flatter, that 
 be never speaks any thing but austere truth, and that he is extremely select 
 in his friendships. 
 
80. II. 
 
 JULIUS CAESAR. 437 
 
 Bru. What means this shouting ? I do fear the people 
 Choose Cassar for their king. 
 
 Cass. Ay, do you fear it? 
 
 Then must I think you would not have it so. 
 
 Bru. I would not, Cassius ; yet I love him well. 
 But wherefore do you hold me here so % long ? 
 What is it that you would impart to me ? 
 If it be aught toward the general good, 
 Set honour in one eye and death i' the other, 
 And I will look on both indifferently ; 
 For let the gods so speed me as I love 
 The name of honour more than I fear death. 18 
 
 Cass. I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus, 
 As well as I do know your outward favour. 
 Well, honour is the subject of my story. 
 J cannot tell what you and other men 
 Think of this life ; but, for my single self, 
 I had as lief not be as live to be 
 In awe of such a thing as I myself. 
 I was born free as Caesar ; so were you : 
 We both have fed as well ; and we can both 
 Endure the Winter's cold as well as he : 
 For once, upon a raw and gusty day, 
 The troubled Tyber chafing with her shores, 
 Caesar said to me, Dar'st thou, Cassius, now 
 Leap in with me into this angry flood, 
 And swim to yonder point ? Upon the word, 
 Accoutred as I was, I plunged in, 
 And bade him follow : so indeed he did. 
 The torrent roar'd, and we did buffet it 
 With lusty sinews, throwing it aside 
 And stemming it with hearts of controversy ; 14 
 But, ere we could arrive the point proposed, 15 
 Caesar cried, Help me, Cassius, or I sink! 
 I, as ^Eneas, our great ancestor, 
 Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder 
 
 13 There appears to be some confusion here; though I am not cleat 
 whether it be the Poet's or the speaker's. Brutus has just said that he " will 
 look on both indifferently," and he now says a thing not consistent with that. 
 Warburton would read death instead of both; which would remove the inco- 
 herence. But probably Brutus' thought changes somewhat while he is in 
 the act of expressing it. For he does not seem to have a very firm mental 
 grip: his head is none of the clearest. This is not the only instance where 
 the latter end of his thought seems to forget the beginning. 
 
 14 This mode of speech was not uncommon. The sense is, " with con- 
 tending or controverting hearts." For instances of similar expression see 
 page 129, note 3. 
 
 15 The verb arrive, in its active sense, according to its etymology waa 
 formerly used for to approach, or come near. 
 
438 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT I 
 
 The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tyber 
 
 Did I the tired Caesar : and this man 
 
 Is now become a god ; and Cassius is 
 
 A wretched creature, and must bend his bodj, 
 
 If Cresar carelessly but nod on him. 
 
 He had a fever when he was in Spain ; 16 
 
 And when the fit was on him I did mark 
 
 How he did shake : 'tis true, this god did shake : 
 
 His coward lips did from their colour fly ; 17 
 
 And that same eye, whose bend doth awe the world, 
 
 Did lose his lustre. I did hear him groan : 
 
 Ay, and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans 
 
 Mark him, and write his speeches in their books, 
 
 Alas, it cried, Give me some drink, Titinius, 
 
 As a sick girl. Ye gods, it doth amaze me, 
 
 A man of such a feeble temper should 18 
 
 So get the start of the majestic world, 
 
 And bear the palm alone. [Shout. Flourish. 
 
 Bru. Another general shout ! 
 I do believe that these applauses are 
 For some new honours that are heap'd on Caesar. 
 
 Cass. Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world, 
 Like a Colossus ; 19 and we petty men 
 Walk under his huge legs, arid peep about 
 To find ourselves dishonourable graves. 
 Men at some time are masters of their fates : 
 The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, 
 But in ourselves, that we are underlings. 
 
 w Caesar had three several campaigns in Spain at different periods of his 
 life, and it does not appe ir which of them i^ here referred to. He was some- 
 what subject to epileptic fits, especially in his later years, as Napoleon also ia 
 said to have been. Fever was used for sickness, generally, and not merely 
 for what we call a fever. 
 
 " The image, very bold, somewhat forced, and not altogether happy, is 
 that of a cowardly soldier running away fr- >m his flag. In " did lose his 
 lustre," his is used for its, the latter not being then an accepted word. See 
 page 103, note 24. 
 
 is Temper is here used nearly in the sense of constitution or temperament. 
 This mighty man, in fact, notwithstanding his fiery energy and lightning- 
 like swiftness of thought and act, was of a rather fragile make, with an al- 
 most feminine delicacy of texture. Cicoro, who did not love him at all, in 
 one of his Letters applies to him a, Greek word, the same that is used for 
 miracle or wonder in the New Testament: the English of the passage being, 
 14 This miracle (m<>nster?) is a thing of terrible energy, swiftness, diligence." 
 
 19 Observe the force of narrow here; as if Caesar were grown so enor- 
 mously big that even the world seemed a little thing under him. Some while 
 before this, the Senate had erected a bronze statue of Caesar, standing on a 
 globe, and inscribed to " Caesar the Demigod;" which inscription, however, 
 Caesar had erased. The original Colossus was a bronze statue a hundred 
 and twenty feet high, set up astride a part of the harbour at Rhodes so that 
 ships passed " *nder its huge legs " It was one of the sevo-n wonders cf th 
 world. 
 
SC. II. 
 
 JULIUS C^SAR. 439 
 
 Brutus and Ccesar : What should be in that Ccesar f 
 Why should that name be sounded more than yours ? 
 Write them together, yours is as fair a name ; 
 Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well ; 
 Weigh them, it is as heavy ; conjure with them, 
 Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Ccesar 
 Now, in the names of all the gods at once, 
 Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed, 
 That he is grown so great ? Age, thou art sham'd ! 
 Rome thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods ! 
 When went there by an age, since the great flood, 21 
 But it was fam'd with more than with one man ? 
 When could they say, till now, that talk'd of Rome, 
 That her wide walls encompassed but one man? 2 * 
 Now is it Rome indeed, and room enough, 
 When there is in it but one only man. 
 O, you and I have heard our fathers say 
 There was a Brutus once * that would have brook'd 
 Th' eternal Devil to keep his state in Rome, 
 As easily as a king ! 
 
 Bru. That you do love me, I am nothing jealous ; 
 What you would work me to, I have some aim : M 
 How I have thought of this, and of these times, 
 I shall recount hereafter ; for this present, 
 I would not, so with love I might entreat you, 
 Be any further mov'd. What you have said, 
 I will consider ; what you have to say, 
 I will with patience hear ; and find a time 
 Both meet to hear and answer such high things. 
 Till then, my noble friend, chew upon this : ^ 
 Brutus had rather be a villager 
 Than to repute himself a son of Rome 
 
 20 The allusion is to the old custom of muttering certain names, supposed 
 to have in them " the might of magic spells," in raising or conjuring up 
 spirits. Brutus and Ccesar are here printed in Italic, to show that Cassius is 
 referring to the magical power of the names, and not to the men. 
 
 21 By this a Roman would of course mean Deucalion's flood, not Noah's. 
 
 22 The original has walks instead of walls. In the next line there is a 
 play upon the words Rome and room, which may have been more consonous 
 in the Poet's time than thev are now. 
 
 23 Alluding to Lucius Junius Brutus, who bore a leading part in driving 
 out Tarquin the Proud, and in turning the Kingdom into a Republic. After- 
 wards, as Consul, he condemned his own sons to death for attempting to re- 
 etore the Kingdom. The Maicus Junius 3rutus of the play supposed himself 
 to be lineally descended from him. His mother, Servilia, also derived her 
 .ineage from Servilius Ahala, who slew Spurius Majlius for aspiring to roy- 
 alty. Merivale justly remarks that " the name of Brutus forced its possessor 
 into prominence as soon as royalty began to be discussed." 
 
 24 To aim is to guess. So, in Romeo and Juliet, i. 1 : " I cdmfd so near 
 when I suppos'd you lov'd." Jealous was often u**Mi in the sense of doubtful. 
 
 25 To chew is literally the same us to ruminate See page 81 note 6. 
 
440 JULIUS C^SAR. A.CT JU 
 
 linden these hard conditions as this time 
 Is like to lay upon us. 
 
 Cass. I am glad that my weak words 
 Have struck but thus much show of fire from Brutua. 
 
 Bru. The games are done, and Caesar is returning. 
 
 Cass. As they pass by, pluck Casca by the sleeve ; 
 And he will, after his sour fashion, tell you 
 What hath proceeded worthy note to-day. 
 
 Re-enter CJSSAR and his Train. 
 
 Bru. I will do so. But, look you, Cassius, 
 The angry spot doth glow on Caesar's brow, 
 And all the rest look like a chidden train : 
 Calpurnia's cheek is pale ; and Gcero 
 Looks with such ferret and such fiery eyes * 
 As we have seen him in the Capitol, 
 Being cross'd in conference by some Senator. 
 
 Cass. Casca will tell us what the matter is. 
 
 Cces. Antonius, 
 
 Ant. Caesar? 
 
 Cces. Let me have men about me that are fat ; 
 Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights : 
 Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look ; 
 He thinks too much : such men are dangerous. 27 
 
 Ant. Fear him not, Cassar ; he's not dangerous ; 
 He is a noble Roman, and well given. 28 
 
 Cces. 'Would he were fatter ! but I fear him not : 
 Yet, if my name were liable to fear, 
 I dp not know the man I should avoid 
 So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much ; 
 He is a great observer, and he looks 
 Quite through the deeds of men : he loves no plays, 
 As thou dost, Antony ; he hears no music : a 
 Seldom he smiles ; and smiles in such a sort 
 As if he mock'd himself, and scorn'd his spirit 
 That could be mov'd to smile at any thing. 
 
 26 The ferret is a very ferocious little animal of the weasel kind, noted 
 for its fire-red eyes. The angry spot on Caesar's brow, Calpurnia's pale 
 cheek, and Cicero spouting fire from his eves as when kindled by opposition 
 in the Senate, make an exceedingly vivid picture. 
 
 27 So in North's Plutarch, Life of Julius CcBsar: " When Caesar's friends 
 complained unto him of Antonius and Dolabella, that they pretended some 
 mischief towards him, he answered them, 'As for those fat men, and smooth 
 combed heads, I never reckon of them ; but these pale visaged and carion 
 leane people, I feare them most; meaning Brutus and Cassius." 
 
 28 Well given is well disposed. 
 
 29 This note of Cassiu< naturally draws to him what is said of '* th* man 
 that hath no music in himself," in The Merchant of Venice, v. 1. 
 
8C. II. JULIUS O<E3A.R. 441 
 
 Such men as he be never at heart's ease 
 Whiles they behold a greater than themselves ; 
 And therefore are they very dangerous. 
 I rather tell thee what is to be fear'd 
 Than what I fear, for always I am Caesar. 
 Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf, 30 
 And tell me truly what thou think'st of him. 
 
 [Exeunt CAESAR and his Tram. CASCA stays. 
 
 Casca. You pull'd me by the cloak : would you speak with 
 me? 
 
 Bru. Ay, Casca ; tell us what hath chanc'd to-day, 
 That Caesar looks so sad. 
 
 Casca. Why, you were with him, were you not ? $ 
 
 Bru. I should not, then, ask Casca what had chanc'd. 
 
 Casca. Why, there was a crown offer'd him; and being 
 offer'd him, he put it by with the back of his hand, thus ; and 
 then the people fell a-shouting. 
 
 Bru. What was the second noise for ? 
 
 Casca. Why, for that too. 
 
 Cass. They shouted thrice : what was the last cry for ? 
 
 Casca. Why, for that too. 
 
 Bru. Was the crown offer'd him thrice ? 
 
 Casca. Ay, marry, was't, and he put it by thrice, every 
 time gentler than other ; and at every putting-by mine honest 
 neighbours shouted. 
 
 Cass. Who offer'd him the crown ? 
 
 Casca. Why, Antony. 
 
 Bru. Tell us the manner of it, gentle Casca. 
 
 Casca. I can as well be hang'd, as tell the manner of it : it 
 was mere foolery ; I did not mark it. I saw Mark Antony 
 offer him a crown ; yet 'twas not a crown neither, 'twas one 
 of these coronets ; and, as I told you, he put it by once : but, 
 for all that, to my thinking, he would fain have had it. Then 
 he offered it to him again ; then he put it by again : but, to my 
 thinking, he was very loth to lay his fingers off it. And 
 ihen he offered it the third time ; he put it the third time by ; 
 and still, as he refus'd it, the rabblement shouted, and clapp'd 
 tLeir chapp'd hands, and threw up their sweaty night-caps, 
 and uttered such a deal of stinking breath because Caesar 
 refus'd the crown, that it had almost choked Caesar ; for he 
 swooned, and fell down at it : and, for mine own part, I durst 
 not laugh, for fear of opening my lips and receiving the bad 
 air. 
 
 Cass. But, soft ! I pray you. What, did Caesar swoon ? 
 
 80 This is one of the little touches of invention that so often impart a fact- 
 like vividness to the Poet's scenes. 
 
442 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT 1. 
 
 Catca. He fell down in the market-place, and foain'd at 
 mouth, and was speechless. 
 
 Bru. 'Tis very like ; he hath the falling-sickness. 
 
 Cass. No, Cresar hath it not ; hut you, and I, 
 And honest Casca, we have the falling-sickness. 31 
 
 Casca. I know not what you mean by that ; hut I am sure 
 Cicsar fell down. If the tag-rag people did not clap him and 
 hiss him, according as he pleas'd ayd displeas'd them, as they 
 use to do the players in the theatre, I am no true man. 
 
 Bru. What said he when he came unto himself? 
 
 Oasca. Marry, before he fell down, when he perceiv'd the 
 common herd was glad he refus'd the crown, he pluck'd me 
 ope his doublet, and ofFer'd them his throat to cut : an I had 
 been a man of any occupation, 3 - if I would not have taken him 
 at a word, I would I might go to Hell among the rogues : and 
 BO he fell. When he came to himself again he said, if he had 
 done or said any thing amiss, he desir'd their worships to 
 think it was his infirmity. 33 Three or four wenches, where I 
 stood, cried, Alas, good soul! and forgave him with all thei) 
 hearts. But there's no heed to be taken of them : if Caesa* 
 had stabb'd their mothers, they would have done no less. 
 
 Bru. And, after that, he came thus sad away ? 
 
 Casca. Ay. 
 
 Cass. Did Cicero say any tiling ? 
 
 Casca. Ay, he spoke Greek. 
 
 Cass. To what effect ? 
 
 Casca. Nay, an I tell you that, I'll ne'er look you i' the facy 
 again : but those that understood him smil'd at one another 
 and shook their heads ; but, for mine own part, it was Greek U 
 me. 34 I could tell you more news too : Marullus ancTFlavlua, 
 for pulling scarfs off Caesar's images, are put to silence. Fare 
 you well : There was more foolery yet, if I could remember it. 
 
 Cass. Will you sup with me to-night, Casca? 
 
 81 Meaning the disease of "standing prostrate" before Caesar. Foling- 
 nckness or foMing-ewl was the English name for epilepsy in Shakespeare'^ 
 time. 
 
 82 Men of occupation are mechanics or artizans. So, in Coriolanus, iv. 6: 
 M You have made good work, you and your apron-men; you that stood so 
 much u i on the voice of occupation, and the breath of garlic-eaters." 
 
 83 This is historical, and is thus given in North's Plutarch: ** Thereupon 
 also Caesar rising departed home, and, tearing open his dublet coller, making 
 his necke bare, he cried out aloud to his friends, that his throate was readie 
 to offer to any man that would come and cut it. Notwithstanding, it is re- 
 ported that afterwards, to excuse his folly, he imputed it to his disease, sav- 
 ing that their wits are not perfit which have this disease of the falling evill." 
 
 84 A charming invention. Cicero had a long, sharp tongue, and was 
 mighty fond of using it; and nothing was more natural, supposing him to 
 have been present, than that he should snap off som^ keen sententious say- 
 ings; prudently veiling them however in a foreign language from ail buJ 
 those who miglit safely' understand them. 
 
8C. II. JULIUS C^ESAK. 443 
 
 Casca. No, I am promis'd forth. 
 
 Cass. Will you dine with me to-morrow? 
 
 Casca. Ay, if I be alive, and your mind hold, and your 
 dinner worth the eating. 
 
 Cass. Good ; I will expect you. 
 
 Casca. Do so : Farewell both. [Exit CASCA 
 
 Bru. What a blunt fellow is this grown to be ! 85 
 He was quick mettle when he went to school. 
 
 Ciss, So is he now, in execution 
 Of any bold or noble enterprise, 
 However he puts on this tardy form. 
 This rudeness is a sauce to his good wit, 
 Which gives men stomach to digest his words 
 With better appetite. 
 
 Bru. And so it is. For this time I will leave you : 
 To-morrow, if you please to speak with me, 
 I will come home to you ; or, if you will, 
 Come home to me, and I will wait for you. 
 
 Cass. I will do so : till then, think of the world. 
 
 [Exit BRUTUS. 
 
 Well, Brutus, thou art noble ; yet, I see, 
 Thy honourable metal may be wrought 
 From that it is disposed : m therefore 'tis meet 
 That noble minds keep ever with their likes ; 
 For* who so firm that cannot be seduc'd? 
 Caesar doth bear me hard, 37 but he loves Brutus : 
 If I were Brutus now, and he were Cassius, 
 He should not humour me. 88 I will this night, 
 
 85 Blunt here means, apparently, dull or slow; allu'ling to the "tardy 
 form " Casca has just "put on " in 'winding so long about the matter before 
 coming to the point. 
 
 36 Wrought from what it is dispos'd to. I am not clear whether Cassius 
 here refers to the effect of his own talk, or to that of Caesar's treatment, in 
 warping Brutus from his natural b^nt. He evidently regards Brutus as a 
 noble putty-head, and goes on to take order for moulding him accordingly. 
 
 87 To bear me hard js, in old English, to have a grudge against me, or to 
 think ill of me. The phrase occurs twice afterwards in the same sense itt 
 this play. 
 
 88 To humour a man, as the term is here used, is to turn and wind and 
 work him, by playing on his passions. There is some obscurity in the pas- 
 sage, it being not quite clear whether the last he refers to Cassius or to 
 Caesar. Warburton explains it thus: " If I were Brutus, and Brutus were 
 Cassius, he should not cajole me as I do him." .Johnson's explanation runs 
 thus: "Caesar loves Brutus; but if Brutus and I were to change places, his 
 love should riot take hold of my affections, so as to make me forget my 
 principles." It is not easy to say whicn of these is the better; but the latter 
 best agre< 
 
 in many 1 
 quested. 
 
 friends, and of greatest authoritie and credite about him. Howbeit, Cassiua 
 friends did di.sswade him, and pra^ ed him to beware of Cajsars sweete en- 
 ticements and to die lus> tyrannical! favors; the whi^h the}' said Caesar gav 
 
441 JULIUS C.ESAR. ACT L 
 
 In several hands, 39 in at his window throw, 
 
 As if they came from several citizens, 
 
 Writings all tending to the great opinion 
 
 That Rome holds of his name ; wherein obscurely 
 
 Caesar's ambition shall be glanced at : 
 
 And, after this, let Caesar seat him sure ; 
 
 For we will shake him, or worse days endure. 40 [Exit. 
 
 SCENE III. The same. A Street. 
 
 Thunder and Lightning. Enter, from opposite sides, CASCA, 
 with his Sword drawn, and CICERO. 
 
 Olc. Good even, Casca : brought you Caesar home ? l 
 Why are you breathless ? and why stare you so ? 
 
 Casca. Are not you mov'd, when all the sway of Earth 
 Shakes, like a thing unfirin ? O Cicero ! 
 I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds 
 Have riv'd the knotty oaks ; and I have seen 
 Th* ambitious ocean swell and rage and foam, 
 To be exalted with the threatening clouds : 2 
 But never till to-night, never till now, 
 Did I go through a tempest dropping fire. 
 Either there is a civil strife in Heaven, 
 Or else the world, too saucy with the gods, 
 Incenses them to send destruction. 8 
 
 Gic. Why, saw you any thing more wonderful ? * 
 
 Casca. A common slave (you know him well by sight) 
 Held up his left hand, which did name and burn 
 Like twenty torches join'd ; and yet his hand, 
 Not sensible of fire, remained unscorch'd. 
 Besides, (I have not since put up my sword,) 
 Against the Capitol I met a lion, 
 
 him. not to honour his vertue, but to weaken his constant minde, framing it 
 to tne bent of his bow." 
 
 39 In several hand-writing*. 
 
 40 We will cither shake him, or endure worse days in suffering the conse- 
 quences of our attempt. The Poet makes Cassius overflow with intense 
 personal spite against Caesar. This is in accordance with what he read in 
 J'lutarch: "Cassius, being a choleric man, and hating Caesar privately 
 mor= than he did the tyranny openly, incensed Brutus against him. It is 
 also reported th it Brutus could* evil away with th3 tyranny, and that Cassiua 
 hated the tyrant." Of course tyranny as here used means royalty 
 
 1 Did you attend or escort him home? This use of briny was common. 
 
 2 So as, or insomuch as to be exalted with the threatening clouds. The 
 Peer often uses the infinitive mood thus 
 
 3 Either the god* are fighting among themselves, or else they are making 
 war on the world for bein<r too saucy with them. 
 
 4 More is here equivalent to else: saw you any thing more that wai 
 wonderlul? 
 
SC. III. 
 
 JULIUS C^CSAR. 44/ 
 
 Who glar'd upon me, and went surly by, 
 Without annoying ine. And there were drawn 
 Upon a heap a hundred ghastly women, 6 
 Transformed with their fear ; who swore they saw 
 Men, all in fire, walk up arid down the streets. 
 And yesterday the bird of night did sit 
 Even at noon-day upon the market-place, 
 Hooting and shrieking. 6 When these prodigies 
 Do so conjointly meet, let not men say, 
 These are their reasons, they are natural ;** 
 For I believe they are portentous things 
 Unto the climate that they point upon. 
 
 Cic. Indeed, it is a strange-disposed time : 
 But men may construe things after their fashion, 
 Clean from the purpose of the things themselves. 
 Comes Ccesar to the Capitol to-morrow ? 
 
 Casca. He doth ; for he did bid Antonius 
 Send word to you he would be there to-morrow. 
 
 Oic. Good night then, Casca : this disturbed sky 
 Is not to walk in. 
 
 Casca. Farewell, Cicero. \Exit CICERO. 
 
 Enter CASSIUS. 
 
 Cass. Who's there? 
 
 Casca. A Roman. 
 
 Cass. Casca, by your voice. 
 
 Casca. Your ear is good. Cassius, what night is this I 
 
 Cass. A very pleasing night to honest men. 
 
 Casca. Who ever knew the Heavens menace so ? 
 
 Cass. Those that have known the Earth so full of faults. 
 For my part, I have walk'd about the streets, 
 Submitting me unto the perilous night ; 
 And, thus unbraced, Casca, as you see, 
 Have bar'd my bosom to the thunder-stone : 8 
 
 6 Drawn upon a heap is draiim together in a crowd. 
 
 6 Plutarch, in the Life of Julius Ccesar, gives the following account of 
 
 these wonders: " Touching the fires in the element, and spirits running up 
 and downe in the night, and also the solitary birds to be scene at noon daiea 
 sitting in the great market place, are not alf these signes perhaps worth the 
 
 noting in such a wonderfull chance as happened? But Strabo the Philoso- 
 pher writeth, that divers men were scene going up and downe in fire; and 
 furthermore, that there was a slave of the soldiers, that did cast a marvellous 
 burning flame out of his hand; insomuch as they that saw it thought he had 
 beiie burnt, but when the fire was out it was found he had no hurt." 
 
 7 Casca refers to the doctrine of the Epicureans, who were slow to be- 
 lieve that such elemental pranks had any moral significance in them, or that 
 moral causes had any thing to do with them; and held that the reasons of 
 them were to be sought for in the simple working of natural laws and forces. 
 The mild recepticism of Cicero's replv is exceedingly graceful anc apt. 
 
 8 Thunder-stone is the old word for thunder-bwk, Unbraced answers t4 
 our unbuttoned. 
 
146 JULIUS C^KSAR. ACT I. 
 
 And when the cross blue lightning seem'd to open 
 The breast of Heaven, I did present myself 
 Even in the aim and very flash of it. 
 
 Casca. But wherefore did you so much tempt the Heavens ? 
 It is the part of men to fear and tremble, 
 When the most mighty gods by tokens send 
 Such dreadful heralds to astonish us. 
 
 Cass. You are dull, Casca ; and those sparks of life 
 That should be in a Roman you do want, 
 Or else you use not. You look pale, and gaze, 
 And put on fear, and case yourself in wonder, 9 
 To see the strange impatience of the Heavens : 
 But if you would consider the true cause 
 Why all these fires, why all these gliding ghosts, 
 Why birds and beasts, from quality and kind ; 10 
 "Why old men fool, and children calculate ; 
 Why all these things change from their ordinance, 
 Their natures, and preformed faculties, 
 To monstrous quality ; why, you shall find 
 That Heaven hath infus'd them with these spirits, 
 To make them instruments of fear and warning 
 Unto some monstrous State. 11 Now could I, Casca, 
 Name to thee a man most like this dreadful night ; 
 That thunders, lightens, opens graves, and roars, 
 As doth the lion, in the Capitol ; 12 
 A man no mightier than thyself or me 
 In personal action ; yet prodigious grown, 
 And fearful, as these strange eruptions are. 
 
 8 Attire yourself in wonder, or put on an expression of wonder. The 
 original has cast instead of case, the reading adopted by White and Dyce. 
 I am not quite clear as to the propriety of the change, apt and expressive aa 
 it is; though the use of put on, just before, favours it. 
 
 10 The sense of change, two lines below, appears to be anticipated here. 
 The grammar of the passage is rather badly confused, yet the mealing is 
 clear enough; the general idea being that of elements an'd animals, and even 
 of old men and children, acting in a manner out of or against their nature 
 ami kind; or changing their natures and original faculties from the course, 
 in which they were ordained to move, to monstrous or unnatural modes of 
 action. The original reads, "old men, fools, and children." This makes 
 the sense incoherent, and is clearly wrong. The reading of the text gives 
 the coherent and right sense, that old men in being foolish, and children in 
 being considerate, are acting just as much out of character, as the fires and 
 ghosts, the birds ami beasts are in what has already been related of them. 
 
 11 Some State or Commonwealth that has grown all out of natural pro- 
 priety. As Cassius is an avowed Epicurean, it may seem out of character 
 to make him speak thus. But he is here talking for effect, his aim being to 
 kindle and instigate Casca into the conspiracy; and to this end he does not 
 stick to say what he does not himself believe; ail which is rightly character- 
 istic of him. 
 
 12 This reads as if a lion were kept in the Capitol to roar for them. But the 
 meaning is that Caesar roars in the Capitol, like a lion. Perhaps Cassius has 
 the idea of Caesar's claiming or aspiring to be among men what the lion ia 
 among beasts. 
 
O. III. JULIUS CAESAR. 447 
 
 Casca. 'Tis Caesar that you meaii ; is it not, Cassias ? 
 
 Cass. Let it be who it is for Romans now 
 Have thews and limbs like to their ancestors ; 18 
 But, woe the while ! our fathers' minds are dead, 
 And we are govern'd with our mothers' spirits ; 
 O'ir yoke and sufferance show us womanish. 
 
 Casca. Indeed, they say the Senators to-morrow 
 Mean to establish Caesar as a king ; 
 And he shall wear his crown by sea and land, 
 In every place, save here in Italy. 
 
 Cass. I know where I will wear this dagger, then ; 
 Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius : 
 Therein, ye gods, you make the weak most strong ; 
 Therein, ye gods, you tyrants do defeat : 
 Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass, 
 Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron, 
 Can be retentive to the strength of spirit ; 
 But life, being weary of these worldly bars, 
 Never lacks power to dismiss itself. 
 If I know this, know all the world besides, 
 That part of tyranny that I do bear 
 I can shake off at pleasure. [ Thundei still* 
 
 Casca. So can I : 
 
 So every bondman in his own hand bears 
 The power to cancel his captivity. 
 
 Cass. And why should Caesar be a tyrant, then ? 
 Poor man ! I know he would not be a wolf, 
 But that he sees the Romans are but sheep : 
 He were no lion, were not Romans hinds. 
 Those that with haste will make a mighty fire 
 Begin it with weak straws : What trash is Rome, 
 What rubbish, and what offal, when it serves 
 For the base matter to illuminate 
 So vile a thing as Caesar ! 14 But, O grief, 
 Where hast thou led me ? I perhaps speak this 
 Before a willing bondman : then I know 
 My answer must be made ; but I am arm'd, 
 And dangers are to me indifferent. 
 
 Casca. You speak to Casca ; and to such a man 
 That is no fleering tell-tale. 16 Hold, my hand : 
 
 18 Thews is an old word, and a right good one too, for sinews or WMWC&*. 
 
 14 To shed splendour upon him, or to make light for him to shine by. 
 
 16 Fleering unites the two senses of flattering and mocking, and so is just 
 the right epithet for a tall-tale, who flatters you into saying that of another 
 irhich you ought not to say, and then mocks you by going to that other and 
 telling "what you have said. 
 
44:8 JULIUS CAESAR. 4.CT 1. 
 
 Be factious for redress of all these griefs ; 18 
 And I will set this foot of mine as far 
 As who goes farthest. 
 
 Oass. There's a bargain made. 
 
 Now know you, Casca, I have mov'd already 
 Some certain of the noblest-minded Romans 
 To undergo with me an enterprise 
 Of honourable-dangerous consequence ; 
 And I do know, by this, they stay for me 
 In Pompey's porch : for now, this fearful night, 
 There is no stir or walking in the streets ; 
 Ajid the complexion of the element 
 In favour's like the work we have in hand, 17 
 Most bloody-fiery and most terrible. 
 
 Casca. Stand close awhile, for here comes one in haste. 
 
 Cass. 'Tis Cinna ; I do know him by his gait ; 
 He is a friend. 
 
 CINNA. 
 
 Cinna, where haste you so ? 
 
 Cin. To find out you. Who's that ? Metellus Cimber ? 
 
 Oass. No, it is Casca ; one incorporate 
 To our attempt. Am I not stay'd for, Cinna ? 
 
 Cin. I'm glad on't. What a fearful night is this ! 
 There's two or three of us have seen strange sights. 
 
 Cass. Am I not stay'd for ? tell me. 
 
 Cin. Yes, 
 
 You are. O, Cassius, if you could but win 
 The noble Brutus to our party, 
 
 Cass. Be you content. Good Cinna, take this paper, 
 And look you lay it in the praetor's chair, 
 Where Brutus may but find it ; and throw this 
 In at his window ; set this up with wax 
 Upon old Brutus' statue : all this done, 
 Repair to Pompey's Porch, 18 where you shall find U8. 
 Is Decius Brutus and Trebonius there ? 
 
 Cin. All but Metellus Cimber ; and he's gone 
 To seek you at your house. Well, I will hie, 
 And so bestow these papers as you bade me. 
 
 Cass. That done, repair to Pompey's theatre. 
 
 [Exit CINNA, 
 Come, Casca, you and I will yet, ere day, 
 
 ! Factious seems to be here used in its original sense of doing or active. 
 17 Favour here is put for appearance, look, countenance. 
 !8 Pompey's Porch was a spacious adjunct to the great theatre which 
 Pompey had built a tew years before. 
 
8C. I. 
 
 JULIUS (LESAR. 449 
 
 See Brutus at his house : three parts of him 
 Is ours already ; 19 and the man entire, 
 Upon the next encounter, yields him ours. 
 
 Casca. O, he sits high in all the people's hearts ! 
 And that which would appear offence in us, 
 His countenance, like richest alchymy, 
 Will change to virtue and to worthiness. 
 
 Oass. Him, and his worth, and our great need of him, 
 You have right well conceited. 20 Let us go, 
 For it is after midnight ; and, ere day, 
 We wiL awake him, and be sure of him. [Exeunt, 
 
 ACT II. SCENE I. Rome. BRUTUS'S Orchard. 1 
 Enter BRUTUS. 
 
 Bru. What, Lucius, ho ! 
 I cannot, by the progress of the stars, 
 Give guess how near to day. Lucius, I say ! 
 I would it were my fault to sleep so soundly. 
 When, Lucius, when ! a Awake, I say ! what, Lucius ! 
 
 Enter Lucius. 
 
 Luc. Call'd you, my lord ? 
 
 Bru. Get me a taper in my study, Lucius : 
 When it is lighted, come and call me here. 
 
 Luc. I will, my lord. [Exit 
 
 Bru. It must be by his death : 8 and, for my part, 
 I know no personal cause to spurn at him, 
 But for the general. 4 He would be crown'd : - 
 How that might change his nature, there's the question : 
 It is the bright day that brings forth the adder ; 5 
 And that craves wary walking. Crown him ; that ; 
 
 19 The discord of parts and is was not ungrammatical in the Poet's time 
 
 20 Conceit is always used by Shakespeare in a good sense. Here it meani 
 conceived. 
 
 1 Orchard and garden were synonymous. In Romeo and Juliet, Capulet'i 
 garden is twice called orchard. The word was anciently written hcrt-yard. 
 
 2 When ! was sometimes used as an exclamation of impatience. 
 
 8 Brutus has been casting about on all sides to find some other means to 
 prevent Caesar's being king, and here gives it up that this can be done only 
 by killing him. Thus the speech opens in just the right way to throw us 
 back upon his antecedent meditations. 
 
 4 The public cause. The use of general in the sense of public is common. 
 
 6 The Poet is apt to be right in his observation of Nature. In a brigh: 
 Warm day the snakes come out to bask in the eun. And the idea is, that the 
 sunshine of roya ty will kindle the seroent in Caesar. 
 
450 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT O. 
 
 And then, I grant, we put a sting in him, 
 That at his will he may do danger with. 
 Th* abuse of greatness is, when it disjoins 
 Remorse from power ; 6 and, to speak truth of Caesar, 
 I have not known when his affections sway'd 
 'More than his reason. 7 But 'tis a common proof, 
 'That lowliness is young ambition's ladder, 
 Whereto the climber-upward turns his face ; 
 But, when he once attains the upmost round, 
 , He then unto the ladder turns his back, 
 Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees 
 By which he did ascend : 8 so Cassar may ; 
 Then, lest he may, prevent. And, since the quarrel 
 Will bear no colour for the thing he is, 9 
 Fashion it thus ; that what he is, augmented, 
 Would run to these and these extremities : 
 And therefore think him as a serpent's egg, 
 Which, hatch'd, would, as his kind, grow mischievous ; 
 And kill him in the shell. 
 
 Re-enter Lucius. 
 
 Luc. The taper burueth in your closet, sir. 
 Searching the window for a flint, I found 
 This paper thus seal'd up ; and I am sure 
 It did not lie there when I went to bed. 
 
 Bru. Get you to bed again ; it is not day. 
 Is not to-morrow, boy, the ides of March? 
 
 Luc. I know not, sir. 
 
 Bru. Look in the calendar, and bring me word. 
 
 Luc. I will, sir. [JZxil. 
 
 Bru. The exhalations, whizzing in the air, 
 Give so much light that I may read by them. 
 
 [ Opens the Paper, and reads. 
 
 e Remorse in Shakespeare commonly means pity or compassion. Powei 
 is apt to harden the heart, and make men cruel ; and the logic of the massage 
 ia, that it has had no such effect on Caesar; that in all his greatiu& he haa 
 still kept his tenderness of heart. 
 
 7 By affection the Poet sometimes means susceptibility of being affecte& 
 by external things, as distinguished from firmness of reason. Here the sense 
 is, that Caesar has not been corrupted by power, or drawn from the course of 
 reason into any " abuse of greatness." 
 
 8 Degrees is here used in its primitive sense of steps, meaning the lounds 
 of the ladder. 
 
 9 This is rather oddly expressed. The meaning is, Since we have no 
 colour of a pretext, in what Caesar now is, or in any thing he has yet. done, 
 for driving this quarrel against him, let us assume that the further addition 
 of a crown will (Juite upset his nature. The strain of subtle casuistry u-ed 
 in this speech is very remarkable, and may well provoke a qi estion as to 
 what sort of a character the Poet meant his Brutus to be. Coleridge found 
 it very perplexing. Certainly it is such a style of reasoning as no clear- 
 headed honest man would use. 
 
SC. I. JULIUS CJESAR. 451 
 
 Brutus, tJiou sleep' st : awake and see thyself. 
 
 Shall Rome, fyc. Speak, strike, redress ! 
 
 Brutus, thou sleep 'st : awake ! 
 
 Such instigations have been often dropp'd 
 
 Where I have took them up. 
 
 Shall Rome, fyc. Thus must I piece it out : 
 
 Shall Rome stand under one man's awe ? What, Rome ? 
 
 My ancestor did from the streets of Rome 
 
 The Tarquin drive, when he was call'd a king. 
 
 Speak, strike, redress! Am I entreated 
 
 To speak and strike ? O Rome, I make thee promise, 
 
 If the redress will follow, thou receivest 
 
 Thy full petition at the hand of Brutus ! 
 
 Re-enter Lucius. 
 
 Luc. Sir, March is wasted fourteen days. 10 
 
 [Knocking within. 
 
 Bru. 'Tis good. Go to the gate ; somebody knocks. 
 
 [Exit Lucius. 
 
 Since Cassius first did whet me against Caesar, 
 I have not slept. 
 
 Between the acting of a dreadful thing 
 And the first motion, 11 all the interim is 
 Like a phantasma or a hideous dream : 
 The Genius and the mortal instruments 
 Are then in council ; 12 and the state of man, 
 Like to a little kingdom, suffers then 
 The nature of an insurrection. 
 
 Re-enter Lucius. 
 
 IMC. Sir, 'tis your brother Cassius at the door, 
 Who doth desire to see you. 
 
 Bru. Is he alone ? 
 
 19 The original has fifteen instead of fourteen. As this is on the morn- 
 ing of the fifteenth, our inode of reckoning would count only fourteen dayi 
 as wasted. 
 
 n "The first motion" is the first thought, or the first budding of the 
 thcught into purpose. The state of mind here spoken of is wonderfully rep- 
 resented in the case of Macbeth, in the uncontrollable nervousness which the 
 purpose generates in him. 
 
 12 Mortal is here used in the sense of deadly ; for that which Tails, not 
 that which dies. The Poet often uses it so ; as in Lady Macbeth's fearful 
 invocation, " Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts." The passage 
 is meant to suggest the intense struggle of conflicting motions that goes on 
 in a man between the first conception and the final execution of " a dreadful 
 thing." The Genius, or the governing part, holds a council with the sub- 
 ordinate faculties, its ministers, which shrink from executing its will; and 
 are in revolt against the Genius until it schools or forces them into executive 
 obedience. These ministers are the deadly instruments which, by standing 
 out from the ministry of death, fill the mind with insurrectionary disorder. 
 
JULIUS CAESAR. ACT IL 
 
 c. No, sir ; there are more with him. 
 B* u. Do you know them F 
 
 Luc. No, sir : *heir hats are pluck'd about their ears, 
 
 And half their faces buried hi their cloaks, 
 
 That by no means I may discover them 
 
 By any mark of favour. 
 
 Bru. Let 'em enter. [Exit Lucius. 
 
 They are the faction. O Conspiracy, 
 
 Sham'st thou to show thy dangerous brow by night, 
 
 When evils are most free ? 13 O, then, by day 
 
 Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough 
 
 To mask thy monstrous visage ? Seek none, Conspiracy 
 
 Hide it hi smiles and affability : 
 
 For if thou put thy native semblance on, 14 
 
 Not Erebus itself were dim enough 
 
 To hide thee from prevention. 15 
 
 Enter CASSIUS, CASCA, DECIUS, CINNA, METELLUS CIMBEB, 
 and TREBONIUS. 
 
 Oass. I think we are too bold upon your rest : 
 Good morrow, Brutus ; do we trouble you ? 
 
 Bru. I have been up this hour, awake all night. 
 Know I these men that come along with you ? 
 
 Oass. Yes, every man of them ; and no man here, 
 But honours you ; and every one doth wish 
 You had but that opinion of yourself 
 Which every noble Roman bears of you. 
 This is Trebonius. 
 
 Bru. He is welcome hither. 
 
 Oass. This Decius Brutus. 16 
 
 Bru. He is welcome too. 
 
 Oass. This, Casca; this, China; and this Metellus Cimbei. 
 
 Bru. They are all welcome. 
 
 18 When crimes, or perhaps evil men, are most free from the restraiEte of 
 law, or of shame. 
 
 14 The original has pnlh instead of put. Path is retained by some editors, 
 Betting a (,) after it, and taking it in the sense of pass. Sir. Dyce reads 
 put. I cannot say that I am fully satisfied with either reading. Pass and 
 have have also been proposed. 
 
 16 To hide thee from discovery, which would lead to prevention. 
 
 16 Shakespeare found the name thus in Plutarch. In fact, however, it 
 was Decimus, not Decius. The man is not known to have been any kin to 
 the other Brutus of the play. He had been one of Caesar's ablest, most fa- 
 voured, and most trusted lieutenants, and had particularly distinguished 
 himself in his naval service at Venetia and Massilia. After the murder of 
 Cassar, he was found to be written down in his will as one of his heirs ; also 
 to be prospectively designated by him for certain offices, which he was so 
 patriotic as to accept. And he was the second of the conspirators to be slain, 
 while Trebonius was the first ; who had also served with ability and noiioui 
 iu Ca3sar's campaigns. 
 
8C. t. JULIUS CvESA.K. 453 
 
 What watchful cares do interpose themselves 
 Betwixt your eyes and night ? 
 
 Cass. Shall I entreat a word ? [ They whisper* 
 
 Dec. Here lies the East : doth not the day break here ? 
 
 Ca&ca. No. 
 
 Oin. O, pardon, sir, it doth ; and yon gray lines 
 That fret the clouds are messengers of day. 
 
 Gasca. You shall confess that you are both deceiv'd. 
 Here, as I point my sword, the Sun arises ; 
 Which is a great way growing on the South, 
 Weighing the youthful season of the year. 17 
 Seme two months hence, up higher toward the North 
 He first presents his fire ; and the high East 
 Stands, as the Capitol, directly here. 
 
 Bru. Give me your hands all over, one by one. 
 
 Cass. And let us swear our resolution. 
 
 Bru. No, not an oath : if not the face of men, 18 
 The sufferance of our souls, the time's abuse, 
 If these be motives weak, break off betimes, 
 And every man hence to his idle bed ; 
 So let high-sighted tyranny range on, 
 Till each man drop by lottery. 19 But if these, 
 As I am sure they do, bear fire enough 
 To kindle cowards, and to steel with valour 
 The melting spirits of women ; then, countrymen, 
 What need we any spur but our own cause 
 To prick us to redress ? what other bond 
 Than secret Romans, that have spoke the word, 
 And will not palter ? 20 and what other oath 
 Than honesty to honesty engag'd, 
 That this shall be, or we will fall for it ? 
 Swear priests, and cowards, and men cautelous, 21 
 
 ng " for morning fut 
 ferent theme is very finely conceived, and aptly marks the men as seeking to 
 iivert off the anxious thoughts of the moment by any casual chat. It also 
 lerves the double purpose of showing that they are not listening, and of pre- 
 venting suspicion, if any were listening to them. 
 
 * " The face of men " seems to mean nothing more nor less than the 
 asp' ct of men, or their anxiety as depicted in their looks. Some think the 
 reading corrupt, but I can see no difficult} 7 ' in it. The change of construc- 
 tion in the sentence gives it a more colloquial taste, without causing any 
 obscurity or confusion of thought. 
 
 19 Till each man drop as his allotted time provides. 
 
 20 To palter is to shuffle or equivocate. Engaged is pledged. See page 
 103, note 23. 
 
 21 Cautelous is here used in the sense of deceit or fraud; though its 
 original meaning is wary, circumspect, the same as cautious. The word in 
 Baid to have caught a bad sense in passing through French hands. 
 
454 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT IL 
 
 Old feeble carrions, and such suffering souls 
 
 That welcome wrongs ; unto bad causes swear 
 
 Such creatures as men doubt : but do not stain 
 
 The even virtue of our enterprise, 
 
 Nor th' insuppressive mettle of our spirits, 22 
 
 To think that or our cause or our performance 
 
 Did need an oath ; when every drop of blood 
 
 That every Roman bears, and nobly bears, 
 
 Is guilty of a several bastardy, 
 
 If he do break the smallest particle 
 
 Of any promise that hath pass'd from him. 
 
 Cass. But what of Cicero ? Shall we sound him ? 
 I think he will stand very strong with us. 
 
 Oasca. Let us not leave him out. 
 
 Oin. No, by no means. 
 
 Met. O, let us have him ! for his silver hairs 
 Will purchase us a good opinion, 
 And buy men's voices to commend our deeds : 
 Jt shall be said, his judgment rul'd our hands ; 
 Our youths and'wildness shall no whit appear, 
 But all be buried in his gravity. 
 
 Bru. O, name him not ! let us not break with him ; * 
 For he will never follow any thing 
 That other men begin. 
 
 Cass. Then leave him out, 
 
 Oasca. Indeed, he is not fit. 
 
 Dec. Shall no man else be touch'd but only Caasar ? 
 
 Cass. Decius, well urg'd. I thinj| it is not meet, 
 Mark Antony, so well belov'd of Cassar, 
 Should outlive Cassar : we shall find of him 
 A shrewd contriver ; and you know, his means, 
 If he improve them, may well stretch so far 
 As to annoy us all : which to prevent, 
 Let Ajitony and Caesar fall together. 
 
 Bru. Our course will seem too bloody, Caius Cassias, 
 To cut the head off, and then hack the limbs, 
 Like wrath in death, and envy afterwards ; 24 
 For Antony is but a limb of Cassar. 
 
 22 Insuppressible mettle; the active form with the passive sense. So6 
 page 66, note 4. 
 
 23 Old language for " let us not break the matter to him." This bit of 
 dialogue is very charming. Brutus knows full well that Cicero is not the 
 man to play second fiddle to any of them ; that if he have any thing to do 
 with the enterprise it must be as the leader of it, and the biggest man in it, 
 and that is just what Brutus wants to be himself. Merivale thinks it a great 
 honour to Cicero, that the conspirators did not venture to propose the matter 
 to him. 
 
 24 jnvy here, as almost always by Shakespeare, is used for malice, See 
 page 151, note 1. 
 
SC. I. 
 
 JULIUS CAESAR. 455 
 
 Let us be sacrificers, but not butchers, Caius. 
 We all stand up against the spirit of Caesar ; 
 And in the spirit of men there is no blood : 
 O, that we then could come by Caesar's spirit, 
 And not dismember Caesar ! But, alas, 
 Caesar must bleed for it ! And, gentle friends, 
 Let's kill him boldly, but not wrathfully ; 
 Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods, 
 Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds : 
 And let our hearts, as subtle masters do, 
 Stir up their servants to an act of rage, 
 And after seem to chide 'em. This shall make 
 Our purpose necessary, and not envious ; M 
 Which so appearing to the common eyes, 
 We shall be call'd purgers, not murderers. 
 And for Mark Antony, think not of him ; 
 For he can do no more than Caesar's arm 
 When Csesar's head is off. 26 
 
 Oass. Yet I fear him; 
 
 For in th' ingrafted love he bears to Caesar 
 
 Bru. Alas, good Cassius, do not think of him. 
 If he love CaesaE, all that he can do 
 Is to himself, take thought, and die for Caesar : w 
 And that were much he should ; for he is given 
 To sports, to wildness, and much company. 
 
 Treb. There is no fear in him ; 28 let him not die ; 
 For he will live, and laugh at this hereafter. [ Clock strikes* 
 
 Bru. Peace ! count the clock. 
 
 Cass. The clock hath stricken three. 
 
 Treb. 'Tis time to part. 
 
 Cass. But it is doubtful yet 
 
 Whether Caesar will come forth to-day or no ; 
 For he is superstitious grown of late, 
 Quite from the main opinion he held once 
 Of fantasy, of dreams, and ceremonies. 26 
 
 25 Shall make our purpose seem the offspring of necessity, not of malice. 
 Perhaps it should be mark instead of make. Shall is here an instance of the 
 undiffarentiated use of shall and will. The same thing occurs in our English 
 Bible. 
 
 26 Here we have, I think, an apt specimen of the subtle historic irony 
 that pervades this play. There are many other outcroppings of like sort. 
 
 27 To take thought and die, is, in old language, to grieve himself to death; 
 and it would be very strange if Antony should do this, such a light-hearted, 
 jolly companion a8*he is. See page 2'03, note 10. 
 
 28 Nothing in him to be feared, or no fear on account of him. The same 
 historic irony again. 
 
 29 Caesar held the Epicurean doctrine, as most of the educated Romans 
 of his time also did; and the scepticism which that doctrine taught as to 
 dreams and ceremonial auguries, was his "main opinion," or the corner* 
 
453 JULIUS CAESAR. 4CT U. 
 
 It may be, these apparent prodigies, 
 The unaccustoin'd terror of this night, 
 And the persuasion of his augurers, 
 May hold him from the Capitol to-day. 
 
 Dec. Never fear that : if he be so resolv'd, 
 I can o'ersway him ; for he loves to hear 
 That unicorns may be betray'd with trees, 
 And bears with glasses, elephants with holes, 80 
 Lions with toils, and men with flatterers : 
 But when I tell him he hates flatterers, 
 He says he does, being then most flattered. 
 Let me work ; 
 
 For I can give his humour the true bent, 
 And I will bring him to the Capitol. 
 
 Oass. Nay, we will all of us be there to fetch him. 
 Bru. By the eighth hour : is that the uttermost ? 
 Gin. Be that the uttermost ; and fail not then. 
 Met. Caius Ligarius doth bear Csesar hard, 
 Who rated him for speaking well of Pompey : 
 I wonder none of you have thought of him. 
 
 Bru. Now, good Metellus, go along by him : 81 
 He loves me well, and I have given him reasons ; 
 Send him but hither, and I'll fashion him. 
 
 Cass. The morning comes upon 's : we'll leave you, Brutus : ^ 
 And, friends, disperse yourselves ; but all remember 
 What yen have said, and show yourselves true Romans. 
 
 Bru. Good gentlemen, look fresh and merrily ; 
 Let not our IOOKS put on our purposes ; 82 
 But bear it as our Roman actors do, 
 With untir'd spirits and formal constancy : 
 And so, good-morrow to you every one. 
 
 [Exeunt all but BRUTUS. 
 
 Boy ! Lucius ! Fast asleep ? It is no matter ; 
 Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber : ra 
 
 gtone of his philosophy. His later years, however, are said to have beei 
 marked with some rather gross instances of superstitious practice. 
 
 80 Unicorns are said to have been taken by one who, running behind a 
 tree, eluded the violent push the animal was making at him, so that his horn 
 spent its force on the trunk, and stuck fast, detaining the animal till he was 
 despatched by^ the hunter. Sears are reported to have been surprised by 
 means of a mirror, which they would gaze on, affording their pursuers aa 
 opportunity of taking the surer aim. Elephants were seduced into pitfalls, 
 lightly covered with hurdles and turf, on which a proper bait to tempt them 
 was placed. 
 
 81 That is, by his house ; make that your way home. 
 
 82 Let not our looks betray our purposes by wearing or being attired with 
 any indications of them. 
 
 88 The compound epithet honey-heavy is very expressive and apt. The 
 "dew of slumber" is called heavy because it makes the subject feel Jieavy, 
 and honey-heavy because the heaviness it induces is sweet. Brutus is uafc- 
 
BC. I. JULIUS CAESAR. 457 
 
 Thou hast no figures nor no fantasies, 
 Which busy care draws in the brains of men; 
 Therefore thou sleep st so sound. 
 
 jEnter PORTIA. 
 
 Par. Brutus, my lord ! 
 
 J3ru. Portia, what mean you ? wherefore rise you now ? 
 It is not for your health, thus to commit 
 Your weak condition to the raw-cold morning. 
 
 POT. Nor for yours neither. You Ve ungently, Brutus, 
 Stole from my bed : and yesternight, at supper, 
 You suddenly arose, and walk'd about, 
 Musing and sighing, with your arms across ; 
 And when I ask'd you what the matter was, 
 You star'd upon me with ungentle looks : 
 I urg'd you further ; then you scratch'd your head, 
 And too impatiently stamp'd with your foot : 
 Yet I insisted, yet you answer'd not ; 
 But, with an angry wafture of your hand, 
 Gave sign for me to leave you. So I did ; 
 Fearing to strengthen that impatience 
 Which seem'd too much enkindled ; and withal 
 Hoping it was but an effect of humour, 
 Which sometime hath his hour with every man. 
 It will not let you eat, nor talk, nor sleep ; 
 And, could it work so much upon your shape, 
 As it hath much prevail'd on your condition, 84 
 I should not know you, Brutus. Dear my lord, 
 Make me acquainted with your cause of grief. 
 
 JBru. I am not well in health, and that is all. 
 
 Par. Brutus is wise, and, were he not in health, 
 He would embrace the means to come by it. 
 
 Bru. Why, so I do. Good Portia, go to bed. 
 
 Por. Is Brutus sick ? and is it physical 35 
 To walk unbraced, and suck up the humours 
 Of the dank morning ? What, is Brutus sick, 
 And will he steal out of his wholesome bed, 
 To dare the vile contagion of the night, 
 
 uraily led to contrast the free and easy state of the boy's mind with that of 
 his own, which the excitement of his present undertaking is drawing full of 
 visions and images of trouble. 
 
 84 Condition was much used for temper or disposition. See page 34, 
 note 22. 
 
 85 The Poet has physical again in the sense of wholesome or medicinal, in 
 Cfariolanus. i. 5: " The blood I drop is rather physical than dangerous to me.** 
 Unbraced has occurred before for unbuttoned. 
 
458 JULIUS (LESAR. ACT H 
 
 Ai'd tempt the rheumy and unpurged air 86 
 To add unto his sickness ? No, my Brutus ; 
 You have some sick offence within your mind, 
 Which, by the right and virtue of my place, 
 I ought to know of: and, upon my knees, 
 I charm you, 37 by my once-commended beauty, 
 By all your vows of love, and that great vow 
 Which did incorporate and make us one, 
 That you unfold to me, yourself, your half, 
 Why you are heavy, and what men to-night 
 Have had resort to you ; for here have been 
 Some six or seven, who did hide their faces 
 Even from darkness. 
 
 Bru. Kneel not, gentle Portia. 
 
 Por. I should not need, if you were gentle Brutus. 
 Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus, 
 Is it excepted I should know no secrets 
 That appertain to you ? Am I yourself 
 But, as it were, in sort or limitation, 
 To keep with you at meals, comfort your bed, 
 And talk to you sometimes ? Dwell I but in the suburbs 
 Of your good pleasure ? 88 If it be no more, 
 Portia is Brutus' harlot, not his wife. 
 
 Bru. You are my true and honourable wife ; 
 As dear to me as are the ruddy drops 
 That visit my sad heart. 89 
 
 Por. If this were true, then should I know this secret. 
 I grant I am a woman ; but withal 
 A woman that Lord Brutus took to wife : 
 I grant I am a woman ; but withal 
 A woman well reputed, Cato's daughter. 
 Think you I am no stronger than my sex, 
 Being so fathered and so husbanded ? 
 Tell me your counsels, I will not disclose 'em. 
 
 86 Rheum is specially used of the fluids that issue from the eyes or mouth 
 So in Hamlet we have " bisson rheum " for blinding tears. Rheumy here 
 means that state of the air which causes the unhealthy issue of such fluids^ 
 or perhaps which makes people rheumatic. So, in A Midsummer-Night' 'f 
 Dream, ii. 1, Titania speaks of the Moon as " washing all the air, that rheu- 
 matic diseases do abound." 
 
 87 Charm is here used nearly, if not exactly, in the sense of conjure 
 Perhaps it should be charge, as Pope read. 
 
 88 In the outskirts or borders, and not at the centre or near the heart, of 
 your good pleasure. A charming image. 
 
 89 This embodies what was then known touching the circulation of the 
 blood. William Harvey was born in 1578, fourteen years after Shakespeare, 
 and his discovery was not published till 1628, twelve years after the Poet's 
 aeath. The. general fact of the circulation of the blood was known in ancient 
 times; and Harvey's discovery lay in ascertaining the modus operandi o f it, 
 and in reducing itfto matter of strict science. 
 
BC. I. JULIUS (LESAR. 459 
 
 I have made strong proof of my constancy, 
 Giving myself a voluntary wound 
 Here, in the thigh : can I bear that with patience, 
 And not my husband's secrets ? 
 
 Bru. O, ye gods, 
 
 Render me worthy of this noble wife ! \_Knocking within. 
 Hark, hark ! one knocks : Portia, go in awhile ; 
 And by-and-by thy bosom shall partake 
 The secrets of my heart : 
 All my engagements I will construe to thee, 
 All the charactery of my sad brows : w 
 
 Leave me with haste. [Exit PORTIA.] Lucius, who's that 
 knocks ? 
 
 Re-enter Lucius with LIGARIUS. 
 
 Luc. Here is a sick man that would speak with you. 
 
 Bru. Caius Ligarius, that Metellus spake of. 
 Boy, stand aside. Caius Ligarius, how ! 
 
 Lig. Vouchsafe good-morrow from a feeble tongue. 
 
 Bru. O, what a time have you chose out, brave Caius, 
 To wear a kerchief ! 41 Would you were not sick I 
 
 Lig. I am not sick, if Brutus have in hand 
 Any exploit worthy the name of honour. 
 
 Bru. Such an exploit have I in hand, Ligarius, 
 Had you a healthful ear to hear of it. 
 
 Lig. By all the gods that Romans bow before, 
 I here discard my sickness. Soul of Rome ! 
 Brave son, deriv'd from honourable loins ! 
 Thou, like an exorcist, 42 hast conjur'd up 
 My mortified spirit. Now bid me run, 
 And I will strive with things impossible ; 
 Yea, get the better of them. What's to do ? 
 
 Bru. A piece of work that will make sick men whole. 
 
 Lig. But are not some whole that we must make sick ? 
 
 Bru. That must we also. What it is, my Caius, 
 1 shall unfold to thee, as we are going, 
 To whom it must be done. 
 
 Lig. Set on your foot, 
 
 40 Charactery is defined " writing by characters or strange marks." Bru 
 tus therefore means that he will divulge to her the secret cause of the sad 
 ness marked on his countenance. 
 
 41 It was a common practice in England for those who were sick to weai 
 a kerchief on their heads. Thus, in Fuller's Worthies of Cheshire : " If any 
 there be sick, they make him a posset and tye a kerchief on his head; and if 
 that will not mend him, then God be merciful to him." 
 
 42 In Shakespeare's time, exorcist and conjurer were used indifferently 
 The former has since come to mean only one who drives away spiritu ; the 
 latter, one who calls them up. 
 
60 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT IL 
 
 And with a heart new-fir'd I follow you, 
 To do I know not what ; but it sufficeth 
 That Brutus leads ine on. 
 
 Bru. Follow me, then. [Exeunt. 
 
 SCENE II. The Same. A Room in CESAR'S Palace. 
 Thunder and Lightning. Enter CAESAR, in his Night-gown. 
 
 Cces. Nor Heaven nor Earth have been at peace to-night :* 
 Thrice hath Calpurnia in her sleep cried out, 
 Help, ho ! they murder Ccesar ! Who's within ? 
 
 Enter a Servant. 
 
 Sen?. My lord ? 
 
 Cces. Go bid the priests do present sacrifice, 
 And bring me their opinions of success. 1 
 
 Serv. I will, my lord. [Exit. 
 
 Enter CALPURNIA. 
 
 Cal. What mean you, Caesar ? think you to walk forth ? 
 You shall not stir out of your house to-day. 
 
 Cces. Caesar shall forth : the things that threatened me 
 Ne'er look'd but on my back ; when they shall see 
 The face of Caesar, they are vanished. 
 
 Cal. Caesar, I never stood on ceremonies, 2 
 Yet now they fright me. There is one within, 
 Besides the things that we have heard and seen, 
 Recounts most horrid sights seen by the watch. 
 A lioness hath whelped in the streets ; 
 And graves have yawn'd, and yielded up their dead ; 
 Fierce fiery warriors fought upon the clouds, 
 In ranks and squadrons and right form of. war, 
 Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol ; 
 The noise of battle hurtled in the air ; 8 
 Horses did neigh, and dying men did groan ; 
 And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets- 
 Caesar, these things are beyond all use, 
 And I do fear them ! 
 
 Cces. What can be avoided 
 
 Whose end is purpos'd by the mighty gods ? 
 
 1 Their opinions of what is to follow. The Poet often uses success tn 
 this its Latin sense: so that we have the phrases " good success" and ** ift 
 Buccess." 
 
 2 Ceremonies is here put for the ceremonial or sacerdotal interpretation of 
 |vr;>digies and omens. See, also, page 455, note 29. 
 
 * To hurtle is to clash, or move with violence and noise. 
 
sc. n JULIUS CAESAR. 461 
 
 Yet CiEsar shall go forth ; for these predictions 
 Are to the world in general as to Caesar.* 
 
 Gal. When beggars die, there are no comets seen ; 
 The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes, 
 
 Cces. Cowards die many times before their deaths ; 
 The valiant never taste of death but once. 5 
 Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, 
 It seems to me most strange that men should fear ; 
 Seeing that death, a necessary end, 
 Will come Tflhen it will come. 
 
 Re-enter the Servant. 
 
 What say the augurers ? 
 
 Serv. They would not have you to stir forth to-day. 
 Plucking the entrails of an offering forth, 
 They could not find a heart within the beast. 
 
 Cces. The gods do this in shame of cowardice : 
 Caesar should be a beast without a heart, 
 If he should stay at home to-day for fear. 
 No, Caesar shall not : Danger knows full well 
 That Caesar is more dangerous than he : 
 We are two lions litter'd in one day, 
 And I the elder and more terrible ; 
 And Caesar shall go forth. 
 
 Gal. Alas, my lord, 
 
 Your wisdom is consumed in confidence ! 
 Do not go forth to-day : call it my fear 
 That keeps you in the house, and not your own. 
 We'll send Mark Antony to the Senate-House ; 
 And he shall say you are not well to-day : 
 Let me, upon my knee, prevail in this. 
 
 Cces. Mark Antony shall say I am not well ; 
 And, for thy humour, I will stay at home. 
 
 Enter DECIUS. 
 
 Here's Decius Brutus, he shall tell them so. 
 
 Dec. Caesar, all hail ! Good morrow, worthy Caesar : 
 
 4 These prodigies have no special reference to me; they point just ts 
 much to others. 
 
 6 This is historical. Plutarch relates that, a short time before Caesar fell, 
 some of his friends urged him to have a guard about him. and heT replied 
 that it was better to die at once, than live in the continual fear of death. 
 A like saying is reported as having come from our President Lincoln, a short 
 time before he was murdered. Caesar is also said to have given as his rea- 
 son for refusing a guard, that he thought Rome had more need of him, than 
 he had gf Rome; which was indeed true. And it is further stated that, on 
 the eve of the fatal day, Cassar being at the house of Lepidus with some 
 friends, and the question being raised, " What kind of death is best? ' h 
 cut short the discussion by saying, " That which is least expected." 
 
462 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT IL 
 
 I come to fetch you to the Senate-House. 
 
 Cces. And you are coine in very happy time 
 To bear my greeting to the Senators, 
 And tell them that I will not come to-day. 
 Cannot, is false ; and that I dare not, falser : 
 I will not come to-day. Tell them so, Decius. 
 
 Gal, Say he is sick. 
 
 Gees. Shall Caesar send a lie ? 
 
 Have I in conquest stretch'd mine arm so far, 
 To be afeard to tell gray-beards the truth ? 
 Decius, go tell them Csesar will not come. 
 
 Dec. Most mighty Caesar, let me know some cause, 
 Lest I be laugh'd at when I tell them so. 
 
 Gees. The cause is in my will ; I will not come : 
 That is enough to satisfy the Senate. 
 But, for your private satisfaction, 
 Because I love you, I will let you know : 
 Calpurnia here, my wife, stays me at home : 
 She dream'd to-night she saw my statua, 6 
 \Yhich, like a fountain with an hundred spouts, 
 Did run pure blood ; and many lusty Romans 
 Came smiling, and did bathe their hands in it : 
 And these doth she apply for warnings and portents 
 Of evils imminent ; and on her knee 
 Hath begg'd that I will stay at home to-day. 
 
 Dec. This dream is all an-'ss interpreted: 
 It was a vision fair and fortii-iate. 
 Your statue spouting blood m many pipes, 
 In which so many smiling Romans bath'd, 
 Signifies that from you great Rome shall suck 
 Reviving blood ; and that great men shall press 
 For tinctures, stains, relics, and cognizance'. 7 
 This by Calpurnia's dream is signified. 
 
 Oces. And this way have you well expounded it. 
 
 Dec. I have, when you have heard what I can say ; 
 And know it now : The Senate have concluded 
 
 In Shakespeare's time statue was pronounced indifferently as a word 
 of two syllabus or three. Bacon uses it repeatedly as a trisyllable, and 
 spells it statua, as in his Advancement of Learning: "It is not possible to 
 have the true pictures of statuaes of Cyrus, Alexander, Csesar, no, nor of the 
 kings or great personages of much later years." The measure evidently 
 requires that it be a word of three syllables here, as also in Act iii. sc. 2; 
 "And at the base of Pompey's statua." 
 
 7 Cognizance is here used in a heraldic sense, as meaning any badge or 
 token to show whose friends or servants the owners or wearers were. In an- 
 cieiit times, when martyrs or other distinguished men were executed, their 
 friends often pressed to stain handkerchiefs with their blood, or to get some 
 other relic, which they might keep, either as precious memorials of them, or 
 as having a kind of sacramental virtue. 
 
8C. II. JULIUS CAESAR. 463 
 
 To give this day a crown to mighty Coesar. 
 If you shall send them word you will not come, 
 Their minds may change. Besides, it were a mock 
 Apt to be render'd, for some one to say, 
 Break up the Senate till another time. 
 When Geesar's wife shall meet with better dreams. 
 JL* Caesar hide himself, shall they not whisper, 
 jL/Oy Geesar is afraid ? 
 
 Pardon me, Caesar ; for my dear dear love 
 To your proceeding bids me tell you this ; 
 And reason to my love is liable. 8 
 
 Gees. How foolish do your fears seem now, Calpumia ! 
 I am ashamed I did yield to them. 
 Give ma my robe, for I will go : 
 
 Enter PUBLIUS, BRUTUS, LIGARIUS, METELLUS, CASCA, 
 TREBONIUS, and CINNA. 
 
 And look where Publius is come to fetch me. 9 
 
 Pub. Good morrow, Caesar. 
 
 Gees. Welcome, Publius. 
 
 What, Brutus, are you stirr'd so early too ? 
 Good morrow, Casca. Caius Ligarius, 
 Caesar was ne'er so much your enemy 
 As that same ague which hath made you lean. 10 
 What is't o'clock ? 
 
 Bru. Caesar, 'tis strucken eight. 
 
 Gees. I thank you for your pains and courtesy. 
 
 Enter ANTONY. 
 
 See ! Antony, that revels long o'nights, 
 
 Is notwithstanding up. Good morrow, Antony. 
 
 Ant. So to most noble Caesar. 
 
 Gees. Bid them prepare within : 
 
 I am to blame to be thus waited for. 
 Now, Cinna : Now, Metellus : What, Trebonius ! 
 I have an hour's talk in store for you. 
 Remember that you call on me to-day : 
 Be near me, that I may remember you. 
 
 Treb. Caesar, I will : \_Aside.~\ and so near will I be, 
 That your best friends shall wish I bad been further. 
 
 8 A singular use of liable ; but meaning, probably, that the deference, which 
 reason holds as due to the head of the State, yields or stands second to the 
 promptings of personal affection. 
 
 9 This was Publius Silicius; not one of the conspirators. 
 
 10 Here, for the first time, we have Cassar speaking fairly in character ; 
 for he was probably the most finished gentleman of his time, one of the 
 sweetest of men, and as full of kindness as of wisdom and courage. Men- 
 vale aptly styles him u Caesar, the politic and the merciful." 
 
464 JULIUS CJESAR. ACT II. 
 
 Ones. Good friends, go in, and taste some wine with me ; 
 And we, like friends, will straightway go together. 
 
 Bru. [Aside.~] That every like is not the same, O Caesar, 
 The heart of Brutus yearns to think upon ! n \_Exeunt. 
 
 SCENE IIL The Same. A Street near the Capitol. 
 JE^titer ARTEMIDORUS, reading a Paper. 
 
 Artem. Ccesar, beware of Brutus ; take heed of Cassius , 
 come not near Gasca ; have an eye to Ginna ; trust not Tre* 
 bonius ; mark well Metellus Gimber ; Decius Brutus loves thee 
 not; thou hast wrong* d Gaius Ligarius. There is but one 
 mind in all these men, and it is bent against Caesar. If thou 
 be'st not immortal, look about you : security gives way to con- 
 spiracy. The mighty gods defend thee ! Thy lover, 
 
 ARTEMIDO*US. 
 
 Here will I stand till Caesar pass along, 
 And as a suitor will I give him this. 
 My heart laments that virtue cannot live 
 Out of the teeth of emulation. 12 
 If thou read this, O Caesar, thou may'st live ; 
 If not, the Fates with traitors do contrive. \JKm,t. 
 
 SCENE IV. The Same. Another Part of the same Street, 
 before the House of BRUTUS. 
 
 Enter PORTIA and Lucius. 
 
 Por. I pr'ythee, boy, run to the Senate-House : 
 Stay not to answer me, but get thee gone. 
 Why dost thou stay ? 
 
 Luc. To know my errand, Madam. 
 
 Por. I would have had thee there, and here again, 
 Ere I can tell thee what thou should'st do there. 
 [Aside.~\ O constancy, be strong upon my side ! 
 Set a huge mountain 'tween my heart and tongue ! 
 I have a man's mind, but a woman's might. 
 How hard it is for women to keep counsel ! 
 Art thou here yet ? 
 
 Luc. Madam, what should I do ? 
 
 Kun to the Capitol, and nothing else ? 
 
 n The winning and honest suavity of Caesar here starts a pang of remorse 
 in Brutus. Drinking wine together was regarded as a sacred pledge of truth 
 and honour. Brutus knows that Caesar is doing it in good faith, and it hurts 
 him to think that the others seem to be doing the like, and yet are doing a 
 very different thing. 
 
 la Emulation is here used in its old sense of envious or factious rivalry. 
 
8C. IV. JULIUS CAESAR. 465 
 
 And so return to you, and nothing else ? 
 
 Por. Yes ; bring me word, boy, if thy lord look well, 
 For he went sickly forth : and take good note 
 What Caesar doth, what suitors press to him. 
 Hark, boy ! what noise is that ? 
 
 Luc. I hear none, Madam. 
 
 Por. Pr'ythee, listen well : 
 
 I heard a bustling rumour, like a fray, 
 And the W:E 1 brings it from the Capitol. 
 
 Luc. Sooth, Madam, I hear nothing. 
 
 Enter the Soothsayer 
 
 Por. Come hither, fellow. Which way hast thou been ? 
 
 Sooth. At mine own house, good lady. 
 
 Por. What is't o'clock ? 
 
 Sooth. About the ninth hour, lady. 
 
 Por. Is Caesar yet gone to the Oapitol ? 
 
 Sooth. Madam, not yet : I go to take my stand, 
 To see him pass on to the Capitol. 
 
 Por. Thou hast some suit to Caesar, hast thou not ? 
 
 Sooth. That I have, lady : if it will please Caesar 
 To be so good to Caesar as to hear me, 
 I shall beseech him to befriend himself. 
 
 Por. Why, know'st thou any harm's intended towards 
 him ? 
 
 Sooth. None that I know will be, much that I fear may 
 
 chance. 
 
 Good morrow to you. Here the street is narrow : 
 The throng that follows Caesar at the heels, 
 Of Senators, of Praetors, common suitors, 
 Will crowd a feeble man almost to death : 
 I'll get me to a place more void, and there 
 Speak to great Caesar as he comes along. _ 
 
 Por. I must go in. [Aside.~] Ah me, how weak a thing 
 The heart of woman is ! O Brutus, 
 The Heavens speed thee in thine enterprise ! 
 Sure, the boy heard me. Brutus hath a suit 
 That Caesar will not grant. 14 O, I grow faint. 
 Run, Lucius, and commend me to my lord ; 
 Say 1 am merry : come to me again, 
 And bring me word what he doth say to thee. \_Exeunt. 
 
 !8 The name of this augur was Spurinna. 
 
 14 These words Portia addresses to Lucius, to deceive him, by assigning 
 a false cause for her present perturbation. 
 
 30 ' 
 
4:66 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT IIL 
 
 ACT ILL SCENE I. Rome. Before the Capitol; the 
 Senate sitting. 
 
 A Crowd of People in the Street leading to the Capitol; among 
 them ARTEMIDORUS, and the Soothsayer. Flourish. Enter 
 CAESAR, BRUTUS, CASSIUS, CASCA, DECIUS, METELLUS, 
 TKEBONIUS, CINNA, ANTONY, LEPIDUS, POPILIUS, PUB- 
 Lius, and Others. 
 
 Cces. The ides of March are come. 
 
 Sooth. Ay, Caesar ; but not gone. 
 
 Art. Hail, Caesar ! Read this schedule. 
 
 Dec. Trebonius doth desire you to o'er-read, 
 At your best leisure, this his humble suit. 
 
 Art. O, Caesar, read mine first ; for mine's a suit 
 That touches Caesar nearer : read it, great Caesar. 
 
 Cces. What touches us ourself shall be last served. 
 
 A~t. Delay not, Caesar ; read it instantly. 
 
 Cces. What, is the fellow mad ? 
 
 Pub. Sirrah, give place. 
 
 Gees. What, urge you your petitions in the street ? 
 Come to the Capitol. 1 
 
 CESAR enters the Capitol, the Rest following. All the Senators 
 
 rise. 
 
 Pop. I wish your enterprise to-day may thrive. 
 
 Cass. What enterprise, Popilius ? 
 
 Pop. Fare you well. 
 
 Bru. What said Popilius Lena? 
 
 Cass. He wish'd to-day our enterprise might thrive. 
 I fear our purpose is discovered. 
 
 Rru. Look, how he makes to Csesar : mark him. 
 
 Cass. Casca, be sudden, for we fear prevention. 
 Brutus, what shall be done? If this be known, 
 Cassius or Caesar never shall turn back, 2 
 For I will slay myself. 
 
 1 The murder of Caesar did not, in fact, take place in the Capitol, as is 
 here represented, but in a hall or Curia adjoining Pompey's theatre, where 
 a statue of Pompey had been erected. 'The Senate had various places of 
 meeting; generally in the Capitol, occasionally in some one of the Temples, 
 at other times in one of the Curiae, of which there were several in and about 
 the citv. 
 
 2 Some editors read " Cassius on Csesar never shall turn back." The 
 change of or into on is plausible, as such a misprint was easy ; yet I find no 
 sufficient occasion for it. The meaning of Cassius I take to be, that he will 
 either kill Csesar or himself. Here again we have shall where the idiom of 
 our time would use wiU. 
 
SC. T. JULIUS CAESAR. 467 
 
 Bru. Cassius, be constant : 
 
 Popilius Lena speaks not of our purpose ; 
 For, look, he smiles, and Caesar doth not change. 
 
 Gass. Trebonius knows his time ; for, look you, Brutus, 
 He draws Mark Antony out of the way. 
 
 [Exeunt ANTONY and TREBONIUS. CESAR and the 
 Senators take their seats. 
 
 Dec. Where is Metellus Cimber ? Let him go, 
 And presently prefer his suit to Caesar. 
 
 J3ru. He is address'd : 3 press near and second him. 
 
 Gin. Casca, you are the first that rears your hand. 
 
 Gasca. Are we all ready ? 4 
 
 Gaes. What is now amiss 
 
 That Caesar and his Senate must redress? 
 
 Met. Most high, most mighty, and most puissant Caesar, 
 Metellus Cimber throws before thy seat 
 An humble heart, [Kneeling. 
 
 Gees. I must prevent thee, Cimber 
 
 These couchings and these lowly courtesies 5 
 Might fire the blood of ordinary men, 
 And turn pre-ordinance and first decree 
 Into the law of children. 6 Be not fond, 
 To think that Caesar bears such rebel blood 
 That will be thaw'd from the true quality 
 With that which melteth fools ; I mean, sweet words, 
 Low-crooked curtsies, and base spaniel fawning. 
 Thy brother by decree is banished : 
 If thou dost bend, and pray, and fawn for him, 
 I spurn thee like a cur out of my way. 
 Know, Caesar doth not wrong ; nor without cause 
 Will he be satisfied. 7 
 
 8 Addressed is ready, prepared; often so used. 
 
 4 In the original these words begin the following speech of Caesar. Rit- 
 Bon first suggested that they properly belonged to one of the conspirators. 
 The change is made in Collier's second folio, assigning the words to Casca; 
 which is probably right, as he was to lead off in the enterprise of stabbing. 
 
 6 Among the proper senses of to couch, Richardson gives "to lower, to 
 Stoop, to bend down; " and he says that " to cwich and to lower have similar 
 appil 3ations, and probably the same origin." 
 
 6 " Pre-ordinance and first decree " is the ruling or enactment of the high- 
 est authority in the State. " The law of children" here referred to is, as 
 soon as they have done a thing, to turn round and undo it, or to build a 
 house of blocks or cobs for the mere fun of knocking it over. " Be not fond " 
 is, "be not foolish ; " the common meaning of the word in Shakespeare's 
 time. The force of so and as is to be understood in the sentence. 
 
 7 Caesar is made to speak quite out of character here, and in a strain of 
 hateful arrogance, in order, apparently, to soften the hideous enormity of his 
 murder, and to grind the daggers of the assassins to a still sharper point. 
 Perhaps, also, it was a part of the irony already noted, to put the haughtiest 
 words in great Caesar's mouth just on the* eve of his fall. It may be 
 
468 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT IH. 
 
 Met. Is there no voice more worthy than my own, 
 To sound more sweetly in great Caesar's ear 
 For the repealing of my banish'd brother ? 
 
 Bru. I kiss thy hand, but not in flattery, Caesar; 
 Desiring thee that Publius Cimber may 
 Have an immediate freedom of repeal. 
 
 Oces. What, Brutus ! 
 
 Cass. Pardon, Caesar ; Caesar, pardon 
 
 As low as to thy foot doth Cassius fall, 
 To beg enfranchisement for Publius Cimber. 
 
 Cces. I could be well mov'd, if I were as you ; 
 If I could pray to move, prayers would move me : 8 
 But I am constant as the northern star, 
 Of whose true-fix'd and resting quality 
 There is no fellow in the firmament. 
 The skies are painted with un number 'd sparks, 
 They are all fire, and every one doth shine ; 
 But there's but one in all doth hold his place : 
 So in the world ; 'tis furnish'd well with men, 
 And men are flesh and blood, and apprehensive ; * 
 Yet in the number I do know but one 
 That unassailable holds on his rank, 
 Unshak'd of motion ; 10 and that I am he, 
 Let me a little show it even in this, 
 That I was constant Cimber should be banish'd, 
 And constant do remain to keep him so. 
 
 Gin. O Caesar, 
 
 Cas. Hence ! wilt thou lift up Olympus i 
 
 Dec. Great Caesar, 
 
 Cas. Doth not Brutus bootless kneel ? 
 
 Casca. Speak, hands, for me ! 
 
 [CASCA stabs CAESAR in the Neck. CAESAR catches 
 hold of his Arm. He is then stabbed by several 
 other Conspirators, and at last by MARCUS BRU- 
 TUS. 11 
 
 wsll to add, that the carrying of deadly weapons was unlawful in Rome ; but 
 every educated citizen carried a stylus in a sheath ; and on this occasion the 
 assassins had daggers hidden in their stylus-cases. 
 
 8 If I could seek to move others by prayers, then I were capable of being 
 myself moved bv the prayers of others. 
 
 9 Apprehensive is intelligent, capable of apprehending. 
 
 1 ** Unshak'd of motion " is simply unmoved, or not subject to motion. 
 In the Poet's time of was often used instead of by, to express the agent. So, 
 continually, in the Bible; as in the axiomatic saying, " Wisdom is justified 
 of her children." Also, " He that loveth Me shall be loved of my Father." 
 
 11 The original stage direction is merely, they stab Ccesar. That in tha 
 text was formed by Mai one and others from Plutarch and Suetonius, and hag 
 grown to be universally received. 
 
gc. i. JULIUS CAESAR. 469 
 
 Gees. Et tu, Brute ? 12 Then fall, Caesar ! 
 
 [Dies. The Senators and People retite in con 
 fusion. 
 
 Gin. Liberty ! Freedom ! Tyranny is dead ! 
 Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets. 
 
 Cass. Some to .the common pulpits, and cry out, 
 Liberty, freedom, and enfranchisement ! 13 
 
 Bru. People, and Senators, be not affrighted ; 
 Fly not ; stand still : ambition's debt is paid. 
 
 Casca. Go tu the pulpit, Brutus. 
 
 Dec. And Cassius too. 
 
 Bru. Where's Publius ? 
 
 Gin. Here, quite confounded with this mutiny. 
 
 Met. Stand fast together, lest some friend of Caesar's 
 Should chance 
 
 Bru. Talk not of standing. Publius, good cheer ! 
 There is no harm intended to your person, 
 Nor to no Roman else : so tell them, Publius. 
 
 Gass. And leave us, Publius ; lest that the people, 
 Bushing on us, should do your age some mischief. 
 
 Bru. Do so ; and let no man abide this deed, 
 But we the doers. 
 
 Re-enter TREBONIUS. 
 
 Gass. Where's Antony ? 
 
 Tre. Fled to his house amaz'd. 
 
 Men, wives, and children stare, cry out, and run 
 As it were doomsday. 
 
 Bru. Fates, we will know your pleasures : 
 
 That we shall die, we know ; 'tis but the time, 
 And drawing days out, that men stand upon. 
 
 Gasca. Why, he that cuts off twenty years of life 
 Cuts off so many years of fearing death. 14 
 
 Bru. Grant that, and then is death a benefit : 
 
 12 There is no classical authority for putting these words into the mouth 
 of Caesar; and the English equivalent, Thou too, Brutus, sounds so much 
 better, that it seems a pi y the Poet did not write so. The historians, how- 
 ever, relate that Caesar defended himself with his stylus, till he saw Brutus 
 in the press of assassins, with the steel flashing in his hand also, and then 
 gave up, and bowed his body to the strokes of the illustrious saints. Caesar 
 had been as a father to Brutus, who was fifteen years his junior; and the 
 Greek, Kai su teknon, " You too, my son," which Dion and Suetonius put 
 into his mouth, though probably unauthentic, is good enough to be true. 
 
 13 This is somewhat in the style of Caliban when he gets glorious with 
 "celestial liquor," The Tempest, ii. 2: " Freedom, hey-day! hey-day, free- 
 dom! freedom, hey-day, freedom! " 
 
 14 This is the last speech we have from Casca, and this is rightly charac- 
 teristic of him ; yet some editors have unaccountably transferred it to Cassiua 
 
170 JULIUS CJLSAR. ACT ID 
 
 So are we Caesar's friends, that have abridged 
 His time of fearing death. Stoop, Romans, stoop, 
 And let us bathe our hands in Caesar's blood 
 Up to the elbows, and besmear our swords : 
 Then walk we forth, even to the market-place, 
 And, waving our red weapons o'er our heads, 
 Let's all cry, Peace, Freedom, and Liberty ! 
 
 Cass. Stoop, then, and wash. How many ages hence \ 
 Shall this our lofty scene be acted o'er 
 In States unborn and accents yet unknown ! 
 
 Bm. How many times shall Coesar bleed in sport, 
 That now on Pouipey's basis lies along 15 
 No worthier than the dust ! 
 
 Cass. So oft as that shall be, 
 
 So often shall the knot of us be call'd 
 The men that gave their country liberty. 16 
 
 Dec. What, shall we forth ? 
 
 Cass. Ay, every man away : 
 
 Brutus shall lead ; and we will grace his heels 
 With the most boldest and best hearts of Rome. 
 
 Bra. Soft ! who comes here ? 
 
 Enter a Servant. 
 
 A friend of Antony's. 
 
 Serv. Thus, Bmtus, did my master bid me kneel ; 
 Thus did Mark Antony bid me fall down ; 
 And, being prostrate, thus he bade me say : 
 Brutus is noble, wise, valiant, and honest ; 
 Caesar was mighty, bold, royal, and loving : 
 Say I love Brutus, and I honour him ; 
 Say I fear'd Ca3sar, honour'd him, and lov'd him. 
 If Brutus will vouchsafe that Antony 
 May safely come to him, and be resolv'd 17 
 How Caesar hath deserv'd to lie in death, 
 Mark Antony shall not love Caesar dead 
 So well as Brutus living ; but will follow 
 
 16 So it was in fact: Caesar fell at the pedestal of Pompey's statue; th6 
 ttatue itself dripping with the blood that spurted from him. 
 
 16 These three speeches, vain-gloriously anticipating the stage celebrity 
 of the deed, are very strange; and, unless there be a shrewd, delicate irony 
 lurking in them, I am at a loss to understand the purpose of them. Their 
 effect on my mind has long been to give a very ambitious air to the work of 
 these professional patriots, and to cast a highly theatrical colour on their al- 
 leged virtue; as if they had sought to immortalize themselves by " striking 
 the foremost man of all this world." And this accords with one of Meri- 
 vale's close remarks about Brutus, calling him " the pedantic aspi?*ant to 
 philosophic renown." 
 
 I? fiesolvtd was often used in the sense of informed or assured. 
 
SO. I. JULIUS CAESAR. 47 J 
 
 The fortunes and affairs of noble Brutus 
 Thorough the hazards of this untrod state 18 
 With all true faith. So says my master Antony. 
 
 Bru. Thy master is a wise and valiant Roman ; 
 I never thought him worse. 
 Tell him, so please him come unto this place, 
 He shall be satisfied ; and, by my honour, 
 Depart untouch'd. 
 
 Serv. I'll fetch him presently. [jEfei'4 
 
 Bru. I know that we shall have him well to friend. 
 
 Cass. I wish we may ; but yet have I a mind 
 That fears him much, and my misgiving still 
 Falls shrewdly to the purpose. 
 
 Bru. But here comes Antony. 
 
 Re-enter ANTONY. 
 
 Welcome, Mark Antony. 
 
 Ant. O, mighty Caesar ! dost thou lie so low ? 
 Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils, 
 Shrunk to this little measure ? Fare thee well. 
 I know not, gentlemen, what you intend, 
 Who else must be let blood, who else is rank : 19 
 If I myself, there is no hour so fit 
 As Caesar's death-hour ; nor no instrument 
 Of half that worth as those your swords, made rich 
 With the most noble blood of all this world. 
 I do beseech ye, if you bear me hard, 
 Now, whilst your purpled hands do reek and smoke, 
 Fulfil your pleasure. Live a thousand years, 
 I shall not find myself so apt to die : 
 No place will please me so, no mean of death, 
 As here by Caesar, and by you cut off, 
 The choice and master spirits of this age. 
 
 Bru. O, Antony, beg not your death of us. 
 Though now we must appear bloody and cruel, 
 As, by our hands and this our present act, 
 You see we do ; yet see you but our hands, 
 And this the bleeding business they have done : 
 Our hearts you see not ; they are pitiful ; 
 And pity to the general wrong of Rome 
 
 18 Thorough and through are but different forms of the same word. Th 
 Poet repeatedly has thorough for through and also throughly for thoroughly. 
 The usage is common in the Bible. 
 
 19 Who else may be supposed to have overtopped his equals, and grown 
 too high for the public safety. So, in the speech of Oliver in As You Like 72, 
 i. 1, when incen-ed at the high bearing of Orlando: "Is it even so? begin 
 you to grow upon me? I will physic your rankness." 
 
472 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT III 
 
 As fire drives out fire, 20 so pity pity 
 
 Hath done this deed on Caesar. For your part, 
 
 To you our swords have leaden points, Mark Antony, 
 
 Our arms no strength of malice ; 21 and our hearts, 
 
 Of brothers' temper, do receive you in 
 
 With all kind love, good thoughts, and reverence. 
 
 Cass. Your voice shall be as strong as any man's 
 In the disposing of new dignities. 22 
 
 Bru. Only be patient till we have appeas'd 
 The multitude, beside themselves with fear, 
 And then we will deliver you the cause, 
 Why I, that did love Caesar when I struck him, 
 Have thus proceeded. 
 
 Ant. I doubt not of your wisdom. 
 
 Let each man render me his bloody hand : 
 First, Marcus Brutus, will I shake with you ; 
 Next, Caius Cassius, do I take your hand ; 
 Now, Decius Brutus, yours; now yours, Metellus; 
 Yours, Cinna ; and, my valiant Casca, yours ; 
 Though last, not least in love, yours, good Trebonius. 
 Gentlemen all, alas, what shall I say ? 
 My credit now stands on such slippery ground, 
 That one of two bad ways you must conceit me, 28 
 Either a coward or a flatterer. 
 That I did love thee, Ca3sar, O, 'tis true : 
 If, then, thy spirit look upon us now, 
 Shall it not grieve thee dearer than thy death, 24 
 To see thy Antony making his peace, 
 Shaking the bloody fingers of thy foes, 
 
 20 pi rt i s another of the words which Shakespeare uses as one or two 
 syllables indifferently, to suit his verse. Flere the first fire is two syllables, 
 the second one. The allusion is to the old way of salving a burn by hold- 
 ing it up to the fire. So, in Romeo and Juliet, i '2: " Tut, man, one fire burns 
 out another's burning; one pain is lessen' d by another's anguish." 
 
 21 In the old copies, this clause is disjoined from the preceding part of the 
 sentence, linked to the following, and printed thus: " Our arms in strength of 
 malice, and our hearts of brothers' temper, do receive you in," &c. It seems 
 hardly possible to squeeze any consistent meaning out of the words, " our arms 
 in strength of malice," as thus ordered. The changing of in into no was pro- 
 posed by Steevens, approved by Singer, and seems required by the rest of 
 the sentence. Dyce adopts it. 
 
 22 This little speech is charmingly characteristic. Brutus has been talk- 
 ing about " our hearts," and " kind love, good thoughts, and reverence." T 
 Cassius, all that is mere rose-water humbug, and he knows it is so to Antony 
 too. He therefore hastens to put in such motives as he knows will have 
 weight with Antony, as the}" also have with himself. Cassius was another of 
 the stabbers to whom Caesar had prospectively assigned a province, and who 
 was more than willing to take it on that authority. 
 
 28 Conceive of me. See page 449, note 20. 
 
 24 The Poet uses dear repeatedly in the same way as here. See page 36, 
 note 2, and page 237, note 6. 
 
SC. I. JULIUS CAESAR. 473 
 
 Most noble ! in the presence of thy corse ? 
 
 Had I as many eyes as thou hast wounds, 
 
 Weeping as fast as they stream forth thy blood, 
 
 It would become me better than to close 
 
 In terms of friendship with thine enemies. 
 
 Pardon me, Julius ! Here wast thou bay'd, brave heart ; * 
 
 Here didst thou fall ; and here thy hunters stand, 
 
 Sign'd in thy spoil, and crimson'd in thy lethe. 26 
 
 O world, thou wast the forest to this hart ; 
 
 And this indeed, O world, the heart of thee. 27 
 
 How like a deer, strucken by many princes, 
 
 Dost thou here lie ! 
 
 Gass. Mark Antony, 
 
 Ant. Pardon me, Caius Cassius : 
 
 The enemies of Caesar shall say this ; 
 Then, in a friend, it is cold modesty. 
 
 Oass. I blame you not for praising Caesar so ; 
 But what compact mean you to have with us ? 28 
 Will you be prick'd in number of our friends ; 
 Or shall we on, and not depend on you ? 
 
 Ant. Therefore I took your hands ; but was indeed 
 Sway'd from the point, by looking down on Caesar. 
 Friends am I with you all, and love you all ; 
 Upon this hope, that you shall give me reasons 
 Why and wherein Caesar was dangerous. 
 
 Bru. Or else were this a savage spectacle. 
 Our reasons are so full of good regard, 
 That were you, Antony, the son of Caesar, 
 You should be satisfied. 
 
 Ant. That's all I seek : 
 
 And am moreover suitor that I may 
 Produce his body to the market-place ; 30 
 And in the pulpit, as becomes a. friend, 
 Speak in the order of his funeral. 
 
 J3ru. You shall, Mark Antony. 
 
 Cass. Brutus, a word with you. 
 
 25 Bay'd is barked at, worried, and pursued, as a deer by hounds. 
 
 26 Lethe is used by many old writers for death. 
 
 27 Coleridge gives out a strong opinion that these two lines were interpo- 
 lated by some actor, and that we have but to read the passage without them, 
 to see this- The lines are certainly a blemish in the passage; out to my 
 thinking, they have too many brothers and sisters to admit of their being 
 criticised out of the family. 
 
 28 Shakespeare often has compact, aspect, and other like words, with the 
 second sylable long. Pricked in the next line, is marked. The image is of 
 a list of names written out, and some of them distinguished by having holea 
 pricked in the paper against them. 
 
 29 Therefore is not the illative conjunction here; but means to that end^ 
 or for that purpose. 
 
 80 Produce in the Latin sense of produco ; implying motion to a place. 
 
474 JULIUS OESAR. ACT 111. 
 
 [Aside to BRU.] You know not what you do : do not consent 
 
 That Antony speak in his funeral. 
 
 Know you how much the people may be mov'd 
 
 By that which he will utter ? 
 
 Bru. [Aside to CASS.] By your pardon : 
 
 J will myself into the pulpit first, 
 And show the reason of our Cnssar's death : 
 What Antony shall speak I will protest 
 He speaks by leave and by permission ; 
 And that we are contented Caesar shall 
 Have all due rights and lawful ceremonies. 
 It shall advantage more than do us wrong. 81 
 
 Cass. [Aside to BRU.] I know not what may fall; I like it 
 not. 
 
 Bru. Mark Anton, , here, take you Cassar's body. 
 You shall not in your funeral speech blame us, 
 But speak all good you can devise of Caesar ; 
 And say you do't by our permission ; 
 Else shall you not have any hand at all 
 About his funeral : and you shall speak 
 In the same pulpit whereto I am going, 
 After my speech is ended. 
 
 Ant. Be it so ; 
 
 I do desire no more. 
 
 Bru. Prepare the body, then, and follow us. 
 
 [Exeunt all but ANTONY 
 
 Ant. O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, 
 That I am meek and gentle with these butchers ! 
 Thou art the ruins of the noblest man 
 That ever lived in the tide of times. 
 Woe to the hands that shed this costly blood ! 
 Over thy wounds now do I prophesy, 
 Which, like dumb mouths, do- ope their ruby lips, 
 To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue, 
 A curse shall light upon the limbs of men ; 32 
 Domestic fury and fierce civil strife 
 Shall cumber all the parts of Italy ; 
 Blood and destruction shall be so in use, 
 
 81 Wrong is here used for harm, or that which causes pain. The radical 
 sense of the word survives in wring and writhe. See, also, page 132, note 5. 
 Note the high self-appreciation of Brutus here, in supposing that if he can 
 but have a chance to speak to the people, and to air his wisdom before them, 
 all will go right. Here, again, he overbears Cassius, who now begins to 
 find the effects of having baited him with flatteries, and served as a mirror to 
 "turn his hidden worthiness into his eye." 
 
 32 By men Antony means not mankind in general; the scope of the curse 
 being limited by the subsequent words, tk the parts of Italy," and " in these 
 confines." Limbs is merely the figure of speech called Synecdoche, or tha 
 putting of a part of a thing for the whole. Dyce changes it to minds. 
 
SC. I. JULIUS GVESAR. 475 
 
 And dreadful objects so familiar, 
 That mothers shall but smile when they behold 
 Their infants quarter'd with the hands of war ; 
 All pity chok'd with custom of fell deeds 
 And Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge, 
 With Ate* by his side 33 come hot from Hell, 
 Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice 
 Cry Havoc I and let slip the dogs of war ; M 
 That this foul deed shall smell above the earth 
 With carrion men, groaning for burial. 
 
 Enter a Servant. 
 
 You serve Octavius Caesar, do you not? 
 
 Serv. I do, Mark Antony. 
 
 Ant. Caesar did write for him to come to Rome. 
 
 Serv. He did receive his letters, and is coining ; 
 And bid me say to you by word of mouth, 
 [Seeing the Body.~\ O Caesar ! 
 
 Ant. Thy heart is big, get thee apart and weep. 
 Passion, I see, is catching ; for mine eyes, 
 Seeing those beads of sorrow stand in thine, 
 Begin to water. Is thy master coming? 
 
 Serv. He lies to-night within seven leagues of Rome. 
 
 Ant. Post back with speed, and tell him what hath chanc'd. 
 Here is a mourning Rome, a dangerous Rome, 
 No Rome of safety for Octavius yet : 85 
 Hie hence, and tell him so. Yet stay awhile ; 
 Thou shalt not back till I have borne this corse 
 Into the market-place : there shall I try, 
 In my oration, how the people take 
 The cruel issue of these bloody men ; 
 According to the which, thou shalt discourse 
 To young Octavius of the state of things. 
 Lend me your hand. [Exeunt with CESAR'S Body* 
 
 88 Ate* is the old goddess of discord and mischief. So, in Much Ado 
 about Nothing, ii. 1, Benedick describes Beatrice as " the infernal Ate' in good 
 apparel." 
 
 84 Havoc was anciently the word of signal for giving no quarter in a 
 battle. It was a high crime for any one to give the signal without authority 
 from the general-in-chief; hence the peculiar force of monarch's voice. To 
 let slip a dog was a term of the chase, for releasing the hounds from the leash 
 or slip of leather whereby they were held in hand till it was time to let them 
 pursue the animal. The dogs of war are fire, sword, and famine. So, in 
 King Henry V., first Chorus "At his heels, leashed in like hounds^ should 
 famine, sword, and^re, crouch for employment." 
 
 85 Another play on Rome and room. "See page 439, note 22. 
 
476 JULIUS CJESAR. 
 
 ACT III. 
 
 SCENE II. The Same. The Forum. 
 Enter BRUTUS and CASSIUS, with a Throng of Citizens? 
 
 Citizens. We will be satisfied ; let us be satisfied. 
 
 Bru. Then follow me, and give me audience, friends. 
 Cassius, go you into the other street, 
 And part the numbers. 
 
 Those that will hear me speak, let 'em stay here ; 
 Those that will follow Cassius, go with him ; 
 And public reason shall be rendered 
 Of Caesar's death. 
 
 1 Git. I will hear Brutus speak. 
 
 2 Git. I will hear Cassius ; and compare their reasons, 
 When severally we hear them rendered. 
 
 {Exit CASSIUS, with some of the Citizen* 
 BRUTUS goes into the Rostrum. 
 
 3 Cit. The noble Brutus is ascended : Silence ! 
 J3ru. Be patient till the last. 
 
 Romans, countrymen, and lovers ! 2 hear me for my cause ; and 
 be silent, that you may hear : believe me for mine honour ; 
 and have respect to mine honour, that you may believe : cen- 
 sure me in your wisdom ; 8 and awake your senses, that you 
 may the better judge. If there be any in this assembly, any 
 dear friend of Caesar's, to him I say that Brutus' love to 
 Csesar was no less than his. If, then, that friend demand 
 why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer, Not 
 that I lov'd Caesar less, but that I lov'd Rome more. Had 
 you rather Caesar were living, and die all slaves, than that 
 Ccesar were dead, to live all freemen ? As Caesar lov'd me, 
 I weep for him ; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it ; as he 
 was valiant, I honour him: but, as he was ambitious, I 
 slew him. There is tears for his love ; joy for his fortune ; 
 honour for his valour; and death for his ambition. Who is 
 here so base that would be a bondman ? If any, speak ; for 
 him have I offended. Who is here so rude that would not be 
 a Roman ? If any, speak ; for him have I offended. Who is 
 here so vile that will not love his country ? If any, speak ; 
 for him have I offended. I pause for a reply. 
 
 Citizens. None, Brutus, none. 
 
 Bru. Then none have I offended. I have done no more to 
 Caesar than you shall do to Brutus. The question of his 
 
 1 The eriginal has Plebeians here instead of Citizens. Modern editions 
 generally print Citizens. 
 
 2 Lover and friend were used as synonymous in the Poet's time. Brutus 
 afterwards speaks of Caesar as " my best lover." 
 
 3 Censure is here exactly equivalent to judge; probably used for the 
 jingle it makes with senses. 
 
BC. n. JULIUS C^:SAR. 477 
 
 dea:h is enroll 'd in the Capitol ; 4 his giory not extenuated, 
 wherein he was worthy ; 6 nor his offences enforced, for which 
 he suffered death. 
 
 Enter ANTONY and Others, with CAESAR'S Body. 
 
 Here comes his body, mourn'd by Mark Antony ; who, though 
 he had no hand in his death, shall receive the benefit of his 
 dying, a place in the commonwealth ; as which of you shall 
 not ? With this I depart, That, as I slew my best lover for 
 the good of Rome, I have the same dagger for myself, when 
 it shall please my country to need my death. 6 
 Citizens. Live, Brutus ! live, live ! 
 
 1 Cit. Bring him with triumph home unto his house. 
 
 2 Cit. Give him a statue with his ancestors. 
 
 3 Cit. Let him be Caesar. 
 
 4 Cit. Caesar's better parts 
 Shall now be crown'd in Brutus. 
 
 1 Cit. We'll bring him to his house with shouts and 
 
 clamours. 
 J3ra. My countrymen, 
 
 2 Cit. Peace ! silence ! Brutus speaks. 
 1 Cit. Peace, ho ! 
 
 J3ra. Good countrymen, let me depart alone ; 
 And, for my sake, stay here with Antony : 
 Do grace to Caesars corpse, and grace his speech 
 Tending to Caesar's glory ; which Mark Antony, 
 By our permission, is allow'd to make. 
 I do entreat you, not a man depart, 
 Save I alone, till Antony have spoke. [Exit. 
 
 1 Cit. Stay, ho ! and let us hear Mark Antony. 
 
 3 Cit. Let him go up into the public chair ; 
 We'll hear him. Noble Antony, go .up. 
 
 4 The reason of his death is made a matter of solemn official record in the 
 nooks of the Senate, as showing that the act of killing him was done for 
 public ends, and not from private hate. 
 
 6 His fame is not lessened or whittled doum in those points wherein he was 
 worthy. Enforced, in the next clause, is in antithesis to extenuated, meaning 
 Ih&t his faults are not magnified or forced out of just measure. This is very 
 aptly said ; for to kill a man, and then try to belittle or to blacken him, is 
 the extreme of turpitude. 
 
 6 In this celebrated speech, which, to my taste, is far from being a model 
 of style either for oratory or any thing else, the Poet seems to have aimed at 
 imitating the manner actually ascribed to Brutus. So, in Plutarch : " They 
 do note that, in some of his Epistles, he counterfeited that briefe compendious 
 manner of speech of the Lacedaemonians." And Shakespeare's idea, as fol- 
 
 ' the 
 
 dixjunctum, the broken-up style, without oratorical continuity, is precisely 
 that assumed by the dramatist'* 
 
478 JULIUS C^SAR. ACT III, 
 
 Ant. For Brutus' sake, I am beholding to you. [ Goes up. 
 4 Git. What does he say of Brutus ? 
 
 3 Git. He says, for Brutus' sake, 
 He finds himself beholding to us all. 
 
 4 Git. 'Twere best he speak no harm of Brutus here. 
 
 1 Git. This Caesar was a tyrant. 
 
 3 Git. Nay, that's certain : 
 
 We 're bless'd, that Rome is rid of him. 
 
 2 Git. Peace ! let us hear what Antony can say. 
 Ant. You gentle Romans, 
 
 Citizens. Peace, ho ! let us hear him, 
 
 \/Ant. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears : 
 ^1 come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. 
 
 The evil that men do lives after them ; 
 
 The good is oft interred with their bones : 
 
 So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus 
 
 Hath told you Caesar was ambitious : 7 
 
 If it were so, it was a grievous fault ; 
 
 And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it. 
 
 Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest, 
 
 For Brutus is an honourable man ; 
 
 So are they all, all honourable men, 
 
 Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral. 
 
 He was my friend, faithful and just to me : 
 
 But Brutus says he was ambitious ; 
 
 And Brutus is an honourable man. 
 
 He hath brought many captives home to Rome, 
 
 Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill: 
 
 Did this in Caesar seem ambitious ? 
 
 When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept : 
 
 Ambition should be made of sterner stuff: 
 
 Yet Brutus says he was- ambitious ; 
 
 And Brutus is an honourable man. 
 
 You all did see that on the Lupercal 
 
 I thrice presented him a kingly crown, 
 
 Which he did thrice refuse Was this ambition ? 
 
 Yet Brutus says he was ambitious ; 
 
 And, sure, he is an honourable man. 8 
 
 7 In Shakespeare's time, the ending iious, and various others 15k it, 
 when occurring at the end of a verse, was often pronounced as two syllables. 
 The same was the case with tion, sion, and divers others. Many instances 
 of the latter have already occurred in this play; as in the preceding scene: 
 " And say you do 't by our permission.'' 1 Also in a former scene: "Out of 
 the teeth of emulation." Nevertheless I am far from thinking that tious 
 should now be sounded as two syllables in such cases. See page 53, note 19. 
 
 8 Of course these repetitions of honourable man are intensely ironical ; 
 and for that very reason the irony should be studiously kept out. of the voice 
 in pronouncing them. I have heard the effect of it utterly spoilt by being 
 
SO. II. JULIUS C^SAR. 479 
 
 I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoko, 
 
 But here I am, to speak what I do know. 
 
 You all did love him once, not without cause : 
 
 What cause withholds you, then, to mourn for him ? ~ 
 
 judgment, thou art tied to brutish beasts, 9 
 
 And men have lost their reason ! Bear with me ; 
 My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, 
 And I must pause till it come back to me. 
 
 1 Oit. Methinks there is much reason in his sayings. 
 
 2 Oit. If thou consider rightly of the matter, 
 Caesar has had great wrong. 
 
 3 Oit. Has he not, masters ? 
 
 1 fear there will a worse come in his place. 
 
 4 Oit. Mark'd ye his words ? He would not take the crown \ 
 Therefore 'tis certain he was not ambitious. 
 
 1 Oit. If it be found so, some will dear abide it. 10 
 
 2 Oit. Poor soul ! his eyes are red as fire with weeping. 
 
 3 Oit. There's not a nobler man in Rome than Antony 
 
 4 Oit. Now mark him ; he begins again to speak. 
 Ant. But yesterday the word of Caesar might 
 
 Have stood against the world : now lies he there, 
 And none so poor to do him reverence. 
 
 masters, if I were disposed to stir 
 Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage, 
 
 1 should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong, 
 Who, you all know, are honourable men. 
 
 I will not do them wrong : I rather choose 
 
 To wrong the dead, to wrong myself, and you, 
 
 Than I will wrong such honourable men. 
 
 But here's a parchment with the seal of Caesar, 
 
 I found it in his closet, 'tis his will : 
 
 Let but the commons hear this testament, 
 
 (Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read,) 
 
 And they would go and kiss dead Caesar's wounds, 
 
 And dip their napkins in his sacred blood ; u 
 
 Yea, beg a hair of him for memory, 
 
 And, dying, mention it within their wills, 
 
 Bequeathing it as a rich legacy 
 
 Unto their issue. 
 
 emphasized. The proper force and charm of the irony in this case depend 
 on its being completely disguised and seeming perfectly unconscious. 
 
 9 Brutish is by no means tautological here : the antithetic sense of human 
 beasts is most artfully implied. 
 
 10 To abide or aby a thing, is to suffer for it, or, as^we now say, to pay for 
 it. So, in a previous scene : " Let no man abide 'this deed, but we the 
 doers." 
 
 11 Napkin and Hajidkerchief were used indifferently in the Poet's tune 
 
4:80 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT III. 
 
 4 Cit. We'll hear the will : read it, Mark Antony. 
 
 Citizens. The will, the will ! we will hear Caesars will. 
 
 Ant. Have patience, gentle friends ; I must not read it : 
 It is not meet you know how Caesar lov'd you. 
 You are not wood, you are not stones, but men ; 
 And, being men, hearing the will of Caesar, 
 It will inflame you, it will make you mad. 
 'Tis good you know not that you are his heirs ; 
 For, if you should, O, what would come of it ! 
 
 4 Cit. Read the will ! we'll hear it, Antony ; 
 You shall read us the will, Caesar's will ! 
 
 Ant. Will you be patient ? will you stay awhile ? 
 I have o'ershot myself, to tell you of it. 
 I fear I wrong the honourable men 
 Whose daggers have stabb'd Caesar ; 12 I do fear it. 
 
 4 Git. They were traitors : honourable men ! 
 
 Citizens. The will ! the testament ! 
 
 2 Cit. They were villains, murderers. The will ! read the 
 will! 
 
 Ant. You will compel me, then, to read the will ? 
 Then make a ring about the corpse of Caesar, 
 And let me show you him that made the will. 
 Shall I descend ? and will you give me leave ? 
 
 Citizens. Come down. 
 
 2 Cit. Descend. \He comes down 
 
 3 Cit. You shall have leave. 
 
 4 Cit. A ring ! stand round. 
 
 1 Cit. Stand from the hearse ; stand from the body. 
 
 2 Cit. Room for Antony ! most noble Antony ! 
 Ant. Nay, press not so upon me ; stand far* off. 
 Citizens. Stand back ; room ! bear back. 
 
 Ant. If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. 
 You all do know this mantle : I remember 
 The first time ever Caesar put it on ; 
 'Twas on a Summer's evening, in his tent, 
 That day he overcame the Nervii. 18 
 Look, in this place ran Cassius' dagger through: 
 
 l 2 Antony now sees that he has the people wholly with him, so that he is 
 perfectly safe in stabbing the stabbers with these terrible words. 
 
 18 This is the artfullest and most telling stroke in Antony's speech. The 
 Romans prided themselves most of all upon their military virtue and renown : 
 Caesar was their greatest military hero; and his victory over the Nervii was 
 his greatest military exploit. It occurred during his second campaign in 
 Gaul, in the Summer of the year B. c. 57, and is narrated with surpassing 
 vividness in the second book of his Bellum Gallicum. Of course the matter 
 about the "mantle" is purely fictitious: Caesar had on the civic gown, not 
 the military cloak, when killed, and it was, in fact, the mangled toga that 
 Antony displayed on this occasion: but the fiction has the effect of making 
 the allusion to the victory seem perfectly artless and incidental. 
 
8C. II. JULIUS CAESAR. 481 
 
 See what a rent the envious Casca made : 
 
 Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabb'd ; 
 
 And, as he pluck'd his cursed steel away, 
 
 Mark how the blood of Caesar follow'd it, 
 
 As rushing out of doors, to be resolv'd 
 
 If Brutus so unkindly knock'd, or no ; 14 
 
 For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel : 15 
 
 Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar lov'd him ! 
 
 This was the most unkindest cut of all ; 
 
 For, when the noble Caesar saw him stab, 
 
 Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms, 
 
 Quite vanquish'd him : then burst his mighty heart ; 
 
 And, in his mantle muffling up his face, 
 
 Even at the base of Pompey's statua, 
 
 Which all the while ran blood, 16 great Caesar fell. 
 
 O, what a fall was there, my countrymen ! 
 
 Then I, and you, and all of us fell down, 
 
 Whilst bloody treason flourished over us. 
 
 O, now you weep ; and, I perceive, you feel 
 
 The dint of pity : these are gracious drops. 
 
 Kind souls, what, weep you, when you but behold 
 
 Our Caesar's vesture wounded ? Look you here, 
 
 Here is himself, marr'd, as you see, with traitors. 17 
 
 1 Git. O piteous spectacle ! 
 
 2 Oit. O noble Caesar ! 
 
 3 Oit. O woeful day ! 
 
 4 Oit. O traitors, villains ! 
 
 1 Cit. O most bloody sight ! 
 
 2 Oit. We will be reveng'd. 
 
 Citizens. Revenge, about, seek, burn, fire, killj 
 slay, let not a traitor live ! 
 Ant. Stay, countrymen. 
 
 1 Oit. Peace there ! hear the noble Antony. 
 
 2 Cit. We'll hear him, we'll follow him, we'll die with 
 him. 
 
 Ant. Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up 
 To such a sudden flood of mutiny. 
 They that have done this deed are honourable : 
 
 l* Resolv'd again in the sense of informed or assured. See page 470, note 
 17. The fanciful conceit expressed in these two lines seems quite out of 
 place, and might well be spared. 
 
 15 Angel here means, apparently, his counterpart, genius, or a kind of 
 dearer self. The word is probably used with the same meaning by St. Luke 
 in Acts xii. 15. 
 
 16 So, in North's Plutarch : " Agninst the very base whereon Pompey's 
 image stood, which ran all a gore of blood, till he was slain." 
 
 17 The Poet has many like instances of with being used instead of by, to 
 denote the relation of agent. 
 
 31 
 
482 JULIUS (LESAR. ACT HI 
 
 What private griefs they have, 18 alas, I know not, 
 That made them do't ; they're wise and honourable, 
 And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you. 
 I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts : 
 I am no orator, as Brutus is ; 
 But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man, 
 That love my friend ; and that they know full well 
 That gave me public leave to speak of him. 
 For I have neither wit, 19 nor words, nor worth, 
 Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech, 
 To stir men's blood : I only speak right on ; 
 I tell you that which you yourselves do know; 
 Show you sweet Caesar's wounds, poor, poor dumb mouths, 
 And bid them speak for me : but were I Brutus, 
 And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony 
 Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue 
 In every wound of Caesar, that should move 
 The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny. 
 Citizens. We'll mutiny. 
 
 1 Git. We'll burn the house of Brutus. 
 
 3 Git. Away, then ! come, seek the conspirators. 
 
 Ant. Yet hear me, countrymen ; yet hear me speak. 
 
 Citizens. Peace, ho ! hear Antony ; most noble Antony. 
 
 Ant. Why, friends, you go to do you know not what. 
 Wherein hath Caesar thus deserv'd your loves ? 
 Alas, you know not ; I must tell you, then : 
 You have forgot the will I told you of. 
 
 Citizens. Most true ; the will ! let's stay, and hear the 
 will. 
 
 Ant. Here is the will, and under Caesar's seal. 
 To every Roman citizen he gives, 
 To every several man, seventy-five drachmas. 20 
 
 2 Git. Most noble Caesar ! we'll revenge his death. 
 
 3 Git. O, royal Caesar ! 
 Ant. Hear me with patience. 
 Citizens. Peace, ho ! 
 
 Ant. Moreover, he hath left you all his walks, 
 His private arbours, and new-planted orchards, 
 On this side Tyber : 21 he hath left them you, 
 
 is Shakespeare often uses grief for that which causes grief; that is, 
 grievance. 
 
 19 Wit formerly meant understanding, and was so used by all writers. 
 
 20 The drachma was a Greek coin, equal to 7d. English. In fact, how- 
 ever, Ca^ar left to each citizen three hundred sesterces, equivalent to about 
 $14; which was practically as good as at least $100 in our time: no small 
 dfift''for a poor man. 
 
 | 21 As this scene lies in the Forum, near the Capitol, Cassar's gardens are, 
 in fact, on the otkvr side lyber. But the Poet wrote as he read in Plutarch 1 
 
BC. III. JULIUS CAESAR. 483 
 
 And to your heirs for ever : common pleasure**, 
 To walk abroad, and recreate yourselves. 
 Here was a Caesar ! when comes such another? 
 
 1 Git. Never, never. Come, away, away ! 
 We'll burn his body in the holy place, 
 
 And with the brands fire the traitors' houses. 
 Take up the body. 
 
 2 Oit. Go, fetch fire. 
 
 3 Git. Pluck down benches. 
 
 4 Git. Pluck down forms, windows, any thing. 
 
 {Exeunt Citizens, with the Bodtfr 
 Ant. Now let it work : Mischief, thou art afoot, 
 Take thou what course thou wilt ! ~ 
 
 Enter a Servant. 
 
 How now, fellow I 
 
 Serv. Sir, Octavius is already come to Rome. 
 
 Ant. Where is he ? 
 
 Serv. He and Lepidus are at Caesar's house. 
 
 Ant. And thither will I straight to visit him : 
 He comes upon a wish. Fortune is merry, 
 And in this mood will give us any thing. 
 
 Serv. I heard 'em say, Brutus and Cassius 
 Are rid like madmen through the gates of Rome. 
 
 Ant. Belike they had some notice of the people, 
 How I had moVd them. Bring me to Octavius. [Exeunt* 
 
 SCENE IH. The Same. A Street. 
 Enter CINNA the Poet. 
 
 Gin. I dreamt to-night that I did feast with Caesar, 
 And things unlucky charge my fantasy. 1 
 I have no will to wander forth of doors, 
 ITet something leads me forth. 
 
 Enter Citizens 
 
 1 Git. What is your name ? 
 
 2 Git. Whither are you going ? 
 
 3 Git. Where do you dwell ? 
 
 4 Git. Are you a married man or a bachelor ? 
 
 " He bequeathed unto every citizen of Rome 75 drachmaes a man, and left 
 his gardens and arbors unto the people, whicn he had on this side of the 
 river Tyber." 
 
 1 " Things of ill omen oppress me." Steevens tells of having read in an 
 old treatise on Fortune-telling, that " to dream of being at banquet* beto* 
 keneth misfortune." 
 
484 JULIUS CLESAR. CT IV, 
 
 2 Git. Answer every man directly. 
 
 1 Git. Ay, and briefly. 
 4 Git. Ay, and wisely. 
 
 3 Git. Ay, and truly ; you were best. 
 
 Gin. What is my name ? Whither am I going ? Where 
 do I dwell ? Am I a married man or a bachelor ? Then, to 
 answer every man directly and briefly, wisely and truly. 
 Wisely I say I am a bachelor. 
 
 2 Git. That's as much as to say they are fools that marry : 
 you'll bear me a bang for that, 2 1 fear. Proceed ; directly. 
 
 Gin. Directly, I am going to Caesar's funeral. 
 
 1 Cit. As a friend, or an enemy ? 
 Gin. As a friend. 
 
 2 Git. That matter is answered directly. 
 
 4 Git. For your dwelling, briefly. 
 Gin. Briefly, I dwell by the Capitol. 
 
 3 Git. Your name, sir, truly. 
 Gin. Truly, my name is Cinna. 
 
 1 Git. Tear him to pieces ! he's. a conspirator. 
 Gin. I am Cinna the poet, I am Cinna the poet. 
 
 4 Git. Tear him for his bad verses, tear him for his bad 
 verses. 
 
 Gin. I am not Cinna the conspirator. 8 
 
 4 Git. It is no matter; his name's Cinna: pluck but his 
 name out of his heart, and turn him going. 
 
 3 Git. Tear him, tear him ! Come ; brands, ho ! firebrands ! 
 To Brutus', to Cassius' ; burn all. Some to Decius* house, and 
 Borne to Casca's ; some to Ligarius' : away, go ! [ Exeunt. 
 
 ACT IV. SCENE I. Rome. A Room in ANTONY'S House}' 
 ANTONY, OCTAVIUS, and LEPIDUS, seated at a Table. 
 
 Ant. These many, then, shall die ; their names are prick'd. 
 Oct. Your brother too must die : consent you, Lepidus ? 
 
 2 You'll suffer a blow, or catch a knock. Me expletive again. 
 
 8 This man was Helvius Cinna, one of Caesar's staunchest adherents. He 
 was mistaken by the infuriated populace for Cornelius Cinna, the Praetor, 
 oie of the conspirators, and in spite of his frantic appeals was torn to pieces 
 on the spot. 
 
 be at 1 
 
 find 
 
 triumvirs did not meet at Rome to settle the proscription, but on a little 
 
 island near Mutiifa. Tne Poet most likely knew this, as he mubt have read 
 
SC. I. JULIUS CAESAR. 485 
 
 Lep. I do consent, 
 
 Oct. Prick him down, Antony. 
 
 Lep. Upon condition Publius shall not live, 
 Who is your sister's son, Mark Antony. 2 
 
 Ant. He shall not live ; look, with a spot I damn him. 
 But, Lepidus, go you to Caesar's house ; 
 Fetch the will hither, and we shall determine 
 How to cut off some charge in legacies. 
 
 Lep. What, shall I find you here ? 
 
 Oct. Or here, or at the Capitol. \Exit LEPIDC. 
 
 Ant. This is a slight unmeri table man, 
 Meet to be sent on errands : is it fit, 
 The threefold world Divided, he should stand 
 One of the three to share it ? 
 
 Oct. So you thought him , 
 
 And took his voice who should be prick'd to die, 
 In our black sentence and proscription. 
 
 Ant. Octavius, I have seen more days than you: 
 And though we lay these honours on this man, 
 To ease ourselves of divers slanderous loads, 
 He shall but bear them as the ass bears gold, 
 To groan and sweat under the business, 
 Either led or driven, as we point the way ; 
 And having brought our treasure where we will, 
 Then take we down his load, arid turn him off, 
 Like to the empty ass, to shake his ears, 
 And graze in commons. 
 
 Oct. You may do your will ; 
 
 But he's a tried and valiant soldier. 
 
 Ant. So is my horse, Octavius ; and for that 
 I do appoint him store of provender. 
 It is a creature that I teach to fight, 
 To wind, to stop, to run directly on, 
 His corporal motion govern'd by my spirit. 
 And, in some taste, is Lepidus but so ; 
 He must be taught, and train'd, and bid go forth : 
 A barren-spirited fellow ; one that feeds 
 On objects, arts, and imitations, 
 Which, out of use and stal'd by other men, 
 
 in Plutarch how " all three met together in an island environed round about 
 with a little river." The time of the scene, historically, was in November, 
 B. c. 43; which makes an interval of some nineteen months between thia 
 and the preceding scene 
 
 Caesar, who was his uncle by his mother; and both of them together suffered 
 I<epidus to kill his own brother Paulus." 
 
486 JULIUS CJESAR. ACT IV 
 
 Begin his fashion : 8 do not talk of him, 
 
 But as a property. And now, Octavius, 
 
 Listen great things : Brutus and Cassius 
 
 Are levying powers : we must straight make head ; 
 
 Therefore let our alliance be combin'd, 
 
 Our best friends made, and our best means stretch'd out ; 
 
 And let us presently go sit in council, 
 
 How covert matters may be best disclos'd, 
 
 And open perils surest answered. 
 
 Oct. L-jt us do so ; for we are at the stake, 
 And bay'd about with many enemies ; 4 
 And some that smile have in their hearts, I fear, 
 Millions of mischiefs. * [Exeunt* 
 
 SCENE II. Before BRUTUS' Tent, in the Gamp near Sardis. 1 
 
 Drum. Enter BRUTUS, LUCILIUS, TITINIUS, and Soldiers, 
 PINDARUS meeting them ; Lucius at some distance. 
 
 Bru. Stand, ho! 
 
 Lucil. Give the word, ho ! and stand. 
 
 Bru. What now, Lucilius ! is Cassius near ? 
 
 Lucil. He is at hand ; and Pindarus is come 
 To do you salutation from his master. 
 
 [PINDARUS gives a Letter to BRUTUS. 
 
 Bru. He greets me well. Your master, Pindarus, 
 In his own change, 2 or by ill officers, 
 Hath given me some worthy cause to wish 
 Things done, undone ; but, if he be at hand, 
 I shall be satisfied. 
 
 Pin. I do not doubt 
 
 But that my noble master will appear 
 Such as he is, full of regard and honour. 
 
 Bru. He is not doubted. A word, Lucilius : 
 How he receiv'd you let me be resolv'd. 
 
 8 So in Falstaff 's account of Justice Shallow, when the latter was at 
 Clement' s-inn : " He came ever in the rear-ward of the fashion ; and sung 
 those tunes to the overscutch'd huswives that he heard the carmen whistle, 
 and sware they were his fancies, or his good-nights." The passage in the 
 text has commonly been printed with a (;) after imitations; which gives a 
 wrong sense, as if objects, arts, and imitations in general were meant; where- 
 as it is only of those particular objects, arts, and imitations, which othera 
 have worn out and thrown aside. Instead of objects, arts, Mr. Dyce prints 
 abject orts; a very bad reading. 
 
 4 An allusion to bear-baiting. Thus in Macbeth v. 7: " They have tied 
 me to a stake: I cannot fly, but, bear-like, I must fight the course." 
 
 1 This scene, again, is" separated from the foregoing, historically, by about 
 a year; the remaining events of the drama having taken place in the Fall 
 B c. 42. 
 
 2 Through some change of mind or of conduct on his part. 
 
SC. II. JULIUS CAESAR. 487 
 
 Lucil. With courtesy and with respect enough ; 
 But not with such familiar instances, 
 Nor with such free and friendly conference, 
 As he hath us'd of old. 
 
 Bru. Thou hast described 
 
 ; A hot friend cooling. Ever note, Lucilius, 
 "When love begins to sicken and decay, 
 It useth an enforced ceremony. 
 There are no tricks in plain and simple faith : 
 But hollow men, like horses hot at hand, 
 Make gallant show and promise of their mettle ; 
 But when they should endure the bloody spur, 
 They fall their crests, and, like deceitful jades, 8 
 Sink in the trial. Comes his army on ? 
 
 LuciL They mean this night in Sardis to be quartered: 
 The greater part, the Horse in general, 
 Are come with Cassius. [March within, 
 
 Bru. Hark ! he is arrived. 
 
 March gently on to meet him. 
 
 JEnter CASSIUS and Soldiers. 
 
 Oass. Stand, ho ! 
 
 Bru. Stand, ho ! Speak the word along. 
 
 Within. Stand! 
 
 Within. Stand! 
 
 Within. Stand! 
 
 Oass. Most noble brother, you have done me wrong. 
 
 Bru. Judge me, you gods ! wrong I mine enemies ? 
 And if not so, how should I wrong a brother ? 
 
 Oass. Brutus, this sober form of yours hides wrongs ; 
 And when you do them 
 
 Bru. Cassius, be content ; 
 
 Speak your griefs softly ; I do know you well. 
 Before the eyes of both our armies here, 
 Which should perceive nothing but love from us, 
 Let us not wrangle : bid them move away ; 
 Then in my tent, Cassius, enlarge your griefs, 4 
 And I will give you audience. 
 
 Oass. Pindarus, 
 
 Bid our commanders lead their charges off 
 A little from this ground. 
 
 8 A deceitful jade is an unreliable horse, or one that promises well in ap- 
 pearance, but " sinks in the trial." 
 
 4 To enlarge is, properly, to set free or to let go at large ; here it meant 
 ipeak freely of or unfold. 
 
488 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT IV 
 
 Bru. Lucius, do you the like ; and let no man 
 Come to our tent, till we have done our conference. 
 Lucilius and Titinius, guard our door. [Exeunt 
 
 SCENE IIL Within the Tent of BRUTUS. 
 Enter BRUTUS <meT CASSIUS. 
 
 Cass. That you have wrong'd me doth appear in this 
 You have condemned and noted Lucius Pella 1 
 For taking bribes here of the Sardians ; 
 Wherein my letters, 2 praying on his side 
 Because I knew the man, were slighted off. 
 
 Bru. You wrong'd yourself to write in such a case. 
 
 Cass. In such a time as this it is not meet 
 That every nice offence should bear his comment. 8 
 
 Bru. Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself 
 Are much condemn'd to have an itching palm ; 
 To sell and mart your offices for gold 
 To undeservers. 
 
 Cass. I an itching palm ! 
 
 You know that you are Brutus that speak this, 
 Or, by the gods, this speech were else your last. 
 
 Bru. The name of Cassius honours this corruption, 
 And chastisement doth therefore hide his head. 
 
 Cass. Chastisement! 
 
 Bru. Remember March, the ides of March remember! 
 Did not great Julius bleed for justice' sake ? 
 What villain touch'd his body, that did stab, 
 And not for justice ? What, shall one of us, 
 That struck the foremost man of all this world 
 But for supporting robbers, shall we now 
 
 1 Disgraced him, set a mark or stigma upon him. The Poet read in 
 Plutarch that " Brutus, upon complaint of the Sardians, did condemn and 
 note Lucius Pella, who had been a Prsetor of the Romans, for that he was 
 convicted of robbery and pilfery in his office." 
 
 2 Wherein refers to the stigma set upon Pella, and is equivalent to by 
 which act or proceeding. Cassius naturally thinks that " the honourable 
 men whose daggers have staWd Caesar" should not peril their cause by 
 moral squeamishness. And it is a very noteworthy point, that the digesting 
 of that act seems to have entailed upon Brutus a sort of moral dyspepsia. 
 
 3 That every petty or trifling offence should be scrutinized and passed 
 upon. Nice was often used in that sense. In the foregoing plavs, 1 have 
 repeatedly noted the Poet's use of his for its. Mr- W. J. Itolfe, of Cambridge, 
 has ascertained, by a very close inspection, that Shakespeare has its ten 
 times, but in nine of these it is printed with an apostrophe, it's; and that he 
 has it, used as the possessive case, sixteen times; as in Hamlet i. 2: "It 
 lifted up it head." As I have stated before, its does not occur in our Fnglisb 
 Bible; where we h:ve, instead, such expressions as, "if the salt have Lost 
 tuj >avour," and, "to every seed iiis own body." 
 
SO. III. JULIUS CAESAR. 
 
 489 
 
 Contaminate our fingers with base bribes, 
 And sell the mighty space of our large honours 
 For so much trash as may be grasped thus ? 
 1 had rather be a dog, and bay the Moon, 
 Than such a Roman. 
 
 Cass. Brutus, bait not me, 4 
 
 I'll not endure it : you forget yourself, 
 To hedge me in ; I am a soldier, ay, 6 
 Older in practice, abler than yourself 
 To make conditions. 6 
 
 Bru. Go to ; you are not, Cassms. 
 
 Cass. I am. 
 
 Bru. I say you are not. 
 
 Cass. Urge me no more, I shall forget myself; 
 Have mind upon your health, tempt me no further. 
 
 Bru. Away, slight man ! 
 
 Cass. Is't possible ? 
 
 Bru. Hear me, for I will speak. 
 
 Must I give way and room to your rash choler ? 
 Shall I be frighted when a madman stares ? 
 
 Cass. O ye gods, ye gods ! must I endure all this ? 
 
 Bru. All this ! ay, more : fret, till your proud heart break; 
 Go show your slaves how choleric you are, 
 And make your bondmen tremble. Must I budge ? 
 Must I observe you ? Must I stand and crouch 
 Under your testy humour ? By the gods, 
 You shall digest the venom of your spleen, 
 Though it do split you ; for from this day forth 
 I'll use you for my mirth, yea, for my laughter, 
 When you are waspish. 
 
 Cass. Is it come to this ? 
 
 Bru. You say you are a better soldier : 
 Let it appear so ; make your vaunting true, 
 And it shall please me well. For mine own part, 
 I shall be glad to learn of abler men. 7 
 
 4 So in the original ; but commonly changed to bay in modem editions, 
 the repeating of the word being thought to add spirit to the dialogue. I 
 think otherwise. To bait is to worry or harass with violent attacks. JRich- 
 ardson says it is formed regularly from bay, to bark at, thus, bayed, bay'd, 
 bayt,bait. In The Winter's Tale ii. 3, Leontes says of Paulina, "A cal- 
 lat, of boundless tongue, who late hath beat her husband, and now baits me 1 " 
 
 6 The original and, I believe, all modern editions, have / instead of ay 
 here. It has long seemed to me that it should be ay, and I now venture to 
 give it so. In the Poet's time, the pronoun / and the affirmative ay were 
 printed alike. 
 
 6 To do the business, or manage the diplomacy of an army. 
 
 7 The original has noble instead of abler. Nuble does not fit the place, 
 and the use of abler by Cassius, a little before, points that out as the fight 
 word: accordingly it is adopted by Mr. Dyce. 
 
490 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT IT 
 
 Cass. You wrong me every way, you wrong me, Brutus ; 
 F said an elder soldier, not a better : 8 
 Did I say better ? 
 
 Bru. If you did, I care not. 
 
 Cass. When Caesar liv'd he durst not thus have moVd me, 
 
 Bru. Peace, peace ! you durst not so have tempted him. 
 
 Cass. I durst not ? 
 
 Bru. No. 
 
 Cass. What, durst not tempt him ? 
 
 Bru. For your life you durst not. 
 
 Cass. Do not presume too much upon my love ; 
 I may do that I shall be sorry for. 
 
 Bru. You have done that you should be sorry for. 
 There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats ; 
 For I am arm'd so strong in honesty, 
 That they pass by me as the idle wind, 
 Which I respect not. I did send to you 
 For certain sums of gold, which you denied me ; 
 For I can raise no money by vile means : 
 By Heaven, I had rather coin my heart, 
 And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wring 
 From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash 
 By any indirection : I did send 
 To you for gold to pay my legions, 
 Which you denied me : Was that done like Cassius ? 
 Should I have answer'd Caius Cassius so ? 
 When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous, 
 To lock such rascal counters from his friends, 9 
 Be ready, gods, with all your thunderbolts, 
 Dash him to pieces ! 
 
 Cass. I denied you not. 
 
 Bru. You did. 
 
 Cass. I did not : he was but a fool 
 
 That brought my answer back. Brutus hath riv'd my heart 
 A friend should bear his friend's infirmities, 
 But Brutus makes mine greater than they are. 
 
 Bru. I do not, till you practise them on me. 
 
 Cass. You love me not 
 
 8 This mistake of Brutus is very well conceived. Cassius was much the 
 abler soldier, and Brutus knew it; and the mistake grew from his conscious- 
 Mess of the truth of what he thought he heard. Long before this time, Cas- 
 sius had served as Quaestor under Marcus Crassus in his expedition against 
 the Parthians; and when the army was torn all to pieces, both Crassus and 
 his son being killed, Cassius displayed great ability in bringing off a rem- 
 nant ; as he also did for some time after that, in the military administration 
 of Syria. 
 
 9 Rascal counters is a term of contempt for the " vile trash," gold. Coun- 
 ters were false pieces of money, used in reckoning and keeping account* 
 See page 60, note 8. 
 
SO. III. JULIUS JC^ESAR. 491 
 
 Bru. I do not like your faults. 
 
 Cass. A friendly eye could never see such faults. 
 
 Bru. A flatterer's would not, though they do appear 
 As huge as high Olympus. 
 
 Cass. Come, Antony and young Octavius, come, 
 Revenge yourselves alone on Cassius, 
 For Cassius is a- weary of the world ; 
 Hated by one he loves ; brav'd by his brother ; 
 Checked like a bondman ; all his faults observed, 
 Set in a note-book, learn'd, and eonn'd by rote, 
 To cast into my teeth. O, I could weep 
 My spirit from mine eyes ! There is my dagger, 
 And here my naked breast; within, a heart 
 Dearer than Plutus' mine, richer than gold : 
 If that thou be'st a Roman, take it forth ; 
 I, that denied thee gold, will give my heart. 
 Strike as thou didst at Caesar ; for I know, 
 When thou didst hate him worst, thou lov'dst him better 
 Than ever thou lov'dst Cassius. 
 
 Bru. Sheath your dagger. 
 
 Be angry when you will, it shall have scope ; 
 Do what you will, dishonour shall be humour. 10 
 O Cassius, you are yoked with a lamb 
 That carries anger as the flint bears fire ; 
 Who, much enforced, shows a hasty spark, 
 And straight is cold again. 11 
 
 Cass. Hath Cassius li^d 
 
 To be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus, 
 When grief, and blood ill-temper'd, vexeth him ? 
 
 Bru. When I spoke that, I was ill-temper'd too. 
 
 Cass. Do you confess so much ? Give me your hand. 
 
 Bru. And my heart too. 
 
 Cass. O Brutus, 
 
 Bru. What's the matter? 
 
 Cass. Have you not love enough to bear with me, 
 When that rash humour which my mother gave me 
 Makes me forgetful ? 
 
 Bru. Yes, Cassius ; and from henceforth, 
 
 When you are over earnest with your Brutus, 
 He'll think your mother chides, and leave you so. 
 
 [Noise within. 
 
 10 Whatever dishonourable thing you may do, I will set it down to the 
 humour or infirmity of the moment. 
 
 11 In my boyhood, the idea was common, of fire sleeping in the flint, and 
 being awaked by the stroke of the steel. I am not sure whether it was 
 known in the Poet's time, that in fact the flint cuts off microscopic bits of 
 gtee^ which are ignited by tho friction. 
 
492 JULIUS C^SAR. ACT IT 
 
 Poet. [ Within."] Let me go in to see the generals : 
 There is some grudge between 'em ; 'tis not meet 
 They be alone. 
 
 Lucil. [ Within."] You shall not come to them. 
 
 Poet. [ Within.'] Nothing but death shall stay me. 
 
 Enter Poet, followed ly LUCILIUS and TITINIUS. 
 
 Cass. How now ! What's the matter ? 
 
 Poet. For shame, you generals ! what do you mean ? 
 Love, and be friends, as two such men should be ; 
 For I have seen more years, I'm sure, than ye. 
 
 Cass. Ha, ha ! how vilely doth this cynic rhyme ! 
 
 Bru. Get you hence, sirrah ; saucy fellow, hence ! 
 
 Cass. Bear with him, Brutus ; 'tis his fashion. 
 
 Bru. I'll know his humour, when he knows his time. 
 What should the wars do with these jigging fools ? 
 Companion, hence ! M 
 
 Cass. Away, away, be gone ! [Exit Poet* 
 
 Bru. Lucilius and Titinius, bid the commanders 
 Prepare to lodge their companies to-night. 
 
 Cass. And come yourselves, and bring Messala with you 
 Immediately to us. \_Exeunt LUCIL. and TITIN, 
 
 Bru. Lucius, a bowl of wine ! 
 
 Cass. I did not think you could have been so angry. 
 
 Bru. O Cassius, I am sick of many griefs. 
 
 Cass. Of your philosophy you make no use, 
 If you give place to accidental evils. 13 
 
 Bru. No man bears sorrow better. Portia is dead. 
 
 Cass. Ha! Portia! 
 
 Bru. She is dead. 
 
 Cass. How scap'd I killing, when I cross'd you so ? 
 O, insupportable and touching loss ! 
 Upon what sickness ? 
 
 Bru. Impatient of my absence, 
 
 And grief that young Octavius with Mark Antony 
 Have made thsmselves so strong ; for with her death 
 That tidings came ; with this she fell distract, 
 And, her attendants absent, swallow'd fire. 14 
 
 12 Jig signified a ballad or ditty, as well as a dance. Companion is heie 
 a term of contempt, as we now use fellow. 
 
 18 In his philosophy, Brutus was a mixture of the Stoic and the Platonist. 
 What he says of Portia's death is among the best things in the play, and is 
 in Shakespeare's noblest style. Deep grief loves not many words. 
 
 14 It appears something'uncertain whether Portia's death was before or 
 after her husband's. Plutarch represents it as occurring before ; but Mori- 
 vale follows those who place it after. Plutarch's account, as rendered by 
 North, is, that she "took hot burning coaN and cast them into her mouth 
 and kept her mouth so close that she choked herself.'' 
 
BC. HI. JULIUS CAESAR. 493 
 
 Cass. And died so ? 
 
 Bru. Even so. 
 
 Cass. O, ye immortal gods ! 
 
 Enter Lucius, with Wine and a Taper. 
 
 Bt*u. Speak no more of her. Give me a bowl of wine : 
 In this I bury all unkindness, Cassius. [Drinks* 
 
 Cass. My heart is thirsty for that noble pledge. 
 Fill,. Lucius, till the wine o'erswell the cup; 
 I cannot drink too much of Brutus' love. [Drink*. 
 
 Bru. Come, in, Titinius ! [Exit Lucius. 
 
 Re-enter TITINIUS, with MESSALA. 
 
 Welcome, good Messala. 
 Now sit we close about this taper here, 
 And call in question our necessities. 15 
 
 Cass. Portia, art thou gone ? 
 
 Bru. No more, I pray you. 
 
 Messala, I have here received letters, 
 That young Octavius and Mark Antony 
 Come down upon us with a mighty power, 
 Bending their expedition toward Philippi. 
 
 Mes. Myself have letters of the selfsame tenour. 
 
 Bru. With what addition ? 
 
 Mes. That, by proscription and bills of outlawry, 
 Octavius, Antony, and Lepidus, 
 Have put to death an hundred Senators. 
 
 Bru. Therein our letters do not well agree : 
 Mine speak of seventy Senators that died 
 By their proscriptions, Cicero being one. 
 
 Cass. Cicero one ! 
 
 Mes. Cicero is dead, 
 And by that order of proscription. 
 Had you your letters from your wife, my lord ? 
 
 Bru. No, Messala. 
 
 Mes. Nor nothing in your letters writ of her ? 
 
 Bru. Nothing, Messaia. 
 
 Mes. That, methinks, is strange. 
 
 Bru. Why ask you ? hear you aught of her in yours ? 
 
 Mes. No, my lord. 
 
 Bru. Now, as you are a Roman, tell me true. 
 
 Mes. Then like a Roman bear the truth I tell : 
 For certain she is dead, and by strange manner. 
 
 Bru. Why, farewell, Portia. We must die Messala : 
 
 1* The Poet repeatedly uses question in the sense of conversation. 
 
494 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT IT 
 
 With meditating that she must die once, 16 
 I have the patience to endure it now. 
 
 Mes. Even so great men great losses should endure. 
 
 Cass. I have as much of this in art as you, 17 
 But yet my nature could not bear it so. 
 
 Bru. Well, to our work alive. What do you think 
 Of marching to Philippi presently ? 
 
 Cass. I do not think it good. 
 
 Bru. Your reason ? 
 
 Cass. This it is : 
 
 Tis better that the enemy seek us : 
 So shall he waste his means, weary his soldiers, 
 Doing himself offence ; whilst we, lying still, 
 Are full of rest, defence, and niinbleness. 
 
 Bru. Good reasons must, of force, give place to better* 
 The people 'twixt Philippi and this ground 
 Do stand but in a forc'd affection ; 
 For they have grudg'd us contribution : 
 The enemy, marching along by them, 
 By them shall make a fuller number up, 
 Come on refresh'd, new-aided, 18 and encourag'd ; 
 From which advantage shall we cut him off, 
 If at Philippi we do face him there, 
 These people at our back. 
 
 Cass. Hear me, good brother. 
 
 Bru. Under your pardon. You must note besides, 
 That we have tried the utmost of our friends ; 
 Our legions are brimful, 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. 
 
 Cass. Then, with your will, go on : 
 
 We will along ourselves, and meet them at Philippi. 
 
 Bru. The deep of night is crept upon our talk, 
 And nature must obey necessity ; 
 Which we will niggard with a little rest. 
 There is no more to say ? 
 
 16 Once here means sometime or other. 
 
 l? Art was sometimes used for theory as distinguished from practice. 
 is The old copies have new added. Mr. Dyce and Mr. Singer agree that 
 new-aidtd is unquestionably the right reading. 
 
SC. III. JULIUS (LESAR. 495 
 
 Cos*. No more. Good night : 
 
 Early to-morrow will we rise, and hence. 
 
 Bru. Lucius, my gown ! Farewell, good Messala : 
 Good night, Titinius. Noble, noble Cassius, 
 Good night, and good repose. 
 
 Cass. O, my dear brother ! 
 
 This was an ill beginning of the night : 
 Never come such division 'tween our souls ! 
 Let it not, Brutus. 
 
 Bru. Every thing is well. 
 
 Cass. Good night, my lord. 
 
 Bru. Good night, good brother. 
 
 Tit. Mes. Good night, Lord Brutus. 
 
 Bru. Farewell, every one. 
 
 [Exeunt CASSIUS, TITINIUS, and MESSALA. 
 
 Re-enter Lucius, with the Gown. 
 
 Give me the gown. Where is thy instrument? 
 
 Luc. Here in the tent. 
 
 Bru. What, thou speak'st drowsily : 
 
 Poor knave, I blame thee not ; thou art o'er-watch'd. 19 
 Call Claudius and some other of my men ; 
 I'll have them sleep on cushions in my tent. 
 
 Luc. Varro and Claudius! 
 
 Enter VARRO and CLAUDIUS. 
 
 Var. Calls my lord ? 
 
 Bru. I pray you, sirs, lie in my tent, and sleep ; 
 It may be I shall raise you by-and-by 
 On business to my brother Cassius. 
 
 Var. So please you, we will stand and watch your pleas 
 
 ure. 
 
 Bru. I will not have it so ; lie ^down^good sirs : 
 It mayjbe I jshall otherwise bethmk me. _ 
 LooEJ Lucius, here's the^book^I sought^for soj_ 
 ITput it in the pocket of my gown. 2 ! ^Servants lie down* 
 
 ~~Luc. I was sure your lordship did not give it me. 
 
 Bru. Bear with me, good boy ; I am much forgetful. 
 Canst thou hold up thy heavy eyes awhile, 
 And touch thy instrument a strain or two ? 
 
 19 Knave was much used in the Poet's time as a term of endearment ; as 
 fool and wretch also were. 
 
 20 I am not sure but these two simple lines are the best thing in the play. 
 Just consider how much is implied in them, and what a picture they give of 
 the earnest, thoughtful, book-loving Brutus And indeed all his noblest 
 traits of character come out, " in simple and pure soul," in this exquisite 
 soene with Lucius, which is hardly surpassed by any thing in Shakespeare. 
 
496 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT IV. 
 
 Luc. Ay, my lord, an't please you. 
 
 Bru. It does, my boy : 
 
 I trouble thee too much, but thou art willing. 
 
 Luc. It is my duty, sir. 
 
 Bru. I should not urge thy duty past thy might ; 
 1 know young bloods look for a time of rest. 
 
 Luc. I have slept, my lord, already. 
 
 Bru. It was well done ; and thou shalt sleep again ; 
 I will not hold thee long : if I do live, 
 I will be good to thee. 
 
 [Lucius plays and sings till he falls asleep. 
 This is a sleepy tune. O murderous Slumber, 
 Lay'st thou thy leaden mace upon my boy, 21 
 That plays thee music ? Gentle knave, good night ; 
 I will not do thee so much wrong to wake thee. 
 If thou dost nod, thou break'st thy instrument : 
 I'll take it from thee ; and, goo 1 boy, good night. 
 Let me see, let me see ; is not the leaf turn'd down 
 Where I left reading ? Here it is, I think. 
 
 Enter the Ghost of CJESAR. 
 
 How ill this taper burns ! Ha ! who comes here ? 
 I think it is the weakness of mine eyes 
 That shapes this monstrous apparition. 
 It comes upon me. Art thou any thing ? 
 Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil, 
 That mak'st my blood cold, and my hair to stare ? M 
 Speak to me what thou art. 
 
 Ghost. Thy evil spirit, Brutus. 
 
 Bru. Why com'st thou ? 
 
 Ghost. To tell thee thou shalt see me at Philippi. 
 
 Bru. Well; then I shall see thee again? 
 
 Ghost. Ay, at Philippi. 
 
 Bru. Why, I will see thee at Philippi, then. 
 
 [ Ghost vanishes 
 Now I have taken heart, thou vanishest : 28 
 
 21 Mace was formerly used for sceptre. The mace is called leaden, from 
 its causing heaviness in the subject of it. Slumber has the epithet mur- 
 derous, because sleep is regarded as the image of death ; or, as Shelley puts 
 it, " Death and his brother Sleep " The boy is spoken of as playing music 
 to Slumber, because the purpose of his music is to soothe the perturbations 
 out of his master's mind, and put him to sleep. 
 
 22 A singular use of stare. Of course it must mean to stick out, or, as it 
 is in Hamlet, to " stand on end, like quills upon the fretful porpentine." We 
 have a similar expression in The Tempest, i. 2: "Ferdinand, with hair up- 
 itanng, (then like reeds, not hair.)" 
 
 23 This strongly, though quietly, marks the Ghost as altogether subjec- 
 tive: as soon as Brutus recovers his firmness, the illusion is broken. The 
 
SC. III. JULIUS (LESAR. 497 
 
 Dl spirit, I would hold more talk with thee. 
 Boy ! Lucius ! Varro ! Claudius ! Sirs, awake ! Clau 
 dius ! 
 
 Luc. The strings, my lord, are false. 
 
 Bru. He thinks he still is at his instrument. Lucius, 
 awake ! 
 
 Luc. My lord ? 
 
 Bru. Didst thou dream, Lucius, that thou so cried'st out? 
 
 Luc. My lord, I do not know that I did cry. 
 
 Bru. Yes, that thou didst. Didst thou see any thing ? 
 
 Lu/s. Nothing, my lord. 
 
 Bru. Sleep again, Lucius. Sirrah Claudius ! 
 [To VAR,] Fellow thou, awake! 
 
 Var. My lord? 
 
 Clau. My lord ? 
 
 Bru. Why did you so cry out, sirs, in your sleep ? 
 
 Var. Clau. Did we, my lord ? 
 
 Bru. Ay : saw you any thing ? 
 
 Var. No, my lord, I saw nothing. 
 
 Clau. Nor I, my lord. 
 
 Bru. Go and commend me to my brother Cassius : 
 Bid him set on his powers betimes before, 
 And we will follow. 
 
 Var. Clau. It shall be done, my lord. 
 
 ACT V. SCENE I. The Plains of Philippi. 
 Enter OCTAVIUS, ANTONY, and their Army. 
 
 Oct. Now, Antony, our hopes are answered. 
 You said the enemy would not come down, 
 But keep the hills and upper regions. 
 It proves not so : their battles are at hand ; * 
 
 order of things is highly judicious here, in bringing the "horrible vision " 
 upon Brutus just after he has heard of Portia's shocking death. With that 
 great sorrow weighing upon him, he might well see ghosts. The thickening 
 of calamities upon him, as the consequences of his stabbing exploit, natu- 
 rally awakens the power of remorse. The general sense of antiquity touch- 
 ing that matter is well expressed by Plutarch : " Above all, the ghost that 
 appeared unto Brutus showed plainly that the gods were offended with the 
 murder of Caesar." 
 
 * Bathe was used for an army, especially an army embattled, or ordered 
 in battle-array. The plural is here used with historical correctness, as Bru- 
 tus and Cassius had each an army: the two armies of course co-operating, 
 and acting together as one. And the arrangement was the same on tha 
 other side, with Octavms and Antony. 
 
 32 
 
498 JULIUS CAESAR. 4CT V 
 
 They mean to warn us at Philippi here, 2 
 Answering before we do demand of them. 
 
 Ant. Tut, I am in their bosoms, and I know 
 Wherefore they do it : they could be content 
 To visit other places ; and come down 
 W th fearful bravery, 8 thinking by this face 
 To fasten in our thoughts that they have courage ; 
 But 'tis not so. 
 
 Enter a Messenger. 
 
 Mess. Prepare you, generals : 
 
 The enemy comes on in gallant show ; 
 Their bloody sign of battle is hung out, 
 And something to be done immediately. 
 
 Ant. Octavius, lead your battle softly on, 
 Upon the left hand of the even field. 
 
 Oct. Upon the right hand I ; keep thou the left. 
 
 Ant. Why do you cross me in this exigent ? 
 
 Oct. I do not cross you ; but I will do so. 4 [March. 
 
 Drum. jEnter BHUTUS, CASSIUS, and their Army; LUCIL 
 lus, TITINIUS, MESSALA, and Others. 
 
 Bru. They stand, and would have parley. 
 Cass. Stand fast, Titinius: we must out and talk. 
 Oct. Mark Antony, shall we give sign of battle ? 
 Ant. No, Caesar, we will answer on their charge. 
 Make forth ; the generals would have some words. 
 Oct. Stir not until the signal. 
 
 Bru. Words before blows : Is it so, countrymen ? 
 Oct. Not that we love words better, as you do. 
 Bru. Good words are better than bad strokes, Octavius. 
 
 2 To warn is to summon. So in King John: " Who is it that hath warrtd 
 as to the walls? " And in King Richard III. : " And sent to warn them to 
 bis royal presence." And so in some parts of onr country it is still commoil 
 to speak of warning people to trainings and town-meetings. 
 
 8 Meaning the false show of courage which cowardice sometimes puts on; 
 03 in illustration of the adage u A bully is a coward." 
 
 4 At this time, Octavius was but twenty-one years old, and Antony was 
 almost old enough to be his grandfather. At the time of Cesar's death, 
 when Gctavius was in his nineteenth year, Antony thought he was going to 
 manage him easily and have it all his own way with him, but he found the 
 youngster as stiff as a poker, and could just do nothing with him. Caesar's 
 youngest sister Julia was married to Marcus Atius Balbus, and their daugh- 
 ter Atia, again, was married to Caius Octavius, a nobleman of the Plebeian 
 order. From this marriage sprung the present Octavius, who afterwards be- 
 came the Emperor Augustus. He was mainly educated by his great-uncle, 
 was advanced to the Patrician order, and was adopted as his son and heir; 
 so that his full and proper designation at this time was Caius Julius Cassar 
 Octavianus. The text gives a right taste of the man, who always stood firm 
 as a post against Antony, till the latter finally knocked himself to piece* 
 against him. 
 
sc. * JULIUS CVESAR. 499 
 
 Ant. In your bad strokes, Brutus, you give good words : 
 Witness the hole you made in Caesar's heart, 
 Crying, Long live ! hail, Caesar ! 
 
 Cass. Antony, 
 
 The posture of your blows are yet unknown ; 
 But, for your words, they rob the Hybla bees, 5 
 And leave them honeyless. 
 
 Ant. Not stingless too. 
 
 Bru. O, yes, and soundless too ; 
 For you have stol'n their buzzing, Antony, 
 And very wisely threat before you sting. 
 
 Ant. Villains, you did not so when your vile daggers 
 Hack'd one another in the sides of Caesar : 
 You show'd your teeth like apes, and fawn'd like hounds, 
 And bow'd like bondmen, kissing Caesar's feet ; 
 Whilst damned Casca, like a cur, behind 
 Struck Caesar on the neck. O, flatterers ! 
 
 Cass. Flatterers ! Now, Brutus, thank yourself: 
 This tongue had not offended so to-day, 
 If Cassius might have rul'd. 
 
 Oct. Come, come, the cause : if arguing make us sweat, 
 The proof of it will turn to redder drops. 
 Look, 
 
 I draw a sword against conspirators : 
 When think you that the sword goes up again ? 
 Never, till Caesar's three-and-thirty wounds 
 Be well aveng'd ; 6 or till another Csesar 
 Have added slaughter to the sword of traitors. 7 
 
 Bru. Caesar, thou canst not die by traitors' hands, 
 Unless thou bring'st them with thee. 
 
 Oct. So I hope : 
 
 I was not born to die on Brutus' sword. 
 
 Bru. O, if thou wert the noblest of thy strain, 8 
 Young man, thou could'st not die more honourably. 
 
 5 Hybla was the name of a place in Sicily, noted for the fine flavour of 
 its honey. See page 256, note 5. 
 
 6 The historical number of Caesar's wounds is three-and-ft0ewfy, and so 
 Shakespeare read it in Plutarch. But the poets care little for exactness in 
 such matters. In Beaumont and Fletcher's Two Noble Gentlemen, we have 
 " Caesar's two-and-thirty wounds." This man, Octavius, has been a standing 
 puzzle and enigma to the historians, from the seeming contradictions of hia 
 character. The later writers, however, especially Merivale and Smith, find 
 that the one principle that gave unity to his life and reconciled those contra- 
 dictions, was a steadfast, inflexible purpose to avenge the murder of his illus- 
 trious uncle and adoptive father. 
 
 7 Till you, traitors as you are, have added the slaughtering of me, an- 
 other Caesar, to that of Julius. 
 
 8 Strain is slock, lineage, or race ; a common use of the word in Shake- 
 speare's time. So in King Henry V. ii. 4: "He is bred out of that bloody 
 train, that haunted us in our familiar paths." 
 
500 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT V. 
 
 Cass. A peevish schoolboy, worthless of such honour, 
 Join'd with a masker and a reveller ! 9 
 
 Ant. Old Cassius still ! 
 
 Oct. Come, Antony ; away ! 
 
 Defiance, traitors, hurl we in your teeth : 
 If you dare fight to-day, come to the field ; 
 If not, when you have stomachs. 
 
 [Exeunt OCTAVIUS, ANTONY, and their Army. 
 
 Cass. Why, now, blow wind, swell billow, and swim fearkl 
 The storm is up, and all is on the hazard. 
 
 Bru. Ho, Lucilius! hark, a word with you. 
 
 Lucil. My lord ? [BRUT, and LUCIL. talk apart, 
 
 Cass. Messala, 
 
 Mes. What says my General ? 
 
 Cass. Messala, 
 
 This is my birth-day ; as this very day 
 Was Cassius born. Give me thy hand, Messala: 
 Be thou my witness that against my will, 
 As Pompey was, am I compelPd to set 
 Upon one battle all our liberties. 10 
 You know that I held Epicurus strong, 
 And his opinion : now I change my mind, 
 And partly credit things that do presage. 
 Coming from Sardis, on our former ensign u 
 Two mighty eagles fell ; and there they perch'd, 
 Gorging and feeding from our soldiers' hands ; 
 Who to Philippi here consorted us : 
 This morning are they fled away and gone ; 
 And in their steads do ravens, crows, and kites 
 Fly o'er our heads, and downward look on us, 
 As we were sickly prey : their shadows seem 
 A canopy most fatal, under which 
 Our army lies, ready to give up the ghost. 
 
 Mes. Believe not so. 
 
 Cass. I but believe it partly ; 
 
 For I am fresh of spirit, and resolv'd 
 To meet all perils very constantly. 
 
 8 A peevish school-boy, joined with a masker and a reveller, and an* 
 worthv even of that honour. The more common meaning of peevish wag 
 foolish. 
 
 1 Alluding to the battle of Pharsalia, which took place in the year B. c. 
 48. Pompey was forced into that battle, against his better judgment, by the 
 inexperienced and impatient men about him, who, inasmuch as they had 
 more than twice Cresnr's number of troops, fancied they could easily crunch 
 him up if they could but meet him. So they tried it, and he quickly 
 crunched up them. 
 
 11 Former for first or fo\ emost. The usage is not peculiar to Shake 
 speare. 
 
8C. I. JULIUS OESAR. 501 
 
 Bru. Even so, Lucilius. 
 
 Cass. Now, most noble Brutus, 
 
 The gods to-day stand friendly, that we may, 
 Lovers in peace, lead on our days to age ! 
 But, since th' affairs of men rest still incertain, 
 Let's reason with the worst that may befall. 
 If we do lose this battle, then is this 
 The very last time we shall speak together . 
 What are you then determined to do ? 
 
 Bru. Even by the rule of that philosophy 
 By which I did blame Cato for the death 
 Which he did give himself; I know not how, 
 But I do find it cowardly and vile, 
 For fear of what might fall, so to prevent 
 The time of life ; 12 arming myself with patience 
 To stay the providence of some high powers 
 That govern us below. 
 
 Cass. Then, if we lose this battle, 
 
 You are contented to be led in triumph 
 Thorough the streets of Rome ? 
 
 Bru. No, Cassius, no : think not, thou noble Roman. 
 That ever Brutus will go bound to Rome; 
 He bears too great a mind. 18 But this same day- 
 Must end that work the ides of March begun ; 
 And whether we shall meet again I know not. 
 Therefore our everlasting farewell take : 
 For ever, and for ever, farewell, Cassius ! 
 If we do meet again, why, we shall smile ; 
 If not, why, then this parting was well made. 
 
 Cass. For ever, and for ever, farewell, Brutus ! 
 If we do meet again, we'll smile indeed ; 
 If not, 'tis true this parting was well made. 
 
 Bru. Why, then lead on. O, that a man might know 
 
 12 p re vent is here used in the sense of anticipate. See page 101, note 14. 
 By time is meant the full time, the natural period. To the understanding 
 of this speech, it must be observed, that the sense of the words, " arming 
 myself." &c., follows next after the words, " which he did give himself." 
 
 13 Brutus here discovers a rather shaky and incoherent state of mind. 
 Was this an oversight in the Poet ? or was it meant as a part of the man's 
 character ? Probably the latter. The matter is strongly, but, I think, rightly 
 put by Meri vale : " The philosopher indeed renounced all confidence in his 
 own principles. He had adopted them from rending or imitation; they were 
 not the natural growth of instinct or genuine reflection ; and, as may easily 
 happen in such a case, his faith in them failed when they were tested by 
 adversity. As long as there seemed a chance that the podlike stroke would 
 be justified by success, Brutus claimed the glory of maintaining a righteous 
 cause; but when all hope fled, he could take leave of philosophy and life 
 together, and exclaim, / once dreamed that virtue was a thing; IJindher only 
 a name, and the mere slave of fortune. He had blamed Cato for nVing from 
 misery by self-murder; but he learnt to justify the same desperate "act when 
 he contemplated committing it himself." 
 
502 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT ? 
 
 The end of this day's business ere it come ! 
 
 But it sufficeth that the day will end, 
 
 And then the end is known. Come, ho ! away I [Exeunt 
 
 SCENE II. The Same. The Field of Battk. 
 Alarum. Enter BRUTUS and MESSALA. 
 
 Bru. Ride, ride, Messala, ride, and give these bills 
 Unto the legions on the other side. 1 
 Let them set on at once ; for I perceive 
 But cold demeanour in Octavius' wing, 
 And sudden push gives them the overthrow. 
 Ride, ride, Messala : let them all come down. \Exeunt* 
 
 SCENE III. The Same. Another Part of the Field. 
 Alarum. Enter CASSIUS and TITINIUS. 
 
 Cass. O, look, Titinius, look, the villains fly ! 
 Myself have to mine own turn'd enemy : 
 This ensign here of mine was turning back ; 
 I slew the coward, and did take it from him. 2 
 
 Tit. O Cassius, Brutus gave the word too early ; 
 Who, having some advantage on Octavius, 
 Took it too eagerly : his soldiers fell to spoil, 
 Whilst we by Antony are all enclos'd. 
 
 Enter PINDARUS. 
 
 Pin. Fly further off, my lord, fly further off; 
 Mark Antony is in your tents, my lord : 
 Fly, therefore, noble Cassius, fly far off. 
 
 Cass. This hill is far enough. Look, look, Titinius ; 
 Are those my tents where I perceive the fire ? 
 
 Tit. They are, my lord. 
 
 Cass. Titinius, if thou lov'st me, 
 
 Mount thou my horse, and hide thy spurs in him, 
 Till he have brought thee up to yonder troops, 3 
 And here again ; that I may rest assur'd 
 Whether yond troops are friend or enemy. 
 
 Tit. I will be here again, even with a thought. \_Exit. 
 
 1 " The legions on the other side " are those under Cassius. Messala 
 and his escort are met in the next scene by Titinius coming from Cassiua. 
 
 2 Ensiyn was used, as it is still, either for the flag or for the bearer of it; 
 here it is used for both at once. It was in killing the cowardly ensign that 
 Cassius "to his own turn'd enemy." 
 
 3 u Yonder troops " are Messala and bis escort coming from Brutus. 
 
8C. III. JULIUS CAESAR. 503 
 
 Cass. Go, Pindarus, get higher on that hill : 4 
 My sight was ever thick : regard Titinius, 
 And tell me what thou not'st about the field. 
 
 [PINDARUS goes up. 
 
 This day I breathed first : time is come round, 
 And where I did begin, there shall I end ; 
 My life is run his compass. Sirrah, what news ? 
 
 Pin. [Above.] O, my lord ! 
 
 Cass. What news ? 
 
 Pin. Titinius is enclosed round about 
 "With horsemen, that make to him on the spur ; 
 Yet he spurs on. Now they are almost on him ; 
 Now, Titinius ! Now some 'light : 5 O, he 'lights too : 
 He's ta'en, [Shout. ~\ and, hark ! they shout for joy. 
 
 Cass. Come down ; behold no more. 
 O, coward that I am, to live so long, 
 To see my best friend ta'en before my face ! 
 
 PINDARUS descends. 
 Come hither, sirrah : 
 In Parthia did I take thee prisoner ; 
 And then I swore thee, saving of thy life, 
 That whatsoever I did bid thee do, 
 Thou should'st attempt it. Come now, keep thine oath ; 
 Now be a freeman ; and with this good sword, 
 That ran through Caesar's bowels, search this bosom. 
 Stand not to answer : here, take thou the hilts ; 6 
 And, when my face is cover'd, as 'tis now, 
 Guide thou the sword. Caesar, thou art reveng'd, 
 Even with the sword that kill'd thee. 7 [Dies. 
 
 Pin. So r I am free ; yet would not so have been, 
 Durst I have done my will. O, Cassius ! 
 Far from this country Pindarus shall run, 
 Where never Roman shall take note of him. [Exit. 
 
 Re-enter TITINIUS, with MESS ALA. 
 
 Mes. It is but change, Titinius ; for Octavius 
 Is overthrown by noble Brutus' power, 
 As Cassius' legions are by Antony. 
 
 4 Cassius is now on a hill : he therefore means a hill somewhat kiahet 
 than that he is on. Cassius was, in fact, what we now call near-sighted. 
 6 Some alight, or dismount. 
 
 6 Hilts, plural, for kilt was the common usage in the Poet's time. So too 
 with/fftieraa, which occurs in this pl;iy. 
 
 7 It was a dagger, not a sword, that Cassius stabbed Caesar with. But 
 the same weapoft" is -put for the same aimer ; a common figure of speech. 
 The Poet represents this matter as he read it in Plutarch. In fact, however, 
 Cnssius was found with his head cut off; but Pindarus could nowhore be 
 found ; and it was thought by many that he had treacherously slain hit 
 patron. 
 
504 JULIUS CAESAR. ACT V 
 
 Tit. These tidings will well comfort Cassius. 
 
 Mes. Where did you leave him ? 
 
 Tit. All disconsolate, 
 
 With Piudarus his bondman, on this hill. 
 
 Mes. Is not that he that lies upon the ground ? 
 
 Tit. He lies not like the living. O my heart ! 
 
 Mes. Is not that he? 
 
 Tit. No, this was he, Messala, 
 
 But Cassius is no more. O, setting Sun, 
 As in thy red rays thou dost sink to night, 
 So in his red blood Cassius' day is set ; 
 The sun of Rome is set ! Our day is gone ; 
 Clouds, dews, and dangers come ; our deeds are done ! 
 Mistrust of my success hath done this deed. 
 
 Mes. Mistrust of good success hath done this deed. 
 O, hateful Error, Melancholy's child ! 
 Why dost thou show to the apt thoughts of men 
 The things that are not ? O Error, soon conceiv'd, 
 Thou never com'st unto a happy birth, 
 But kill'st the mother that engender'd thee ! 8 
 
 Tit. What, Pindarus ! where art thou, Pindarus ? 
 
 Mes. Seek him, Titinius, whilst I go to meet 
 The noble Brutus, thrusting this report 
 Into his ears : I may say, thrusting it ; 
 For piercing steel and darts envenomed 
 Shall be as welcome to the ears of Brutus 
 As tidings of this sight. 
 
 Tit. Hie you, Messala, 
 
 And I will seek for Pindarus the while. [Exit MESSALA* 
 Why didst thou send me forth, brave Cassius ? 
 Did I not meet thy friends ? and did not they 
 Put on my brows this wreath of victory, 
 And bid me give it thee ? Didst thou not hear their shouts ? 
 Alas, thou hast misconstrued every thing ! 
 But, hold thee, take this garland on thy brow: 
 Thy Brutus bid me give it thee, and I 
 Will do his bidding. Brutus, come apace, 
 And see how I regarded Caius Cassius. 
 By your leave, gods : this is a Roman's part : 
 Come, Cassius' sword, and find Titinius' heart. [Dies. 
 
 Alarum. Re-enter MESSALA, with BRUTUS, young CATO, 
 STRATO, VOLUMNIUS, and LUCILIUS. 
 
 Bru. Where, where, Messala, doth his body lie ? 
 
 8 Cassius is said to have been of a highly choleric or bilious tempera 
 tnent; as such predisposed to melancholy, and hence apt to be taken with 
 imaginary evils, or to construe things to the worst. 
 
SC. IV. JJLIUS CAESAR. 505 
 
 Mes. Lo, yonder, and Titinius mourning it. 
 
 Bru. Titinius' face is upward. 
 
 Oato. He is slain. 
 
 Bru. O, Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet ! 
 Tliy spirit walks abroad, and turns our swords 
 In our own proper entrails. 9 \Low Alarum** 
 
 Oato. Brave Titinius ! 
 
 Look, whe'r he have not crown'd dead Cassius ! 
 
 Bru. Are yet two Romans living such as these ? 
 Thou last of all the Romans, fare thee well ! 
 It is impossible that ever Rome 
 
 Should breed thy fellow. Friends, I owe more tears 
 To this dead man than you shall see me pay. 
 I shall find time, Cassius, I shall find time. 
 Come, therefore, and to Thassos send his body : 
 His funerals shall not be in our camp, 
 Lest it discomfort us. Lucilius, come ; 
 And come, young Cato ; let us to the field. 
 Labeo and Flavius, 10 set our battles on : 
 'Tis three o'clock ; and, Romans, yet ere night 
 We shall try fortune in a second fight. 11 [Exeunt. 
 
 SCENE IV. The Same. Another Part of the Field. 
 
 Alarum. Enter, fighting, Soldiers of both Armies; then 
 BRUTUS, CATO, LUCILIUS, and Others.. 
 
 Bru. Yet, countrymen, O, yet hold up your heads ! 
 
 Gato. What bastard doth not ? Who will go with me ? 
 I will proclaim my name about the field. 
 I am the son of Marcus Cato, ho ! 
 A foe to tyrants, and my country's friend ; 
 I am the son of Marcus Cato, ho ! [ Charges the Enemy. 
 
 Bru. And I am Brutus, Marcus Brutus, I ; 
 Brutus, my country's friend : know me for Brutus. 
 
 [Exit) charging the Enemy. CATO is overpowered* 
 and falls. 
 
 Lucil. O, young and noble Cato, art thou down ? 
 
 9 Brutus here strikes, I take it, the proper key-note of the plajr. It is 
 said that every one of the conspirators met with a violent death, either by 
 his own hand or by another's. 
 
 10 1 hese two men are not named among the persons of the drama, because 
 they speak nothing. Labeo was one of the stab bers of Caesar; and it is 
 related that when he saw that all was lost, having dug his own grave, he 
 enfranchised a slave, and then thrust a weapon into his hand to kill him. 
 
 n The Poet very judiciously represents both battles as occurring the same 
 day. They wer^ in fact separated by an interval of twenty days. 
 
506 JULIUS CJESAR. ACT T, 
 
 Why, now thou diest as bravely as Titinius, 
 And may'st be honour'd, being Cato's son. 
 
 1 Sold. Yield, or thou diest. 
 
 LnciL Only I yield to die : 
 
 There is so much that thou wilt kill me straig-ht. 
 
 {.Offering Money. 
 Kill Brutus, and be honour'd in his death. 
 
 1 Sold. We must not. A noble prisoner! 
 
 2 Sold. Room, ho ! Tell Antony Brutus is ta'en. 
 
 1 Sold. I'll tell the news. Here comes the General. 
 
 Enter ANTONY. 
 
 Brutus is ta'en, Brutus is ta'en, my lord. 
 
 Ant. Where is he ? 
 
 Lucil. Safe, Antony ; Brutus is safe enough : 
 I dare assure thee that no enemy 
 Shall ever take alive the noble Brutus : 
 The gods defend him from so great a shame ! 
 When you do find him, or alive or dead, 
 He will be found like Brutus, like himself. 
 
 Ant. This is not Brutus, friend ; but I assure you, 
 A prize no less in worth. Keep this man safe, 
 Give him all kindness : I had rather have 
 Such men my friends than enemies. Go on, 
 And see whe'r Brutus be alive or dead ; 
 And bring us word unto Octavius' tent 
 How every thing is chanc'd. [Exeunt. 
 
 SCENE V. The Same. Another Part of the Field. 
 Enter BRUTUS, DARDANIUS, CLITUS, STRATO, and VOLUM- 
 
 NIUS. 
 
 Bru. Come, poor remains of friends, rest on this rock. 
 
 Cli. Statilius show'd the torch-light ; but, my lord, 
 Hs came not back : he is or ta'en or slain. 1 
 
 Bru. Sit thee down, Clitus : slaying is the word ; 
 It is a deed in fashion. Hark thee, Clitus. [ Whispering. 
 
 Cli. What, I, my lord ? No, not for all the world. 
 
 Bru. Peace then ! no words. 
 
 Cli. I'll rather kill myself. 
 
 l This is hardly intelligible without the passage it was founded on 
 * Brutus thought there were n<t many of his men slain; and, to know the 
 truth of it, one called Statilius promised to go through the enemies, and, if 
 all were well, to lift up a torch-light in the air, and then return with speed 
 to him. The torch-light was lift up as he had promised. But his evil fortune 
 was such that, as he came back, he fell into the enemies' hands and was 
 slain/ 
 
SC. V. JULIUS C^SAR, 507 
 
 Bru. Hark thee, Dardanius. [ Whispers him. 
 
 Dear. . Shall I do such a deed ? 
 
 Gli. O Dardanius ! 
 
 Dar. O Clitus ! 
 
 Cli. What ill request did Brutus make to thee ? 
 
 Dar. To kill him, Clitus. Look, he meditates. 
 
 Cli. Now is that noble vessel full of grief, 
 That it runs over even at his eyes. 
 
 Bru. Come hither, good Volumnius ; list a word. 
 
 Vol. What says my lord? 
 
 Bru. Why, this, Volumnius : 
 
 The ghost of Caesar hath appeared to me 
 Two several times by night ; at Sardis once, 
 And, this last night, here in Philippi fields : 
 I know my hour is come. 2 
 
 Vol. Not so, my lord. 
 
 Bru. Nay, I am sure it is, Volumnius. 
 Thou seest the world, Volumnius, how it goes ; 
 Our enemies have beat us to the pit : [Low Alarums. 
 
 It is more worthy to leap in ourselves, 
 Than tarry till they push us. Good Volumnius, 
 Thou know'st that we two went to school together : 
 Even for that our love of old, I pr'ythee, 
 Hold thou my sword-hilts, whilst I run on it. 
 
 Vol. That's Dot an office for a friend, my lord. 
 
 [Alarums stilL 
 
 Cli. Fly, fly, my lord ! there is no tarrying here. 
 
 Bru. Farewell to you ; and you ; and you, Volumnius. 
 Strato, thou hast been all this while asleep ; 
 Farewell to thee, too, Strato. Countrymen, 
 My heart doth joy, that yet in all my life 
 I found no man but he was true to me. 
 I shall have glory by this losing day, 
 More than Octavius and Mark Antony 
 By this vile conquest shall attain unto. 
 So, fare you well at once ; for Brutus' tongue 
 Hath almost ended his life's history : 
 Night hangs upon mine eyes ; my bones would rest, 
 That have but labour'd to attain this hour. 
 
 [Alarums. Cry within, Fly, fly, fly! 
 
 2 So the Poet read in Plutarch : " Brutus being neare unto the city of 
 Phillippes, this spirit appeared againe unto him, but spake never a word. 
 Thereupon Brutus, knowing that he should die, did put himselfe to all hazard 
 in battel." Merivale has a strong sentence on the point: " The legend that 
 when preparing for the encounter with the triumvirs he was visited by the 
 ghost of Caesar, which summoned him to meet again at Philippi, marks the 
 conviction of the ancients that in the crisis of his fate he was stung by guilty 
 remorse, and haunted by the presentiment of final retribution." 
 
508 JULIUS C.&SAR. ACT T- 
 
 Cli. Fly, my lord, fly ! 
 
 Bra. Hence ! I will follow. 8 
 
 [Exeunt CLIT. DARDAN. and VOLUM. 
 I pr'ythee, Strato, stay thou by thy lord. 
 Thou art a fellow of a good respect ; 4 
 Thy life hath had some smack of honour in it : 
 Hold, then, my sword, and turn away thy face, 
 While I do run upon it. Wilt thou, Strato ? 
 
 Stra. Give me your hand first : fare you well, my lord. 
 
 Bru. Farewell, good Strato. Cassar, now be still : 
 I kill'd not thee with half so good a will. 
 
 [He runs on his Sword and dies. 
 
 Alarum. Retreat. Enter OCTAVIUS, ANTONY, MESSALA, 
 LUCILIUS, and Army. 
 
 Oct. What man is that ? 
 
 Mes. My master's man. Strato, where is thy master ? 
 
 Stra. Free from the bondage you are in, Messala : 
 The conquerors can but make a fire of him ; 
 For Brutus only overcame himself, 
 And no man else hath honour by his death. 
 
 Lucil. So Brutus should be found. I thank thee, Brutus, 
 That thou hast prov'd Lucilius' saying true. 
 
 Oct. All that serv'd Brutus, I will entertain them. 5 
 Fellow, wilt thou bestow thy time with me ? 
 
 Stra. Ay, if Messala will prefer me to you. 6 
 
 Oct. Do so, good Messala. 
 
 Mes. How died my master, Strato ? 
 
 Stra. I held the sword, and he did run on it. 
 
 Mes. Octavius, then take him to follow thee, 
 That did the latest service to my master. 
 / Ant. This was the noblest Roman of them all : 
 All the conspirators, save only he, 
 Did that they did in envy of great Caesar ; 
 He only, in a general-honest thought 
 And common good to all, made one of them. 7 
 His life was gentle ; and the elements 
 So mix'd in him, 8 that Nature might stand up 
 
 8 Plutarch gives it, that Brutus, when urged to fly, replied, " We mast 
 fly indeed, but it must be with our hands, not with our feet." 
 4 A fellow well esteemed or of good reputation. 
 6 Receive them into my service. 
 
 6 To prefer seems to have been the general term for recommending a 
 servant. See page 119, note 16. 
 
 7 It has been plausibly proposed to read " thought of common good." 
 Such changes are not rightly admissible. The force of in is continued over 
 common good. 
 
 8 Referring to the old doctrine of the four elements, as they were called, 
 arth, water, air, and fire, the right mixing and tempering of which was 
 
SO. V. JULIUS CAESAR. 509 
 
 And say to all the world, This was a man! 
 Oct. According to his virtue let us use him, 
 With all respect and rites of burial. 
 Within my tent his bones to-night shall lie, 
 Most like a soldier, order'd honourably. 
 So, call the field to rest ; and let's away, 
 To part the glories of this happy day. \_Exeunu 
 
 supposed to be the principle of all excellence in Nature. The Poet has a 
 number of allusions to the doctrine, which was a commonplace of the time 
 See page 195, note 2. The sense of the word elements has so changed as to 
 make the passage just as true to the ideas of our time, as it was to those of 
 three hundred years ago. A rather curious fact. 
 
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