The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Cæsar
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Title: The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Cæsar
Author: William Shakespeare
Commentator: Henry Norman Hudson
Contributor: Andrew Jackson George
Editor: Ebenezer Charlton Black
Release date: March 15, 2009 [eBook #28334]
Most recently updated: November 11, 2025
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28334
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Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE: JULIUS CÆSAR ***
THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE
JULIUS CÆSAR
INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY
HENRY NORMAN
HUDSON, LL.D.
EDITED AND REVISED BY
EBENEZER CHARLTON
BLACK LL.D. (GLASGOW)
WITH THE COÖPERATION OF
ANDREW JACKSON
GEORGE LITT.D. (AMHERST)
GINN AND COMPANY
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO LONDON
ATLANTA DALLAS COLUMBUS SAN FRANCISCO
ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL
COPYRIGHT, 1908
BY GINN AND COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
424.12
_The Athenæum Press_
GINN AND COMPANY PROPRIETORS
BOSTON U.S.A.
[Illustration:
THE LIVES
OF THE NOBLE GRECIANS
AND ROMAINES, COMPARED
TOGETHER BY THAT GRAVE LEARNED
PHILOSOPHER AND HISTORIOGRAPHER,
_Plutarke of Chæronea._
Translated out of Greeke into French by IAMES AMIOT Abbot
and great Amner of France. With the liues of HANNIBAL and of SCIPIO
AFRICAN: translated out of Latine into French by CHARLES
de l'ESCLVSE, and out of French into English,
_By Sir Thomas North Knight._
_Hereunto are also added the lives of_ Epaminondas, _of_ Philip
_of Macedon, of_ Dionysius _the elder,
tyrant of Sicilia, of_ Augustus Cæsar, _of_ Plutarke, _and of_
Seneca: _with the liues of nine other
excellent Chiefetaines of warre: collected out of_ Æmylius Probus,
_by_
S. G. S. _and Englished by the aforesaid Translator._
Imprinted at London by RICHARD FIELD
for GEORGE BISHOP
1603.
]
TITLE-PAGE OF NORTH'S PLUTARCH, THIRD EDITION
Reproduced from the copy in the Boston Public Library
PREFACE
The text of this edition of _Julius Cæsar_ is based upon a collation of
the seventeenth century Folios, the Globe edition, and that of Delius.
As compared with the text of the earlier editions of Hudson's
Shakespeare, it is conservative. Exclusive of changes in spelling,
punctuation, and stage directions, very few emendations by eighteenth
century and nineteenth century editors have been adopted; and these,
with every variation from the First Folio, are indicated in the textual
notes. These notes are printed immediately below the text so that a
reader or student may see at a glance the evidence in the case of a
disputed reading and have some definite understanding of the reasons for
those differences in the text of Shakespeare which frequently surprise
and very often annoy. A consideration of the more poetical, or the more
dramatically effective, of two variant readings will often lead to rich
results in awakening a spirit of discriminating interpretation and in
developing true creative criticism. In no sense is this a textual
variorum edition. The variants given are only those of importance and
high authority.
The spelling and the punctuation of the text are modern, except in the
case of verb terminations in _-ed_, which, when the _e_ is silent, are
printed with the apostrophe in its place. This is the general usage in
the First Folio. Modern spelling has to a certain extent been followed
in the text variants; but the original spelling has been retained
wherever its peculiarities have been the basis for important textual
criticism and emendation.
With the exception of the position of the textual variants, the plan of
this edition is similar to that of the old Hudson Shakespeare. It is
impossible to specify the various instances of revision and
rearrangement in the matter of the Introduction and the interpretative
notes, but the endeavor has been to retain all that gave the old edition
its unique place and to add the results of what seems vital and
permanent in later inquiry and research.
While it is important that the principle of _suum cuique_ be attended to
so far as is possible in matters of research and scholarship, it is
becoming more and more difficult to give every man his own in
Shakespearian annotation. The amount of material accumulated is so great
that the identity-origin of much important comment and suggestion is
either wholly lost or so crushed out of shape as to be beyond
recognition. Instructive significance perhaps attaches to this in
editing the works of one who quietly made so much of materials gathered
by others. But the list of authorities given on page li will indicate
the chief source of much that has gone to enrich the value of this
edition. Professor W. P. Trent, of Columbia University, has offered
valuable suggestions and given important advice; and to Mr. M. Grant
Daniell's patience, accuracy, and judgment this volume owes both its
freedom from many a blunder and its possession of a carefully arranged
index.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PAGE
I. SOURCES vii
THE MAIN STORY vii
NORTH'S _PLUTARCH_ vii
APPIAN'S _ROMAN WARS_ xii
EARLIER PLAYS xiii
THE SCENE OF THE ASSASSINATION xiv
"_ET TU, BRUTE_" xvi
BRUTUS'S SPEECH, III, ii. xvi
II. DATE OF COMPOSITION xvii
EXTERNAL EVIDENCE xviii
INTERNAL EVIDENCE xx
III. EARLY EDITIONS xxiii
FOLIOS xxiii
THE QUARTO OF 1691 xxiv
ROWE'S EDITIONS xxiv
IV. THE TITLE xxv
V. DRAMATIC CONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT xxv
ANALYSIS BY ACT AND SCENE xxvi
VI. MANAGEMENT OF TIME AND PLACE xxx
HISTORIC TIME xxx
DRAMATIC TIME xxxi
PLACE xxxi
VII. VERSIFICATION AND DICTION xxxii
BLANK VERSE xxxii
RHYME xxxiii
PROSE xxxiii
VIII. THE CHARACTERS xxxiv
JULIUS CÆSAR xxxiv
BRUTUS xli
BRUTUS AND CASSIUS xlvii
PORTIA xlix
ANTONY li
THE PEOPLE liii
IX. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS liii
AUTHORITIES (WITH ABBREVIATIONS) lv
CHRONOLOGICAL CHART lvi
DISTRIBUTION OF CHARACTERS lx
THE TEXT
ACT I 3
ACT II 42
ACT III 79
ACT IV 116
ACT V 144
INDEX
I. WORDS AND PHRASES 169
II. QUOTATIONS FROM PLUTARCH 173
INTRODUCTION
NOTE. In citations from Shakespeare's plays and nondramatic poems the
numbering has reference to the Globe edition, except in the case of this
play, where the reference is to this edition.
I. SOURCES
No event in the history of the world has made a more profound impression
upon the popular imagination than the assassination of Julius Cæsar.
Apart from its overwhelming interest as a personal catastrophe, it was
regarded in the sixteenth century as a happening of the greatest
historical moment, fraught with significant public lessons for all time.
There is ample evidence that in England from the beginning of
Elizabeth's reign it was the subject of much literary and dramatic
treatment, and in making the murder of "the mightiest Julius" the climax
of a play, Shakespeare was true to that instinct which drew him for
material to themes of universal and eternal interest.
THE MAIN STORY
I. _North's Plutarch._ There is no possible doubt that in _Julius Cæsar_
Shakespeare derived the great body of his historical material from _The
Life of Julius Cæsar_, _The Life of Marcus Brutus_, and _The Life of
Marcus Antonius_ in Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch.[1] This
work was first printed in 1579 in a massive folio dedicated to Queen
Elizabeth. A second edition appeared in 1595, and in all probability
this was the edition read by Shakespeare. The title-page is reproduced
in facsimile on page ix. This interesting title-page gives in brief the
literary history of North's translation, which was made not directly
from the original Greek of Plutarch, but from a French version by
Jacques Amyot, bishop of Auxerre.[2] In 1603 appeared a third edition
with additional _Lives_ and new matter on the title-page.[3] There were
subsequent editions in 1612,[4] 1631, 1656, and 1676. The popularity of
this work attested by these reprintings was thoroughly deserved, for
North's Plutarch is among the richest and freshest monuments of
Elizabethan prose literature, and, apart altogether from the use made of
it by Shakespeare, is in itself an invaluable repertory of honest,
manly, idiomatic English. No abstract of the Plutarchian matter need be
given here, as all the more important passages drawn upon for the play
are quoted in the footnotes to the text. These will show that in most of
the leading incidents the great Greek biographer is closely followed,
though in many cases these incidents are worked out and developed with
rare fertility of invention and art. It is very significant that in the
second half of _The Life of Julius Cæsar_, which Shakespeare draws upon
very heavily, Plutarch emphasizes those weaknesses of Cæsar which are
made so prominent in the play. Besides this, in many places the
Plutarchian form and order of thought, and also the very words of
North's racy and delectable English are retained, with such an embalming
for immortality as Shakespeare alone could give.[5]
[Footnote 1: Professor W. W. Skeat's _Shakespeare's Plutarch_ (The
Macmillan Company) gives these _Lives_ in convenient form with a text
based upon the edition of 1612.]
[Footnote 2: A Latin translation of Plutarch's _Lives_ was printed at
Rome as early as 1470, and there is evidence that through a Latin
version the work first attracted the attention of Amyot. But his famous
French version, first published in 1559, shows thorough familiarity with
the original Greek text.]
[Footnote 3: This title-page is given in facsimile as the frontispiece
of this volume.]
[Footnote 4: There is a famous copy of this edition in the Greenock
Library with the initials "W. S." at the top of the title-page and
seventeenth century manuscript notes in _The Life of Julius Cæsar_. See
Skeat's _Shakespeare's Plutarch_, Introduction, p. xii.]
[Footnote 5: See Trench's _Lectures on Plutarch_, Leo's _Four Chapters
of North's Plutarch_, and Delius's _Shakespeare's Julius Cæsar und seine
Quellen in Plutarch_ (_Shakespeare Jahrbuch_, XVII, 67).]
[Illustration:
THE LIVES
OF THE NOBLE GRECIANS
AND ROMANES, COMPARED
TOGETHER BY THAT GRAVE LEARNED
PHILOSOPHER AND HISTORIOGRAPHER,
_Plutarch of Chæronea_:
Translated out of Greeke into French by IAMES AMIOT, Abbot of
Bellozane,
Bishop of Auxerre, one of the Kings priuie counsell, and great
Amner of France, and out of French into English, by
_Thomas North_.
Imprinted at London by Richard Field for
Bonham Norton.
1595.
]
In _Julius Cæsar_ Shakespeare's indebtedness to North's Plutarch may be
summed up as extending to (1) the general story of the play; (2) minor
incidents and happenings, as Cæsar's falling-sickness, the omens before
his death, and the writings thrown in Brutus's way; (3) touches of
detail, as in the description of Cassius's "lean and hungry look" and of
Antony's tastes and personal habits; and (4) noteworthy expressions,
phrases, and single words, as in III, ii, 240-241, 246-248; IV, iii, 2;
IV, iii, 178; V, i, 80-81; V, iii, 109.
On the other hand, Shakespeare's alteration of Plutarchian material is
along the lines of (1) idealization, as in the characters of Brutus and
Cassius; (2) amplification, as in the use Antony makes of Cæsar's rent
and bloody mantle; and (3) simplification and compression of the action
for dramatic effect, as in making Cæsar's triumph take place at the
time of "the feast of Lupercal," in the treatment of the quarrel between
Brutus and Cassius, which in Plutarch lasts for two days, and in making
the two battles of Philippi occur on the same day. See note, p. 159, ll.
109-110. See also below, The Scene of the Assassination.
2. _Appian's Roman Wars._ In 1578 there was published in London an
English translation of the extant portions of Appian's _History of the
Roman Wars both Civil and Foreign_, with the interesting title page
shown in facsimile on page xi.
[Illustration:
AN AVNCIENT
Historie and exquisite Chronicle
_of the Romanes warres, both_
Ciuile and Foren.
Written in Greeke by the noble Orator and Historiographer,
_Appian_ of _Alexandria_, one of the learned
Counsell to the most mightie Emperoures,
_Traiane_ and _Adriane_
In the which is declared:
_Their greedy desire conquere others.
Their mortall malice to destroy themselves.
Their seeking of matters to make warre abroad.
Their picking of quarels to fall out at home.
All the degrees of Sedition, and the effects of Ambition.
A firme determination of Fate, thorowe all the changes of Fortune.
And finally, an evident demonstration, That peoples rule must give
place, and Princes power prevayle._
With a continuation, bicause that parte
of _Appian_ is not extant, from the death of _Sextus
Pompeius_, second sonne to _Pompey_ the Great,
_till the overthrow of_ Antonie _and_ Cleopatra,
after the vvhich time, _Octavianus Cæsar_,
had the Lordship of all, alone.
Βασιλίδι χρἁτιϛη, δεσπὁτιδι τ' ἐπιεικἐϛατη
IMPRINTED AT LONDON
_by Raufe Newbery, and_
Henrie Bynniman.
Anno. 1578.
]
In this translation of Appian the events before and after Cæsar's death
are described minutely and with many graphic touches. Compare, for
example, with the quotation from Plutarch given in the note, p. 68, l.
33, this account of the same incident in Appian: "The day before that
Cæsar should go to the senate, he had him at a banquet with Lepidus ...
and talking merrily what death was best for a man, some saying one and
some another, he of all praised sudden death." Here are some of the
marginal summaries in Appian: "Cæsar refuseth the name of King," "A
crown upon Cæsar's image by one that was apprehended of the tribunes
Marullus and Sitius," "Cæsar hath the Falling-Sickness," "Cæsar's Wife
(hath) a fearful Dream," "Cæsar contemneth sacrifices of evil Luck,"
"Cæsar giveth over when Brutus had stricken him," "The fear of the
Conspirators," "The bad Angel of Brutus."
What gives interest and distinction to Appian's translation as a
probable source for material in _Julius Cæsar_ is that in it we have
speeches by Antony, Brutus, and Lepidus at the time of the reading of
Cæsar's will. In this translation Antony's first speech begins, "They
that would have voices tried upon Cæsar must know afore that if he
ruled as an officer lawfully chosen, then all his acts and decrees must
stand in force...." On Antony's second speech the comment is, "Thus
wrought Antony artificially." His speech to the Senate begins, "Silence
being commanded, he said thus, 'Of the citizens offenders (you men of
equal honour) in this your consultation I have said nothing....'" The
speech of Lepidus to the people has this setting: "When he was come to
the place of speech he lamented, weeping, and thus said, 'Here I was
yesterday with Cæsar, and now am I here to inquire of Cæsar's death....
Cæsar is gone from us, an holy and honourable man in deed.'" The effect
of this speech is commented on as follows: "Handling the matter thus
craftily, the hired men, knowing that he was ambitious, praised him and
exhorted him to take the office of Cæsar's priesthood." A long speech by
Brutus follows the reading of Cæsar's will. It begins: "Now, O citizens,
we be here with you that yesterday were in the common court not as men
fleeing to the temple that have done amiss, nor as to a fort, having
committed all we have to you.... We have heard what hath been objected
against us of our enemies, touching the oath and touching cause of
doubt...." The effect of this speech is thus described: "Whiles Brutus
thus spake, all the hearers considering with themselves that he spake
nothing but right, did like them well, and as men of courage and lovers
of the people, had them in great admiration and were turned into their
favour."
3. _Earlier Plays._ As already mentioned, England had plays on the
subject of Julius Cæsar from the first years of Elizabeth's reign. As
not one of these earlier plays is extant, there can be no certainty as
to whether Shakespeare drew upon them for materials or inspiration, but,
as Professor Herford says, "he seems to be cognisant of their
existence." His opening scene is addressed to a public familiar with the
history of Pompey and Pompey's sons. Among these earlier plays was one
almost contemporary with the first production of _Gorboduc_, the first
English tragedy. It is referred to under the name of _Julyus Sesar_ in
an entry in Machyn's _Diary_ under February 1, 1562. In _Plays confuted
in five Actions_, printed probably in 1582, Stephen Gosson mentions the
history of _Cæsar and Pompey_ as a contemporary play. A Latin play on
Cæsar's death was acted at Oxford in 1582, and for it Dr. Richard Eedes
(Eades, Edes) of Christ Church wrote the epilogue (_Epilogus Cæsaris
Intersecti_). In Henslowe's _Diary_ under November 8, 1594, a _Seser and
pompie_ is mentioned as a new play. Mr. A. W. Verity (_Julius Cæsar_,
The Pitt Press edition) makes the interesting suggestion that in III, i,
111-116, there may be an allusion to these earlier plays. Cf. also
_Hamlet_, III, ii, 107-111, quoted below.
THE SCENE OF THE ASSASSINATION
In transferring the assassination of Cæsar from the _Porticus Pompeia_
("Pompey's porch," I, iii, 126) to the Capitol, Shakespeare departed
from Plutarch and historical accuracy to follow a popular tradition that
had received the signal imprimatur of Chaucer:
This Iulius to the Capitolie wente
Upon a day, as he was wont to goon,[1]
And in the Capitolie anon him hente[2]
This false Brutus, and his othere foon[3]
And stikede him with boydekins[4] anoon
With many a wounde, and thus they lete him lye;
But never gronte[5] he at no strook but oon,
Or elles at two, but if[6] his storie lye.
_The Monkes Tale_, ll. 715-718. (Skeat's _Chaucer_.)
[Footnote 1: go.]
[Footnote 2: seized.]
[Footnote 3: foes.]
[Footnote 4: daggers.]
[Footnote 5: groaned.]
[Footnote 6: unless.]
This literary and popular tradition is followed in _Hamlet_, III, ii,
107-111:
HAMLET. What did you enact?
POLONIUS. I did enact Julius Cæsar: I was kill'd i' the Capitol:
Brutus kill'd me.
HAMLET. It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there.
So also in _Antony and Cleopatra:_
Since Julius Cæsar,
Who at Philippi the good Brutus ghosted,
There saw you labouring for him. What was 't
That mov'd pale Cassius to conspire; and what
Made the all-honour'd, honest Roman, Brutus,
With the arm'd rest, courtiers of beauteous freedom,
To drench the Capitol; but that they would
Have one man but a man? [II, vi, 12-19.]
We have the same popular tradition in the first scene of the last act of
Fletcher's _The Noble Gentleman_. So, too, in the Prologue to Beaumont
and Fletcher's, or Fletcher and Massinger's, _The False One_, a tragedy
dealing with Cæsar and Cleopatra:
To tell
Of Cæsar's amorous heats, and how he fell
I' the Capitol.
Here the reference is to Shakespeare's play.
"ET TU, BRUTE"
Dyce and other researchers have made clear that in Shakespeare's day
"_Et tu, Brute_" was a familiar phrase which had special reference to a
wound from a supposed friend. It probably owed its popularity to having
been used in the earlier plays on the subject of Julius Cæsar. In _The
True Tragedie of Richard Duke of York_ (1595), upon which Shakespeare's
_3 Henry VI_ is based, occurs the line,
_Et tu, Brute?_ wilt thou stab Cæsar too?
This line is repeated in S. Nicholson's poem, _Acolastus, his
Afterwitte_ (1600). In Ben Jonson's _Every Man out of His Humour_
(1599), Buffone uses "_Et tu, Brute_" in speaking to Macilente (V, iv).
In the _Myrroure for Magistrates_ (1587) we find,
And Brutus thou, my sonne, quoth I, whom erst I loved best.
The Latin form of the phrase possibly originated, as Malone suggested,
in the Latin play referred to above (Earlier Plays) which was acted at
Oxford in 1582. It is easy to see how the Elizabethan tendency to
word-quibble and equivoque would help to give currency to the Latin
form. Cf. Hamlet's joke on 'brute' quoted above.
BRUTUS'S SPEECH, III, ii
In view of the close connection between _Julius Cæsar_ and _Hamlet_ as
regards date of composition and the characterization of Brutus and
Hamlet, interest attaches to Professor Gollancz's theory (_Julius
Cæsar_, Temple Shakespeare) that the original of the famous speech of
Brutus to the assembled Romans (III, ii) may be found in Belleforest's
_History of Hamlet_, in the oration which Hamlet makes to the Danes
after he has slain his uncle. "The situation of Hamlet is almost
identical with that of Brutus after he has dealt the blow, and the
burden of Hamlet's too lengthy speech finds an echo in Brutus's
sententious utterance. The verbose iteration of the Dane has been
compressed to suit 'the brief compendious manner of speech of the
Lacedæmonians.'"--Gollancz. As the English translation from which
Professor Gollancz quotes in support of his theory is dated 1608, and is
the earliest known,[1] it cannot have been from this that Shakespeare
drew any suggestions or material. The question arises, Did Shakespeare
read the speech in the original French? The volume of Belleforest's
_Histoires Tragiques_, which contained the story of Hamlet, was first
published in 1570, and there were many reprintings of it before 1600.
[Footnote 1: Reprinted in Collier's _Shakespeare's Library_. This
translation shows in more than one place the influence of Shakespeare's
play. For example, Hamlet's exclamation before he kills Polonius, "A
rat! a rat!" is in the English version, but there is no suggestion of it
in the French original.]
II. DATE OF COMPOSITION
Modern editors fix the date of composition of _Julius Cæsar_ within
1601, the later time limit (_terminus ante quem_), and 1598, the earlier
time limit (_terminus post quem_). The weight of evidence is in favor of
1600-1601.
EXTERNAL EVIDENCE
1. _Negative._ _Julius Cæsar_ is not mentioned by Meres in the _Palladis
Tamia_, published in 1598, which gives a list of twelve noteworthy
Shakespeare plays in existence at that time. This establishes 1598 as a
probable _terminus post quem_.
2. _Positive._ In John Weever's _Mirror of Martyrs or the Life and Death
of Sir John Oldcastle Knight, Lord Cobham_, printed in 1601, are the
following lines:
The many-headed multitude were drawne
By _Brutus_ speech that _Cæsar_ was ambitious,
When eloquent _Mark Antonie_ had showne
His vertues, who but _Brutus_ then was vicious?
Man's memorie, with new, forgets the old,
One tale is good, until another's told.
Halliwell-Phillipps was the first to note that here is a very pointed
reference to the second scene of the third act of _Julius Cæsar_, as the
antithesis brought out is not indicated in any of Shakespeare's
historical sources. The fact that Weever states in his Dedication that
the _Mirror_ "some two years agoe was made fit for the print" has been
held by Mr. Percy Simpson[1] to indicate that the play was not brought
out later than 1599, a conclusion supported, he thinks, by a passage in
Ben Jonson's _Every Man out of His Humour_, produced in that year, where
Clove (III, i) says, "Then coming to the pretty animal, as _Reason long
since is fled to animals_, you know," which may be a sneering allusion
to Antony's "O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts" (III, ii,
104). The "_Et tu, Brute_" quotation in the same play has been used to
strengthen the argument. But the lines from the _Mirror of Martyrs_
quoted above may easily have been inserted by Weever into his poem in
consequence of the popularity of Shakespeare's play. This contemporary
popularity is well attested. Leonard Digges,[2] in his verses _Upon
Master William Shakespeare_ prefixed to the 1640 edition of
Shakespeare's Poems, thus compares it with that of Ben Jonson's Roman
plays:
So have I seene, when Cesar would appeare,
And on the Stage at halfe-sword parley were
_Brutus_ and _Cassius_: oh how the Audience
Were ravish'd, with what new wonder they went thence,
When some new day they would not brooke a line
Of tedious (though well laboured) _Catiline_;
_Sejanus_ too was irkesome, they priz'de more
Honest _Iago_, or the jealous _Moore_.
[Footnote 1: In _Notes and Queries_, February, 1899.]
[Footnote 2: Leonard Digges also wrote verses "To the Memorie of the
deceased Authour Maister W. Shakespeare," prefixed to the First Folio.]
"Fustian" Clove's quotation may apply to references to the Pythagorean
doctrine of the transmigration of souls in Shakespeare's earlier plays
and other Elizabethan literature; and little can be based upon the "_Et
tu, Brute_" quotation, as Ben Jonson may have drawn it from the same
source as Shakespeare did.
On the other hand, Henslowe in his _Diary_ under May 22, 1602, notes
that he advanced five pounds "in earneste of a Boocke called _sesers
Falle_," which the dramatists Munday, Drayton, Webster, Middleton "and
the Rest" were composing for Lord Nottingham's Company. _Cæsar's Fall_
was plainly intended to outshine Shakespeare's popular play, but, as
Professor Herford comments, "the lost play ... for the rival company
would have been a somewhat tardy counterblast to an old piece of 1599."
He adds: "_Julius Cæsar_ was certainly not unconcerned in the revival of
the fashion for tragedies of revenge with a ghost in them, which
suddenly set in with Marston's _Antonio and Mellida_ and Chettle's
_Hoffman_ in 1601."
Dr. Furnivall, a strong advocate for 1601 as the date of composition,
has suggested[1] that Essex's ill-judged rebellion against Queen
Elizabeth, on Sunday, February 8, 1601, was the reason of Shakespeare's
producing his _Julius Cæsar_ in that year. "Assuredly," he says, "the
citizens of London in that year who heard Shakespeare's play must have
felt the force of '_Et tu, Brute_,' and must have seen Brutus's death,
with keener and more home-felt influence than we feel and hear the
things with now."
Drayton's revised version of his _Mortimeriados_ (1596-1597); published
in 1603 under the title of _The Barons' Wars_, has a passage which
strongly resembles some lines in Antony's last speech (V, v, 73-74), but
common property in the idea that a well-balanced mixture of the four
elements (earth, air, fire, and water) produces a perfect man
invalidates any argument for the date of the play based upon this
evidence. See note, p. 167, l. 73.
INTERNAL EVIDENCE
Dr. W. A. Wright[2] has argued against an earlier date than 1600 for the
composition of _Julius Caesar_ from the use of 'eternal' for 'infernal'
in I, ii, 160. See note, p. 20, l. 160. Of course there is no certainty
that Shakespeare wished to use the word 'infernal,' and, besides, if
any substitution was made, it may have been at a later date. But
adumbrations of _Hamlet_ everywhere in _Julius Cæsar_, the frequent
references to Cæsar in _Hamlet_, the kinship in character of Brutus and
Hamlet (see note, p. 46, l. 65), the treatment of the supernatural, and
the development of the revenge motive give strong cumulative evidence
that the composition of _Julius Cæsar_ is in time very near to that of
_Hamlet_, the first Shakespearian draft of which is now generally
conceded to date from the first months of 1602. The diction of _Julius
Cæsar_, the quality of the blank verse, the style generally (see below,
Versification and Diction), all point to 1601 as the probable date of
composition. It has been said that a true taste for Shakespeare is like
the creation of a special sense; and this saying is nowhere better
approved than in reference to his subtile variations of language and
style. He began with what may be described as a preponderance of the
poetic element over the dramatic. As we trace his course onward, we may
discover a gradual rising of the latter element into greater strength
and prominence, until at last it had the former in complete subjection.
Now, where positive external evidence is wanting, it is mainly from the
relative strength of these elements that the probable date of the
writing may be argued. In _Julius Cæsar_ the diction is more gliding and
continuous, and the imagery more round and amplified, than in the
earlier dramas or in those known to belong to Shakespeare's latest
period.
[Footnote 1: In _The Academy_, September 18, 1875. See also _The Leopold
Shakspere_, Introduction.]
[Footnote 2: _Julius Cæsar_, The Clarendon Press, Introduction, p.
viii.]
These distinctive notes are of a nature more easily to be felt than
described, and to make them felt examples will best serve. Take then a
passage from the soliloquy of Brutus just after he has pledged himself
to the conspiracy:
'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. [II, i, 21-27.]
Here we have a full, rounded period in which all the elements seem to
have been adjusted, and the whole expression set in order, before any
part of it was written down. The beginning foresees the end, the end
remembers the beginning, and the thought and image are evolved together
in an even, continuous flow. The thing is indeed perfect in its way,
still it is not in Shakespeare's latest and highest style. Now take a
passage from _The Winter's Tale_:
When you speak, sweet,
I'ld have you do it ever: when you sing,
I'ld have you buy and sell so, so give alms,
Pray so; and, for the ordering your affairs,
To sing them too: when you do dance, I wish you
A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that; move still, still so,
And own no other function. [IV, iv, 136-143.]
Here the workmanship seems to make and shape itself as it goes along,
thought kindling thought, and image prompting image, and each part
neither concerning itself with what has gone before, nor with what is
coming after. The very sweetness has a certain piercing quality, and we
taste it from clause to clause, almost from word to word, as so many
keen darts of poetic rapture shot forth in rapid succession. Yet the
passage, notwithstanding its swift changes of imagery and motion, is
perfect in unity and continuity.
III. EARLY EDITIONS
FOLIOS
On November 8, 1623, Edward Blount and Isaac Jaggard obtained formal
license to print "Mr. William Shakespeere's Comedyes, Histories, and
Tragedyes, soe many of the said copies as are not formerly entered to
other men." This is the description-entry in _The Stationers' Registers_
of what is now known as the First Folio (1623), designated in the
textual notes of this edition F1. _Julius Cæsar_ is one of the plays
"not formerly entered,"[1] and it was first printed, so far as is known,
in this famous volume. It is more correctly printed than perhaps any
other play in the First Folio and, as the editors of the Cambridge
Shakespeare suggest, "may perhaps have been (as the preface falsely
implied that all were[2]) printed from the original manuscript of the
author."[3] It stands between _Timon of Athens_ and _Macbeth_, two very
badly printed plays. The running title is _The Tragedie of Julius
Cæsar_, but in the "Catalogve of the seuerall Comedies, Histories, and
Tragedies contained in this Volume," the title is given as _The Life and
Death of Julius Cæsar_.
[Footnote 1: This is strong evidence that the play had not been printed
at an earlier date.]
[Footnote 2: "... Absolute in their numbers, as he conceiued them....
His mind and hand went together: And what he thought, he vttered with
that easinesse, that wee haue scarse receiued from him a blot in his
papers" (Heminge and Condell's Address "To the great Variety of
Readers," First Folio).]
[Footnote 3: Mr. F. G. Fleay in his Shakespeare Manual (1876) argues that
"this play as we have it is an abridgement of Shakespeare's play made by
Ben Jonson."]
The Second Folio, F2 (1632), the Third Folio, F3 (1663, 1664), and the
Fourth Folio, F4 (1685), show few variants in the text of _Julius Cæsar_
and none of importance.
THE QUARTO OF 1691
In 1691 _Julius Cæsar_ appeared in quarto form. This Quarto contained
one famous text variant, 'hath' for 'path' in II, i, 83. Though the
Folio text here offers difficulties, and modern editors have suggested
many emendations, no one has been inclined to accept the commonplace
reading of the Quarto.
ROWE'S EDITIONS
In the Folios and in the Quarto of 1691 the play is divided into acts,
but not into scenes, though the first act is headed _Actus Primus, Scæna
Prima_. The first systematic division into scenes was made by Nicholas
Rowe, poet laureate to George I, in the edition which he issued in six
octavo volumes in 1709. In this edition Rowe, an experienced playwright,
marked the entrances and exits of the characters and introduced many
stage directions and the list of dramatis personæ which has been the
basis for all later lists. A second edition in eight volumes was
published in 1714. Rowe followed very closely the text of the Fourth
Folio, but modernized spelling, punctuation, and occasionally grammar.
These are the first critical editions of Shakespeare's plays.
IV. THE TITLE
It has been justly observed that Shakespeare shows much judgment in the
naming of his plays. From this observation several critics have excepted
_Julius Cæsar_, pronouncing the title a misnomer, on the ground that
Brutus, and not Cæsar, is the hero of it. It is indeed true that Brutus
is the hero, but the play is rightly named, for Cæsar is not only the
subject but also the governing power of it throughout. He is the center
and springhead of the entire action, giving law and shape to everything
that is said and done. This is manifestly true in what occurs before his
death; and it is true in a still deeper sense afterwards, since his
genius then becomes the Nemesis or retributive Providence.
V. DRAMATIC CONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT
_Julius Cæsar_ is a tragedy of a normal Shakespearian type, in which is
represented a conflict between an individual, or group of individuals,
and certain forces which environ, antagonize, and overwhelm. The unity
of action and of interest is the personality of Julius Cæsar. In
dramatic technique the play is simple and effective. Out of masses of
detail and historical incident the dramatist has shaped a symmetrical
and well-defined plot marked by (1) the exposition, or introduction, (2)
the complication, or rising action, (3) the climax, or turning point,
(4) the resolution, or falling action, and (5) the catastrophe, or
conclusion. It is almost a commonplace of criticism that the opening
scene of a Shakespeare play strikes the keynote of the action. It
certainly does in a remarkable way in _Julius Cæsar_, introducing, on
the one side, a group of excited citizens friendly to Cæsar, and, on the
other, two tribunes hostile to him. It foreshadows the
character-contrasts in the play and the conflict between the state and
the individual. The exposition continues through the second scene, in
which are introduced the leading characters in significant action and
interaction. At the close of this scene Cassius lays his plans to win
Brutus over to the conspiracy, and the complication, or rising action,
of the drama begins. Through the last scene of the first act and the
four scenes of the second act the growth of the complication is
continued, with brief intervals of suspense, until, in the first scene
of the third act, the climax is reached in the assassination of Cæsar
and the wild enthusiasm of the conspirators. With the entry of Antony's
servant begins the resolution, or falling action (see note, p. 89, l.
123), and from now, through intervals of long suspense and many
vicissitudes,[1] the fortunes of the chief conspirators fall inevitably
to the catastrophe.
ANALYSIS BY ACT AND SCENE[2]
[Footnote 1: For an interesting defense of the so-called 'dragging'
tendency and episodical character of the third scene of the fourth act,
see Professor A. C. Bradley's _Shakespearean Tragedy_, pp. 55-61.]
[Footnote 2: "It must be understood that a play can be analyzed into
very different schemes of plot. It must not be thought that one of these
schemes is right and the rest wrong; but the schemes will be better or
worse in proportion as--while of course representing correctly the facts
of the play--they bring out more or less of what ministers to our sense
of design."--Moulton.]
I. THE EXPOSITION, OR INTRODUCTION (TYING OF THE KNOT)
_Act I, Scene i._ The popularity of Cæsar with the Roman mob and the
jealousy of the official classes--the two motive forces of the play--are
revealed. The fickleness of the mob is shown in a spirit of comedy; the
antagonism of Marullus and Flavius strikes the note of tragedy.
_Act I, Scene ii, 1-304._ The supreme characters are introduced, and in
their opening speeches each reveals his temperament and foreshadows the
part which he will play. The exposition of the situation is now
complete.
II. THE COMPLICATION, RISING ACTION, OR GROWTH (TYING OF THE KNOT)
_Act I, Scene ii, 305-319._ In soliloquy Cassius unfolds his scheme for
entangling Brutus in the conspiracy, and the dramatic complication
begins.
_Act I, Scene iii._ Casca, excited by the fiery portents that bode
disaster to the state, is persuaded by Cassius to join "an enterprise of
honourable-dangerous consequence" (lines 123-124). The conspirators are
assigned to their various posts, and Cassius engages to secure Brutus
before morning.
_Act II, Scene i._ The humane character of Brutus, as master, husband,
and citizen, is elaborated, and his attitude to Cæsar and the conspiracy
of assassination clearly shown. He joins the conspirators--apparently
their leader, in reality their tool. In lines 162-183 he pleads that the
life of Antony be spared, and thus unconsciously prepares for his own
ruin.
_Act II, Scene ii._ Cæsar is uneasy at the omens and portents, and gives
heed to Calpurnia's entreaties to remain at home, but he yields to the
importunity of Decius and starts for the Capitol, thus advancing the
plans of the conspirators. The dramatic contrast between Cæsar and
Brutus is strengthened by that between Calpurnia in this scene and
Portia in the preceding.
_Act II, Scene iii._ The dramatic interest is intensified by the warning
of Artemidorus and the suggestion of a way of escape for the
protagonist.
_Act II, Scene iv._ The interest is further intensified by the way in
which readers and spectators are made to share the anxiety of Portia.
III. THE CLIMAX, CRISIS, OR TURNING POINT (THE KNOT TIED)
_Act III, Scene i, 1-122._ The dramatic movement is now rapid, and the
tension, indicated by the short whispered sentences of all the speakers
except Cæsar, is only increased by his imperial utterances, which show
utter unconsciousness of the impending doom. In the assassination all
the complicating forces--the self-confidence of Cæsar, the unworldly
patriotism of Brutus, the political chicanery of Cassius, the
unscrupulousness of Casca, and the fickleness of the mob--bring about an
event which changes the lives of all the characters concerned and
threatens the stability of the Roman nation. The death of Cæsar is the
climax of the physical action of the play; it is at the same time the
emotional crisis from which Brutus comes with altered destiny.
IV. THE RESOLUTION, FALLING ACTION, OR CONSEQUENCE (THE UNTYING OF THE
KNOT)
_Act III, Scene i, 123-298._ With Brutus's "Soft! who comes here? A
friend of Antony's" begins the resolution, or falling action, of the
play. "The fortune of the conspirators, hitherto in the ascendant, now
declines, while 'Cæsar's spirit' surely and steadily prevails against
them."--Verity. Against the advice of Cassius, Brutus gives Antony
permission to deliver a public funeral oration. Antony in a soliloquy
shows his determination to avenge Cæsar, and the first scene of the
falling action closes with the announcement that Octavius is within
seven leagues of Rome.
_Act III, Scene ii--Scene iii._ The orations of Antony, in vivid
contrast to the conciliatory but unimpassioned speeches of Brutus, fire
the people and liberate fresh forces in the falling action. Brutus and
Cassius have to fly the city, riding "like madmen through the gates of
Rome." In unreasoning fury the mob tears to pieces an innocent poet who
has the same name as a conspirator.
_Act IV, Scene i._ Antony, Octavius, and Lepidus, having formed a
triumvirate of which Antony is the master spirit, agree on a
proscription list and join forces against Brutus and Cassius, who "are
levying powers."
_Act IV, Scene ii._ Brutus and Cassius, long parted by pride and
obstinacy, meet to discuss a plan of action.
_Act IV, Scene iii._ This is one of the most famous individual scenes in
Shakespeare (see note, page 123). Its intensely human interest is always
conceded, but its dramatic propriety, because of what seems a 'dragging'
tendency, has been often questioned. The scene opens with Brutus and
Cassius bandying recriminations, and the quarrel of the two generals
bodes disaster to their cause. As the discussion proceeds, they yield
points and become reconciled. Brutus then quietly but with peculiar
pathos tells of Portia's death by her own hand. In all the great
tragedies, with the notable exception of _Othello_, when the forces of
the resolution, or falling action, are gathering towards the dénouement,
Shakespeare introduces a scene which appeals to an emotion different
from any of those excited elsewhere in the play. "As a rule this new
emotion is pathetic; and the pathos is not terrible or lacerating, but,
even if painful, is accompanied by the sense of beauty and by an outflow
of admiration or affection, which come with an inexpressible sweetness
after the tension of the crisis and the first counter-stroke. So it is
with the reconciliation of Brutus and Cassius, and the arrival of the
news of Portia's death."--Bradley. While the shadow of her tragic
passing overhangs the spirits of both, Brutus overhears the shrewd,
cautious counsel of Cassius and persuades him to assent to the fatal
policy of offering battle at Philippi. That night the ghost of Cæsar
appears to Brutus.
_Act V, Scene i._ The action now falls rapidly to the quick, decisive
movement of the dénouement. The antagonists are now face to face. Brutus
and Cassius have done what Antony and Octavius hoped that they would do.
The opposing generals hold a brief parley in which Brutus intimates that
he is willing to effect a reconciliation, but Antony rejects his
proposals and bluntly charges him and Cassius with the wilful murder of
Cæsar. Cassius reminds Brutus of his warning that Antony should have
fallen when Cæsar did. Antony, Octavius, and their army retire, and the
scene closes with the noble farewell without hope between Brutus and
Cassius.
_Act V, Scene ii._ The opposing armies meet on the field, and a final
flare-up of hope in the breast of Brutus is indicated by his spirited
order to Messala to charge. The scene implies that Cassius was defeated
by being left without support by Brutus.
V. DÉNOUEMENT, CATASTROPHE, OR CONCLUSION (THE KNOT UNTIED)
_Act V, Scene iii._ The charge ordered by Brutus has been successful,
and Octavius has been driven back, but Cassius is thus left unguarded,
and Antony's forces surround him. He takes refuge on a hill and sends
Titinius to see "whether yond troops are friend or enemy." Believing
Titinius to be slain, he begs Pindarus to stab him, and Cassius dies
"even with the sword that kill'd" Cæsar. With the same sword Titinius
then slays himself, and Brutus, when Messala bears the news to him,
exclaims in words that strike the keynote of the whole falling action
and dénouement:
O Julius Cæsar, thou art mighty yet!
Thy spirit walks abroad, and turns our swords
In our own proper entrails.
_Act V, Scene iv._ Like Hamlet, Brutus at the last is a man of supreme
action. He rallies his forces for a last attack. With hopeless failure
before him, he is at once a heroic figure and one of infinite pathos.
Young Cato falls. Lucilius is attacked; assuming the name of Brutus, he
is not killed but taken prisoner. Antony recognizes him and gives orders
that he be treated kindly.
_Act V, Scene v._ Brutus dies by his own sword, and his last words tell
the story of failure and defeat. Like a true Roman, he meets his doom
without a murmur of complaint. He had been true to his ideals. The
tragic dénouement comes as the inevitable consequence, not of wilful
sin, but of a noble mistake. In death he commands the veneration of both
Antony and Octavius, who pronounce over his body the great
interpretation of his character, and in their speeches the tragedy
closes as with a chant of victory for the hero of defeat.
VI. MANAGEMENT OF TIME AND PLACE
1. _Historic time._ Cæsar's triumph over the sons of Pompey was
celebrated in October, B.C. 45. Shakespeare makes this coincident with
"the feast of Lupercal" on February 15, B.C. 44. In the play Antony
delivers his funeral oration immediately after Cæsar's death;
historically, there was an interval of days. Octavius did not reach Rome
until upwards of two months after the assassination; in III, ii, 261,
Antony is told by his servant immediately after the funeral oration that
"Octavius is already come to Rome." In November, B.C. 43, the triumvirs
met to make up their bloody proscription, and in the autumn of the
following year were fought the two battles of Philippi, separated
historically by twenty days, but represented by Shakespeare as taking
place on the same day.
2. _Dramatic Time._ Historical happenings that extended over nearly
three years are represented in the stage action as the occurrences of
six days, distributed over the acts and scenes as follows:
Day 1.--I, i, ii.
Interval.
Day 2.--I, iii.
Day 3.--II, III.
Interval.
Day 4.--IV, i.
Interval.
Day 5.--IV, ii, iii.
Interval.
Day 6.--V.
This compression for the purposes of dramatic unity results in action
that is swift and throbbing with human and ethical interest.
3. _Place._ Up to the second scene of the fourth act Rome is the natural
place of action. The second and third scenes of the fourth act are at
Sardis in Asia Minor; the last act shifts to Philippi in Macedonia. The
only noteworthy deviation from historical accuracy is in making the
conference of the triumvirs take place at Rome and not at Bononia. See
note, p. 116. But there is peculiar dramatic effectiveness in placing
this fateful colloquy in the city that was the center of the political
unrest of the time.
VII. VERSIFICATION AND DICTION
BLANK VERSE
The characteristics of Shakespeare's blank verse--the rhymeless, iambic
five-stress (decasyllabic) verse, or iambic pentameter, introduced into
England by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, about 1540--and its proportion
to rhyme and to prose have been much used in recent years to determine
the chronological order of the plays and the development of the poet's
art. In blank verse as used by Shakespeare we have really an epitome of
the development of the measure in connection with the English drama. In
his earlier plays the blank verse is often similar to that of
_Gorboduc_, the first English tragedy. The tendency is to adhere to the
syllable-counting principle, to make the line the unit, the sentence and
phrase coinciding with the line (end-stopped verse), and to use five
perfect iambic feet to the line. In plays of the middle period, such as
_The Merchant of Venice_ and _As You Like It_, written between 1596 and
1600, the blank verse is more like that of Kyd and Marlowe, with less
monotonous regularity in the structure and an increasing tendency to
carry on the sense from one line to another without a syntactical or
rhetorical pause at the end of the line (run-on verse, _enjambement_).
Redundant syllables now abound and the melody is richer and fuller. In
Shakespeare's later plays the blank verse breaks away from all bondage
to formal line limits, and the organic continuity is found in a
succession of great metrical periods.
The verse of _Julius Cæsar_ is less monotonously regular than that of
the earlier plays; it is more flexible and varied, more musical and
sonorous, but it lacks the superb movement of the verse in _Othello_,
_The Winter's Tale_, and _The Tempest_. End-stopped, normally regular
iambic pentameter lines often occur (as, for instance, I, i, 37, 41, 44,
62, 76), but everywhere are variations and deviations from the norm, and
there is an unusual number of short lines and interjectional lines of
two or three stresses. See Abbott's _A Shakespearian Grammar_, §§ 511,
512.
RHYME
Apart from the use of rhyme in songs, lyrics, and portions of masques
(as in _The Tempest_, IV, i, 60-138), a progress from more to less rhyme
is a sure index to Shakespeare's development as a dramatist and a master
of expression. In the early _Love's Labour's Lost_ are more than one
thousand rhyming five-stress iambic lines; in _The Tempest_ are only
two; in _The Winter's Tale_ not one. _In Julius Cæsar_ are found only
thirty-four rhyming lines.
PROSE
If "of the soule the bodie forme doth take," it is small wonder that
attempts have been made to explain Shakespeare's distinctive use of
verse and prose. Of recent years there have been interesting discussions
of the question "whether we are justified in supposing that Shakespeare
was guided by any fixed principle in his employment of verse and prose,
or whether he merely employed them, as fancy suggested, for the sake of
variety and relief."[1] It is a significant fact that in many of
Shakespeare's earlier plays there is little or no prose, and that the
proportion of prose to blank verse increases with the decrease of rhyme.
In _Julius Cæsar_ three kinds of prose may be distinguished: (1) The
prose of homely dialogue, as in the talk of the common people in I, i,
and III, iii. (2) The prose of serious information as to the nature of a
situation, as in Casca's description of the offer of the crown to Cæsar.
This kind of prose reaches its highest development in Brutus's famous
speech, III, ii, with its dignified defense and laconic exposition of
his honesty of purpose. (3) The prose of formal documents, as in the
letter of Artemidorus, II, iii, 1-8.
[Footnote 1: Professor J. Churton Collins's _Shakespeare as a Prose
Writer_. See Delius's _Die Prosa in Shakespeares Dramen (Shakespeare
Jahrbuch_, V, 227-273); Janssen's _Die Prosa in Shakespeares Dramen_;
Professor Hiram Corson's _An Introduction to the Study of Shakespeare_,
pp. 83-98.]
VIII. THE CHARACTERS
JULIUS CÆSAR
The characterization of this drama in some of the parts is not a little
perplexing. Hardly one of the speeches put into Cæsar's mouth can be
regarded as historically characteristic; taken all together, they seem
little short of a caricature. As here represented, Cæsar appears little
better than a braggart; and when he speaks, it is in the style of a
glorious vapourer, full of lofty airs and mock thunder. 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. Certain critics have seized and
worked upon this, as proving Shakespeare's lack of classical knowledge,
or carelessness in the use of his authorities. It proves neither the one
nor the other.
It is true, Cæsar's ambition was gigantic, but none too much so for the
mind it dwelt in; for his character in all its features was gigantic.
And no man ever framed his ambition more in sympathy with the great
forces of nature, or built it upon a deeper foundation of political
wisdom and insight. Now this "last infirmity of noble minds" is the only
part of him that the play really sets before us; and even this we do not
see as it was, because it is here severed from the constitutional
peerage of his gifts and virtues; all those transcendent qualities which
placed him at the summit of Roman intellect and manhood being either
withheld from the scene or thrown so far into the background that the
proper effect of them is lost.
Yet we have ample proof that Shakespeare understood Cæsar thoroughly,
and that he regarded him as "the noblest man that ever lived in the tide
of times." For example, in _Hamlet_, he makes Horatio, who is one of his
calmest and most right-thinking characters, speak of him as "the
mightiest Julius." In _Antony and Cleopatra_, again, the heroine is made
to describe him as "broad-fronted Cæsar"; and in _King Richard the
Third_ the young Prince utters these lines:
That Julius Cæsar was a famous man:
With what his valour did enrich his wit,
His wit set down to make his valour live:
Death makes no conquest of this conqueror. [III, i, 84-87.]
In fact, we need not go beyond Shakespeare to gather that Julius Cæsar's
was the deepest, the most versatile, and the most multitudinous head
that ever figured in the political affairs of mankind.
Indeed, it is clear from this play itself that Shakespeare did not
proceed at all from ignorance or misconception of the man. For it is
remarkable that, though Cæsar 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 just reflection of him. Especially in the marvelous
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 the history, Cæsar's blood hastens and
cements the empire which the conspirators thought to prevent. They soon
find that in the popular sympathies, and even in their own dumb
remorses, he has "left behind powers that will work for him." 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. Nothing did so much to set the people in love
with royalty, both name and thing, as the reflection that their beloved
Cæsar, the greatest of their national heroes, the crown and consummation
of Roman genius and character, had been murdered for aspiring to it.
Thus their hereditary aversion to kingship was all subdued by the
remembrance of how and why their Cæsar fell; and they who, before, would
have plucked out his heart rather than he should wear a crown, would now
have plucked out their own, to set a crown upon his head. Such is the
natural result, when the intensities of admiration and compassion meet
together in the human breast.
From all which it may well be thought that Cæsar was too great for the
hero of a drama, since his greatness, if brought forward in full
measure, would leave no room for anything else, at least would preclude
any proper dramatic balance and equipoise. It was only as 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 after times, if they had not "struck the foremost
man of all this world"; in other words, the great sun of Rome had to be
shorn of his beams, else so ineffectual a fire as Brutus could nowise
catch the eye.
Be this as it may, there is no doubt that Shakespeare knew the whole
height and compass of Cæsar's vast and varied capacity. It may be
regretted 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.
It is possible that the policy of the drama may have been to represent
Cæsar not as he was indeed, but as he must have appeared to the
conspirators; to make us see him as they saw him, in order that they too
might have fair and equal judgment at our hands. For Cæsar was literally
too great to be seen by them, save as children often see bugbears by
moonlight, when their inexperienced eyes are mocked with air. And
Shakespeare may well have judged that the best way to set us right
towards them was by identifying us more or less with them in mental
position, and making us share somewhat in their delusion. For there is
scarce anything wherein we are so apt to err as in reference to the
characters of men, when time has settled and cleared up the questions in
which they lost their way: we blame them for not having seen as we see;
while in truth the things that are so bathed in light to us were full of
darkness to them, and we should have understood them better, had we been
in the dark along with them.
Cæsar, indeed, was not bewildered by the political questions of his
time; but all the rest were, and therefore he seemed so to them; and
while their own heads were swimming they naturally ascribed his seeming
bewilderment to a dangerous intoxication. As for his marvelous career of
success, they attributed this mainly to his good luck, such being the
common refuge of inferior minds when they would escape the sense of
their inferiority. Hence, as generally happens with the highest order of
men, his greatness had to wait the approval of later events. He indeed,
far beyond any other man of his age, "looked into the seeds of time";
but this was not, and could not be known, till time had developed those
seeds into their fruits. Why then may not Shakespeare's idea have been
so to order things that the full strength of the man should not appear
in the play, as it did not in fact, till after his fall? This view will
both explain and justify the strange disguise--a sort of falsetto
greatness--under which Cæsar exhibits himself.
Now the seeming contradiction between Cæsar as known and Cæsar as
rendered by Shakespeare is what, more than anything else, perplexes.
But a very refined, subtile, and peculiar irony pervades this, more than
any other of Shakespeare'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 goeth before a fall." This irony crops out in
many places. Thus we have Cæsar most blown with arrogance 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 ignorant of what he's most assured"; as when he says that
"Antony can do no more than Cæsar's arm when Cæsar'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. But, indeed, this sort of honest guile runs all
through the piece as a perfusive and permeating efficacy. A still better
instance of it occurs just after the murder, when the chiefs of the
conspiracy are exulting in the transcendent virtue and beneficence of
their deed, and in its future stage celebrity; and Cassius says,--
So often shall the knot of us be call'd
The men that gave their country liberty. [III, i, 118-119.]
and again, a little later, when Brutus says of Antony, "I know that we
shall have him well to friend." Not indeed that the men themselves
thought any irony in those speeches: it was natural, no doubt, that they
should utter such things in all seriousness; but what they say is
interpreted into irony by the subsequent events. And when such a
shallow idealist as Brutus is made to overtop and outshine the greatest
practical genius the world ever saw, what is it but a refined and
subtile irony at work on a much larger scale, and diffusing itself,
secretly, it may be, but not the less vitally, into the texture? It was
not the frog that thought irony, when he tried to make himself as big as
the ox; but there was a pretty decided spice of irony in the mind that
conceived the fable.
It is to be noted further that Brutus uniformly speaks of Cæsar with
respect, almost indeed with admiration. It is his ambition, not his
greatness, that Brutus resents; the thought that his own consequence is
impaired by Cæsar's elevation having no influence with him. With
Cassius, on the contrary, impatience of his superiority is the ruling
motive: he is all the while thinking of the disparagement he suffers by
Cæsar's exaltation.
This man
Is now become a god, and Cassius is
A wretched creature, and must bend his body
If Cæsar carelessly but nod on him. [I, ii, 115-118.]
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs. [I, ii, 135-137.]
Thus he overflows with mocking comparisons, and finds his pastime in
flouting at Cæsar as having managed by a sham heroism to hoodwink the
world.
And yet Shakespeare makes Cæsar characterize himself very much as
Cassius, in his splenetic temper, describes him. Cæsar gods it in his
talk, as if on purpose to approve the style in which Cassius mockingly
gods him. This, taken by itself, would look as if the dramatist sided
with Cassius; yet one can hardly help feeling that he sympathized rather
in Antony's great oration. And the sequel, as we have seen, justifies
Antony's opinion of Cæsar. The subsequent course of things has the
effect of inverting the mockery of Cassius against himself.
The final issue of the conspiracy, as represented by Shakespeare, is a
pretty conclusive argument of the blunder, not to say the crime, of its
authors. Cæsar, dead, tears them and their cause all to pieces. In
effect, they did but stab him into a mightier life; so that Brutus might
well say, as indeed he does at last,--
O Julius Cæsar, thou art mighty yet!
Thy spirit walks abroad, and turns our swords
In our own proper entrails. [V, iii, 94-96.]
The Nemesis which asserts itself so sternly in the latter part of the
play may be regarded as a reflex of irony on some of the earlier scenes.
This view infers the disguise of Cæsar to be an instance of the profound
guile with which Shakespeare sometimes plays upon his characters,
humoring their bent, and then leaving them to the discipline of events.
BRUTUS
Coleridge has a shrewd doubt as to what sort of a character Shakespeare
meant his Brutus to be. For, in his thinking aloud just after the
breaking of the conspiracy to him, Brutus avowedly grounds his purpose,
not on anything Cæsar has done, nor on what he is, but simply on what he
_may become_ when crowned. He "knows no personal cause to spurn at him";
nor has he "known when his affections sway'd more than his reason"; but
"he would be crown'd: how that might change his nature, there's the
question"; and,
Since the quarrel
Will bear no colour for the thing he is,
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. [II, i, 28-34.]
So then Brutus heads a plot to assassinate the man who, besides being
clothed with the sanctions of law as the highest representative of the
state, has been his personal friend and benefactor; all this, too, not
on any ground of fact, but on an assumed probability that the crown will
prove a sacrament of evil, and transform him into quite another man. A
strange piece of casuistry indeed! but nowise unsuited to the spirit of
a man who was to commit the gravest of crimes, purely from a misplaced
virtue.
And yet the character of Brutus is 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 with 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 ennoble 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
character has been chiefly formed, in a world of poetical and
philosophic ideals. He is an enthusiastic student of books. Plato is his
favorite teacher; and he has studiously framed his life and tuned his
thoughts to the grand and pure conceptions won from that all but divine
source: Plato's genius walks with him in the Senate, sits with him at
the fireside, goes with him to the wars, and still hovers about his
tent.
His great fault, then, lies in supposing it his duty to be meddling with
things that he does not understand. Conscious of high thoughts and just
desires, but with no gift of practical insight, he is ill fitted to
"grind among the iron facts of life." In truth, he does not really see
where he is; the actual circumstances and tendencies amidst which he
lives are as a book written in a language he cannot read. The characters
of those who act with him are too far below the region of his principles
and habitual thinkings for him to take the true cast of them. Himself
incapable of such motives as govern them, he just projects and suspends
his ideals in them, and then misreckons upon them as realizing the men
of his own brain. So also he clings to the idea of the great and free
republic of his fathers, the old Rome that has ever stood to his
feelings touched with the consecrations of time and glorified with the
high virtues that have grown up under her cherishing. But, in the long
reign of tearing faction and civil butchery, that which he worships has
been substantially changed, the reality lost. Cæsar, already clothed
with the title and the power of Imperator for life, would change the
form so as to agree with the substance, the name so as to fit the thing.
But Brutus is so filled with the idea of that which has thus passed
away never to return that he thinks to save or recover the whole by
preventing such formal and nominal change.
And so his whole course is that of one acting on his own ideas, not on
the facts that are before and around him. Indeed, he does not _see_
them; he merely dreams his own meaning into them. He is swift to do that
by which he thinks his country _ought to be benefited_. As the killing
of Cæsar stands in his purpose, he and his associates are to be
"sacrificers, not butchers." But that the deed may have the effect he
hopes for, his countrymen generally must regard it in the same light as
he does. That they will do this is the very thing which he has _in fact_
no reason to conclude; notwithstanding, because it is so _in his idea_,
therefore he trusts that the conspirators will "be called purgers, not
murderers." Meanwhile, the plain truth is, that if his countrymen had
been capable of regarding the deed as a sacrifice, they would not have
made nor permitted any occasion for it. It is certain that, unless so
construed, the act must prove fruitful of evil; all Rome is full of
things proving that it cannot be so construed; but this is what Brutus
has no eye to see.
So too, in his oration "to show the _reason_ of our Cæsar's death," he
speaks, in calm and dispassionate manner, just those things which he
thinks ought to set the people right and himself right in their eyes,
forgetting all the while that the deed cannot fail to make the people
mad, and that popular madness is not a thing to be reasoned with. And
for the same cause he insists on sparing Antony, and on permitting him
to speak in Cæsar's funeral. To do otherwise would be unjust, and so
would overthrow the whole nature of the enterprise as it lives in his
mind. And because in his idea it ought so to be, he trusts that Antony
will make Cæsar's death the occasion of strengthening those who killed
him, not perceiving the strong likelihood, which soon passes into a
fact, that in cutting off Cæsar they have taken away the only check on
Antony's ambition. He ought to have foreseen that Antony, instead of
being drawn to their side, would rather make love to Cæsar's place at
their expense.
Thus the course of Brutus serves no end but to set on foot another civil
war, which naturally hastens and assures the very thing he sought to
prevent. He confides in the goodness of his cause, not considering that
the better the cause, the worse its chance with bad men. He thinks it
safe to trust others because he knows they can safely trust him; the
singleness of his own eye causing him to believe that others will see as
he sees, the purity of his own heart, that others will feel as he feels.
Here then we have a strong instance of a very good man doing a very bad
thing; and, withal, of a wise man acting most unwisely because his
wisdom knew not its place; a right noble, just, heroic spirit bearing
directly athwart the virtues he worships. On the whole, it is not
wonderful that Brutus should have exclaimed, as he is said to have done,
that he had worshiped virtue and found her at last but a shade. So
worshiped, she may well prove a shade indeed! Admiration of the man's
character, reprobation of his proceedings,--which of these is the
stronger with us? And there is much the same irony in the representation
of Brutus as in that of Cæsar; only the order of it is here reversed. As
if one should say, "O yes, yes! in the practical affairs of mankind your
charming wisdom of the closet will doubtless put to shame the workings
of mere practical insight and sagacity."
Shakespeare's exactness in the minutest details of character is well
shown in the speech already referred to; which is the utterance of a man
philosophizing most unphilosophically; as if the Academy should betake
itself to the stump, and this too without any sense of the incongruity.
Plutarch has a short passage which served as a hint, not indeed for the
matter, but for the style of that speech. "They do note," says he, "in
some of his epistles that he counterfeited that brief compendious manner
of speech of the Lacedæmonians. As, when the war was begun, he wrote
unto the Pergamenians in this sort: 'I understand you have given
Dolabella money: if you have done it willingly, you confess you have
offended me; if against your wills, show it then by giving me
willingly.'... These were Brutus' manner of letters, which were honoured
for their briefness." The speech in question is far enough indeed from
being a model of style either for oratory or anything else, but it is
finely characteristic; while its studied primness and epigrammatic
finish contrast most unfavorably with the frank-hearted yet artful
eloquence of Antony.
And what a rare significance attaches to the brief scene of Brutus and
his drowsy boy Lucius in camp a little before the catastrophe! There, in
the deep of the night, long after all the rest have lost themselves in
sleep, and when the anxieties of the issue are crowding upon him,--there
we have the earnest, thoughtful Brutus hungering intensely for the
repasts of treasured thought.
Look, Lucius, here's the book I sought for so;
I put it in the pocket of my gown. [IV, iii, 252, 253.]
What the man is, and where he ought to be, is all signified in these two
lines. And do we not taste a dash of benignant irony in the implied
repugnance between the spirit of the man and the stuff of his present
undertaking? The idea of a bookworm riding the whirlwind of war! The
thing is most like Brutus; but how out of his element, how unsphered
from his right place, it shows him! There is a touch of drollery in the
contrast, which the richest steeping of poetry does not disguise. And
the irony is all the more delectable for being so remote and
unpronounced; like one of those choice arrangements in the background of
a painting, which, without attracting conscious notice, give a zest and
relish to what stands in front. The scene, whether for charm of
sentiment or felicity of conception, is one of the finest in
Shakespeare.
BRUTUS AND CASSIUS
The characters of Brutus and Cassius are nicely discriminated, scarce a
word falling from either but what smacks of the man. Cassius is much the
better conspirator, but much the worse man; and the better in that
because the worse in this. For Brutus engages in the conspiracy on
grounds of abstract and ideal justice; while Cassius holds it both a
wrong and a blunder to go about such a thing without making success his
first care. This, accordingly, is what he works for, being reckless of
all other considerations in his choice and use of means. Withal he is
more impulsive and quick than Brutus, because less under the
self-discipline of moral principle. His motives, too, are of a much more
mixed and various quality, because his habits of thinking and acting
have grown by the measures of experience; he studies to understand men
as they are; Brutus, as he thinks they ought to be. Hence, 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 surely rightly, that
the end should give law to the means; and that "the honorable men whose
daggers have stabb'd Cæsar" 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 rectitude and purity of his principles.
Brutus has no thoughts or aims that he is afraid or ashamed to avow;
Cassius has many which he would fain hide even from himself. And he
catches a sort of inspiration and is raised above himself by contact
with Brutus. And Cassius, moreover, acts very much from personal hatred
of Cæsar, as remembering how, not long before, he and Brutus had stood
for the chief prætorship of the city, and Brutus through Cæsar's favor
had got the election. And so Shakespeare read in Plutarch that "Cassius,
being a choleric man, and hating Cæsar privately more than he did the
tyranny openly, incensed Brutus against him." The effect of this is
finely worked out by the dramatist in the man's affected scorn of Cæsar,
and in the scoffing humor in which he loves to speak of him. For such is
the natural language of a masked revenge.
The tone of Cassius is further indicated, and with exquisite art, in his
soliloquy where, after tempering Brutus to his purpose, and finding how
his "honorable metal may be wrought," he gently slurs him for being
practicable to flatteries, and then proceeds to ruminate the scheme for
working upon his vanity, and thereby drawing him into the conspiracy;
thus spilling the significant fact, that his own honor does not stick
to practice the arts by which he thinks it is a shame to be seduced.
It is a noteworthy point also that Cassius is too practical and too much
of a politician to see any ghosts. Acting on far lower principles than
his leader, and such as that leader would spurn as both wicked and base,
he therefore does no violence to his heart in screwing it to the work he
takes in hand; his heart is even more at home in the work than his head;
whereas Brutus, from the wrenching his heart has suffered, keeps
reverting to the moral complexion of his first step. The remembrance of
this is a thorn in his side; while Cassius has no sensibilities of
nature for such compunctions to stick upon. Brutus is never thoroughly
himself after the assassination; that his heart is ill at ease is shown
in a certain dogged tenacity of honor and overstraining of rectitude, as
if he were struggling to make atonement with his conscience. The stab he
gave Cæsar planted in his own upright and gentle nature a germ of
remorse, which, gathering strength from every subsequent adversity, came
to embody itself in imaginary sights and sounds; the spirit of justice,
made an ill angel to him by his own sense of wrong, hovering in the
background of his after life, and haunting his solitary moments in the
shape of Cæsar's ghost. And so it is well done, that he is made to see
the "monstrous apparition" just after his heart has been pierced through
with many sorrows at hearing of Portia's shocking death.
PORTIA
The delineation of Portia is completed in a few brief masterly strokes.
Once seen, the portrait ever after lives an old and dear acquaintance of
the reader's inner man. Portia has strength enough to do and suffer for
others, but very little for herself. As the daughter of Cato and the
wife of Brutus, she has set in her eye a pattern of how she ought to
think and act, being "so father'd and so husbanded"; but still her head
floats merged over the ears in her heart; and it is only when affection
speaks that her spirit is hushed into the listening which she would fain
yield only to the speech of reason. She has a clear idea of the stoical
calmness and fortitude which appears so noble and so graceful in her
Brutus; it all lies faithfully reproduced in her mind; she knows well
how to honor and admire it; yet she cannot work it into the texture of
her character; she can talk it like a book, but she tries in vain to
live it.
Plutarch gives one most touching incident respecting her which
Shakespeare did not use, though he transfused the sense of it into his
work. It occurred some time after Cæsar's death, and when the civil war
was growing to a head: "Brutus, seeing the state of Rome would be
utterly overthrown, went ... unto the city of Elea standing by the sea.
There Portia, being ready to depart from her husband Brutus and to
return to Rome, did what she could to dissemble the grief and sorrow she
felt at her heart. But a certain painted table (picture) bewrayed her in
the end.... The device was taken out of the Greek stories, how
Andromache accompanied her husband Hector when he went out of the city
of Troy to go to the wars, and how Hector delivered her his little son,
and how her eyes were never off him. Portia, seeing this picture, and
likening herself to be in the same case, she fell a-weeping; and coming
thither oftentimes in a day to see it, she wept still." The force of
this incident is reproduced in the Portia of the play; we have its full
effect in the matter about her self-inflicted wound as compared with her
subsequent demeanor.
Portia gives herself that gash without flinching, and bears it without a
murmur, as an exercise and proof of fortitude; and she translates her
pains into smiles, all to comfort and support her husband. So long as
this purpose lends her strength, she is fully equal to her thought,
because here her heart keeps touch perfectly with her head. But, this
motive gone, the weakness, if it be not rather the strength, of her
woman's nature rushes full upon her; her feelings rise into an
uncontrollable flutter, and run out at every joint and motion of her
body; and nothing can arrest the inward mutiny till affection again
whispers her into composure, lest she say something that may hurt or
endanger her Brutus.
ANTONY
Shakespeare's completed characterization of Antony is in _Antony and
Cleopatra_. In the later play Antony is delineated with his native
aptitudes for vice warmed into full development by the great Egyptian
sorceress. In _Julius Cæsar_ Shakespeare emphasizes as one of Antony's
characteristic traits his unreserved adulation of Cæsar, shown in
reckless purveying to his dangerous weakness,--the desire to be called a
king. Already Cæsar had more than kingly power, and it was the obvious
part of a friend to warn him against this ambition. Here and there are
apt indications of his proneness to those vicious levities and debasing
luxuries which afterwards ripened into such a gigantic profligacy. He
has not yet attained to that rank and full-blown combination of cruelty,
perfidy, and voluptuousness, which the world associates with his name,
but he is plainly on the way to it. His profound and wily
dissimulation, while knitting up the hollow truce with the assassins on
the very spot where "great Cæsar fell," is managed with admirable skill;
his deep spasms of grief being worked out in just the right way to
quench their suspicions, and make them run into the toils, when he calls
on them to render him their bloody hands. Nor have they any right to
complain, for he is but paying them in their own coin; and we think none
the worse of him that he fairly outdoes them at their own practice.
But Antony's worst parts as here delivered are his exultant treachery in
proposing to use his colleague Lepidus as at once the pack-horse and the
scape-goat of the Triumvirate, and his remorseless savagery in arranging
for the slaughter of all that was most illustrious in Rome, bartering
away his own uncle, to glut his revenge with the blood of Cicero; though
even here his revenge was less hideous than the cold-blooded policy of
young Octavius. Yet Antony has in the play, as he had in fact, some
right noble streaks in him; for his character was a very mixed one; and
there was to the last a fierce war of good and evil within him.
Especially he had an eye to see, a heart to feel, and a soul to honor
the superb structure of manhood which Rome possessed in Julius Cæsar,
who stood to him, indeed, as a kind of superior nature, to raise him
above himself. He "fear'd Cæsar, honour'd him, and lov'd him"; and with
the murdered Cæsar for his theme, he was for once inspired and kindled
to a rapture of the truest, noblest, most overwhelming eloquence.
Noteworthy also is the grateful remembrance at last of his obligations
to Brutus for having saved him from the daggers of the conspirators.
THE PEOPLE
That many-headed, but withal big-souled creature, the multitude, is
charmingly characterized in _Julius Cæsar_. The common people, it is
true, are rather easily swayed hither and thither by the contagion of
sympathy and of persuasive speech; yet their feelings are in the main
right, and even their judgment in the long run is better than that of
the pampered Roman aristocracy, inasmuch as it proceeds more from the
instincts of manhood. Shakespeare evidently loved to play with the
natural, unsophisticated, though somewhat childish heart of the people;
but his playing is always genial and human-hearted, with a certain
angelic humor in it that seldom fails to warm us towards the subject. On
the whole, he understood the people well, and they have well repaid him
in understanding him better than the critics have often done. The
cobbler's droll humor, at the opening of this play, followed as it is by
a strain of the loftiest poetry, is aptly noted by Campbell as showing
that the dramatist, "even in dealing with classical subjects, laughed at
the classic fear of putting the ludicrous and sublime into
juxtaposition."
IX. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS
As a whole, _Julius Cæsar_ is inferior to _Coriolanus_, but it abounds
in scenes and passages fraught, with the highest virtue of Shakespeare's
genius. Among these may be specially mentioned the second scene of the
first act, where Cassius sows the seed of the conspiracy in Brutus's
mind, warmed with such a wrappage of instigation as to assure its
effective germination; also the first scene of the second act,
unfolding the birth of the conspiracy, and winding up with the
interview, so charged with domestic glory, of Brutus and Portia. The
oration of Antony in Cæsar'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 to the delectation of the
highest, and running its pathos into the very quick of them that hear
it, it tells with terrible effect on the people; and when it is done we
feel that Cæsar's bleeding wounds 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. See note, p. 123. But there is nothing in
the play that is more divinely touched than the brief scene, already
noticed, of Brutus and his boy Lucius--so gentle, so dutiful, so loving,
so thoughtful and careful for his master, and yet himself no more
conscious of his virtue than a flower of its fragrance. There is no more
exquisite passage in all Shakespeare than that which tells of the boy's
falling asleep in the midst of his song and exclaiming on being aroused,
"The strings, my lord, are false."
AUTHORITIES
(With the more important abbreviations used in the notes)
F1 = First Folio, 1623.
F2 = Second Folio, 1632.
F3 = Third Folio, 1664.
F4 = Fourth Folio, 1685.
Ff = all the seventeenth century Folios.
Rowe = Rowe's editions, 1709, 1714.
Pope = Pope's editions, 1723, 1728.
Theobald = Theobald's editions, 1733, 1740.
Johnson = Johnson's edition, 1765.
Capell = Capell's edition, 1768.
Malone = Malone's edition, 1790.
Steevens = Steevens's edition, 1793.
Globe = Globe edition (Clark and Wright), 1864.
Clar = Clarendon Press edition (W. A. Wright), 1869.
Dyce = Dyce's (third) edition, 1875.
Delius = Delius's (fifth) edition, 1882.
Camb = Cambridge (third) edition (W. A. Wright), 1891.
Abbott = E. A. Abbott's _A Shakespearian Grammar_.
Schmidt = Schmidt's _Shakespeare Lexicon_.
Skeat = Skeat's _An Etymological Dictionary_.
Murray = _A New English Dictionary_ (_The Oxford Dictionary_).
Century = _The Century Dictionary_.
Plutarch = North's _Plutarch_, 1579.
CHRONOLOGICAL CHART
Except in the case of Shakespeare's plays (see note) the literature
dates refer to first publication
-----+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| SHAKESPEARE |
YEAR |--------------------+-----------------------------------------------|
| BIOGRAPHY: POEMS | PLAYS |
-----+--------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
1564 |Birth. Baptism, | |
| April 26, | |
| Stratford-on-Avon | |
| | |
-----+--------------------|-----------------------------------------------+
1565 |Father became | |
| alderman | |
| | |
-----+--------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
1566 |Brother Gilbert | |
| born | |
-----+--------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
1568 |Father, as bailiff | |
|of Stratford, | NOTE: The plays in the columns |
|entertained Queen's | below are arranged in the |
|and Earl of | probable, though purely |
|Worcester's actors | conjectural, order of |
| | composition. Dates appended |
-----+--------------------+ to plays are those of first +
1572 | | publication. Where no |
| | date is given, the play was |
-----+--------------------+ first published in the First +
1573 | | Folio (1623). M signifies |
| | that the play was mentioned |
-----+--------------------+ by Meres in the +
1574 |Brother Richard | Palladis Tamia (1598) |
| born | |
| | |
-----+--------------------+ +
1575 | | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
-----+--------------------+ +
1576 | | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
-----+--------------------+ +
1577 |Father in financial | |
|difficulties | |
| | |
-----+--------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
| BRITISH AND | HISTORY |
YEAR | FOREIGN | AND |
| LITERATURE | BIOGRAPHY |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1564 |Quart livre de |Michelangelo died. |
| Pantagruel | Calvin died. |
| | Marlowe born. |
| | Galileo born. |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1565 |Sackville and |Philip II of Spain |
| Norton's Gorboduc | gave his name to |
| printed | Philippine Islands|
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1566 |Udall's Roister |Murder of Rizzio |
|Doister printed? | |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1568 |The Bishops Bible. |Mary of Scots a |
| La Taille's Saülle | prisoner in |
| Furieux. R. | England. Ascham |
| Grafton's | died. Coverdale |
| Chronicle | died. Netherlands |
| | War of Liberation |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1572 |Camoens' Os Lusiadas |Knox died. Massacre|
| (The Lusiads) | of St. Bartholomew|
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1573 |Tasso's Aminta |Ben Jonson born? |
| | Donne born |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1574 |Mirror for |Earl of Leicester's|
| Magistrates (third | players licensed |
| edition) | |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1575 |Gammer Gurton's |Queen Elizabeth at |
| Needle. Golding's | Kenilworth. |
| Ovid (complete) | Palissy lectured |
| | on Natural History|
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1576 |The Paradise of |"The Theatre" |
| Dainty Devices. | opened in Finsbury|
| Gascoigne's Steel | Fields, London, |
| Glass | followed by "The |
| | Curtain." Hans |
| | Sachs died |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1577 |Holinshed's |Drake sailed to |
| Chronicle | circumnavigate |
| | globe |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
-----+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| SHAKESPEARE |
YEAR |--------------------+-----------------------------------------------|
| BIOGRAPHY: POEMS | PLAYS |
-----+--------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
1579 |Sister Ann died | |
| (aged eight) | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
-----+--------------------+ +
1580 |Brother Edmund born | |
| | |
| | |
-----+--------------------+ +
1581 | | |
| | |
-----+--------------------+ +
1582 |Married Anne | |
| Hathaway | |
-----+--------------------+ +
1583 |Daughter Susanna | |
| born | |
-----+--------------------+ +
1584 | | |
| | |
| | |
-----+--------------------+ +
1585 |Twin children | |
| (Hamnet, Judith) | |
| born | |
-----+--------------------+ +
1586 |Probably went to | |
|London | |
-----+--------------------+ +
1587 | | |
| | |
| | |
-----+--------------------+ +
1588 | | |
| | |
-----+--------------------+ +
1589 | | |
| | |
| | |
| | COMEDIES | HISTORIES | TRAGEDIES |
-----+--------------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
1590 | |Love's Labour's| | |
| | Lost | | |
| | (M, 1598) | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
-----+--------------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
1591 | |Comedy of |1 Henry VI | |
| | Errors (M) |2 Henry VI | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
-----+--------------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
| BRITISH AND | HISTORY |
YEAR | FOREIGN | AND |
| LITERATURE | BIOGRAPHY |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1579 |Gosson's School of |Union of Utrecht. |
| Abuse. North's | Tasso put in |
| Plutarch. Lyly's | confinement at |
| Euphues (pt. 1). | Ferrara |
| Spenser's Shepherd's| |
| Calendar | |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1580 |Montaigne's Essais |Brown founded |
| (first edition) | Separatists. |
| | Camoens died |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1581 |Tasso's Gerusalemme |Dutch Declaration |
| Liberata | of Independence |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1582 |The Rheims New |Accademia della |
| Testament | Crusca founded |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1583 |Garnier's Les Juives |Sir Humphrey |
| | Gilbert drowned |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1584 |Lyly's Campaspe. |William the Silent |
| Peele's Arraignment | assassinated. Ivan|
| of Paris | the Terrible died |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1585 |Guarini's Pastor Fido|Ronsard died |
| (1590) | |
| | |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1586 |Camden's Britannia |Sir Philip Sidney |
| | killed |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1587 |Hakluyt's Four |Execution of Mary |
| Voyages. Faustbuch | of Scots |
| (Spiess, Frankfort) | |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1588 |Martin Marprelate: |Defeat of Spanish |
| The Epistle | Armada |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1589 |Puttenham's Art of |Henry of Navarre, |
| English Poesie | King of France. |
| | Palissy died in |
| | Bastille |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1590 |Marlowe's Tamburlaine|Battle of Ivry |
| Spenser's Faerie | |
| Queene, I-III. | |
| Lodge's Rosalynde. | |
| Sidney's Arcadia | |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1591 |Sidney's Astrophel |Herrick born |
| and Stella. | |
| Harington's tr. of | |
| Orlando Furioso | |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
-----+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| SHAKESPEARE |
YEAR |--------------------+-----------------------------------------------|
|BIOGRAPHY: POEMS | PLAYS (see note above) |
-----+--------------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
1592 |Greene's attack in | Two Gentlemen | Richard III | Romeo and |
|Groatsworth of Wit | of Verona (M) | (M, 1597). | Juliet (M, |
| | | 3 Henry VI | 1597) |
| | | | |
| | | | |
-----+--------------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
1593 |Venus and Adonis | |King John (M). |Titus |
| (seven editions, | |Richard II (M, | Andronicus |
| 1594-1616) | |1597) | (M, 1594) |
-----+--------------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
1594 |Lucrece (five |A Midsummer | | |
| editions, | Night's Dream | | |
| 1594-1616) | (M, 1600) | | |
-----+--------------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
1595 |Valuable |All's Well | | |
| contemporary | that Ends | | |
| references to | Well. Taming | | |
| Shakespeare | of the Shrew | | |
| | | | |
-----+--------------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
1596 |Son Hamnet died. | |1 Henry IV (M, | |
| Family applied for | | 1598). 2 Henry| |
| coat-of-arms | | IV (1600) | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
-----+--------------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
1597 |Purchased New Place,|Merry Wives of | | |
| Stratford | Windsor. | | |
| | Merchant of | | |
| | Venice | | |
| | (M, 1600) | | |
-----+--------------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
1598 |Shakespeare acted |Much Ado About |Henry V (1600) | |
| in Jonson's Every |Nothing (1600) | | |
| Man in His Humour | | | |
| | | | |
-----+--------------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
1599 |Part proprietor of |As You Like It | | |
| Globe Theatre. | | | |
| Coat-of-arms | | | |
| granted. The | | | |
| Passionate Pilgrim | | | |
-----+--------------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
1600 |Won a London |Twelfth Night | | |
| lawsuit | | | |
-----+--------------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
-----+---------------------+--------------------+
| BRITISH AND | HISTORY |
YEAR | FOREIGN | AND |
| LITERATURE | BIOGRAPHY |
-----+---------------------+--------------------+
1592 |Daniel's Delia. |Greene died. |
| Lyly's Gallathea | Montaigne died. |
| (Galatea) | London theatres |
| | closed through |
| | plague |
-----+---------------------+--------------------+
1593 |Peele's Edward I. |Marlowe died. |
| Barnes's Sonnets | Herbert born. |
| | |
-----+---------------------+--------------------+
1594 |Rinuccini's Dafne. |Palestrina |
|Satire Ménipée | ("Princeps |
| | Musicæ") died |
-----+---------------------+--------------------+
1595 |Peele's Old Wives' |Tasso died. Sir |
| Tale. Spenser's | Walter Raleigh's |
| Epithalamion | expedition to |
| | Guiana. Sir J. |
| | Hawkins died |
-----+---------------------+--------------------+
1596 |Drayton's |Burbage built |
| Mortimeriados. | Blackfriar's |
| Faerie Queene, | Theatre. Descartes |
| Books IV-VI | born. Sir F. Drake |
| | died |
-----+---------------------+--------------------+
1597 |Bacon's Essays |The Tyrone |
| (first edition). | rebellion |
| Hall's | |
| Virgidemiarum | |
| | |
-----+---------------------+--------------------+
1598 |Mere's Palladis |Peele died. Edict |
| Tamia. Chapman's | of Nantes |
| Homer (pt. 1). Lope | |
| de Vega's Arcadia | |
-----+---------------------+--------------------+
1599 |Aleman's Guzman de |Spenser died. Globe |
| Alfarache. Peele's | Theatre built. |
| David and Bethsabe | Oliver Cromwell |
| | born |
| | |
-----+---------------------+--------------------+
1600 |England's Helicon |Calderon born. |
| | Bruno died |
-----+---------------------+--------------------+
-----+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| SHAKESPEARE |
YEAR |--------------------+-----------------------------------------------|
|BIOGRAPHY: POEMS | PLAYS (see note above) |
-----+--------------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
1601 |Father died. The | | |Julius Cæsar |
|Phoenix and Turtle | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
-----+--------------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
1602 |Purchased more | | |Hamlet (1603) |
| Stratford real | | | |
| estate | | | |
-----+--------------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
1603 |His company acted |Troilus and | | |
| before the Queen | Cressida | | |
| | | | |
-----+--------------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
1604 |Sued Rogers at |Measure for | |Othello |
| Stratford | Measure | | |
-----+--------------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
1605 |Godfather to | | |Macbeth |
| William D'Avenant | | | |
| | | | |
-----+--------------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
1606 |King Lear given | | |King Lear |
| before Court | | | (1608) |
-----+--------------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
1607 |Daughter Susanna | | |Timon of |
| married Dr. Hall | | | Athens |
-----+--------------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
1608 |Birth of |Pericles (1609)| |Antony and |
| granddaughter | | | Cleopatra |
| Elizabeth Hall. | | | |
| Death of mother | | | |
| (Mary Arden) | | | |
-----+--------------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
1609 |Sonnets. A Lover's | | |Coriolanus |
| Complaint | | | |
| | | | |
-----+--------------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
1610 |Purchased more real |Cymbeline | | |
| estate | | | |
-----+--------------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
1611 |Subscribed for |Winter's Tale | | |
| better highways |The Tempest | | |
| | | | |
-----+--------------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
1613 |Invested in London | |Henry VIII | |
| house property. | | | |
| Brother Richard | | | |
| died | | | |
-----+--------------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
1616 |Made his will. | | | |
| Daughter Judith | | | |
| married Thomas | | | |
| Quiney. Died April | | | |
| 23 (May 3, New | | | |
| Style) | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
-----+--------------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
| BRITISH AND | HISTORY |
YEAR | FOREIGN | AND |
| LITERATURE | BIOGRAPHY |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1601 |Jonson's Poetaster |The Essex plot. |
| | Rivalry between |
| | London adult and |
| | boy actors |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1602 |Dekker's Satiromastix|Bodleian Library |
| | founded |
| | |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1603 |Jonson's Sejanus |Queen Elizabeth |
| | died. Millenary |
| | Petition |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1604 |Marlowe's Faustus |Hampton Court |
| (1588-1589) | Conference |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1605 |Don Quixote (pt. 1) |Gunpowder plot. |
| | Sir Thomas Browne |
| | born |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1606 |Chapman's Monsieur |Lyly died. |
| D'Olive | Corneille born |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1607 |Dekker and Webster's |Settlement of |
| Westward Ho! | Jamestown |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1608 |Captain John Smith's |Milton born. |
| A True Relation. | Quebec founded |
| Middleton's A Mad | |
| World | |
| | |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1609 |The Douai Old |Separatists |
|Testament | (Pilgrims) in |
| | Leyden |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1610 |Strachey's Wracke |Henry IV (Navarre) |
| and Redemption | assassinated |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1611 |King James Bible |Gustavus Adolphus, |
| (A.V.). Bellarmine's| King of Sweden |
| Puissance du Pape | |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1613 |Drayton's Polyolbion |Globe Theatre |
| | burned |
| | |
| | |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
1616 |Captain John Smith's |Cervantes died. |
| New England. Folio | Beaumont died. |
| edition of Jonson's | Baffin explores |
| Poems. D'Aubigné's | Baffin's Bay. |
| Les Tragiques | Harvey lectured |
| (1577) | on the circulation|
| | of the blood |
| | |
-----+---------------------+-------------------+
DISTRIBUTION OF CHARACTERS
In this analysis are shown the acts and scenes in which the characters
(see Dramatis Personæ, page 2) appear, with the number of
speeches and lines given to each.
NOTE. Parts of lines are counted as whole lines.
==============+=========+==========+========+
| | NO. OF | NO. OF |
| | SPEECHES | LINES |
--------------+---------+----------+--------+
CÆSAR | I, ii | 14 | 39 |
| II, ii | 16 | 72 |
| III, i | 10 | 39 |
| | === | === |
| | 40 | 150 |
| | | |
OCTAVIUS | IV, i | 6 | 12 |
| V, i | 9 | 25 |
| V, v | 4 | 10 |
| | === | === |
| | 19 | 47 |
| | | |
ANTONY | I, ii | 4 | 6 |
| II, ii | 1 | 1 |
| III, i | 10 | 98 |
| III, ii | 20 | 147 |
| IV, i | 5 | 38 |
| V, i | 8 | 22 |
| V, iv | 2 | 8 |
| V, v | 1 | 8 |
| | === | === |
| | 51 | 328 |
| | | |
LEPIDUS | IV, i | 3 | 4 |
| | | |
CICERO | I, iii | 4 | 9 |
| | | |
PUBLIUS | II, ii | 1 | 1 |
| III, i | 1 | 1 |
| | === | === |
| | 2 | 2 |
| | | |
POPILIUS | III, i | 2 | 2 |
| | | |
BRUTUS | I, ii | 22 | 73 |
| II, i | 35 | 182 |
| II, ii | 2 | 3 |
| III, i | 23 | 78 |
| III, ii | 5 | 49 |
| IV, ii | 10 | 34 |
| IV, iii | 69 | 204 |
| V, i | 11 | 33 |
| V, ii | 1 | 6 |
| V, iii | 4 | 18 |
| V, iv | 1 | 1 |
| V, v | 10 | 39 |
| | === | === |
| | 193 | 720 |
| | | |
CASSIUS | I, ii | 24 | 143 |
| I, iii | 15 | 119 |
| II, i | 14 | 37 |
| III, i | 18 | 44 |
| IV, ii | 4 | 7 |
| IV, iii | 46 | 98 |
| V, i | 11 | 49 |
| V, iii | 6 | 32 |
| | === | === |
| | 138 | 529 |
| | | |
CASCA | I, ii | 19 | 60 |
| I, iii | 14 | 57 |
| II, i | 4 | 10 |
| III, i | 3 | 4 |
| | === | === |
| | 40 | 131 |
| | | |
TREBONIUS | II, i | 2 | 3 |
| II, ii | 1 | 2 |
| III, i | 1 | 3 |
| | === | === |
| | 4 | 8 |
| | | |
LIGARIUS | II, i | 5 | 15 |
| | | |
DECIUS | II, i | 3 | 12 |
| II, ii | 4 | 25 |
| III, i | 5 | 7 |
| | === | === |
| | 12 | 44 |
| | | |
METELLUS | II, i | 2 | 9 |
| III, i | 3 | 8 |
| | === | === |
| | 5 | 17 |
| | | |
CINNA | I, iii | 4 | 9 |
| II, i | 3 | 4 |
| III, i | 4 | 5 |
| | === | === |
| | 11 | 18 |
| | | |
FLAVIUS | I, i | 6 | 27 |
| | | |
MARULLUS | I, i | 5 | 32 |
| | | |
ARTEMIDORUS | II, iii | 1 | 14 |
| III, i | 3 | 4 |
| | === | === |
| | 4 | 18 |
| | | |
SOOTHSAYER | I, ii | 3 | 3 |
| II, iv | 5 | 14 |
| III, i | 1 | 1 |
| | === | === |
| | 9 | 18 |
| | | |
CINNA, A POET | III, iii| 8 | 14 |
| | | |
ANOTHER POET | IV, iii | 3 | 7 |
| | | |
LUCILIUS | IV, ii | 4 | 10 |
| IV, iii | 1 | 1 |
| V, i | 1 | 1 |
| V, iv | 3 | 14 |
| V, v | 1 | 2 |
| | === | === |
| | 10 | 28 |
| | | |
TITINIUS | IV, iii | 1 | 1 |
| V, iii | 9 | 31 |
| | === | === |
| | 10 | 32 |
| | | |
MESSALA | IV, iii | 9 | 14 |
| V, i | 2 | 2 |
| V, iii | 7 | 19 |
| V, v | 3 | 4 |
| | === | === |
| | 21 | 39 |
| | | |
CATO | V, iii | 2 | 3 |
| V, iv | 1 | 5 |
| | === | === |
| | 3 | 8 |
| | | |
VOLUMNIUS | V, v | 3 | 3 |
| | | |
VARRO | IV, iii | 6 | 6 |
| | | |
CLITUS | V, v | 8 | 10 |
| | | |
CLAUDIUS | IV, iii | 4 | 4 |
| | | |
STRATO | V, v | 4 | 6 |
| | | |
LUCIUS | II, i | 10 | 17 |
| II, iv | 4 | 6 |
| IV, iii | 10 | 10 |
| | === | === |
| | 24 | 33 |
| | | |
DARDANIUS | V, v | 3 | 3 |
| | | |
PINDARUS | IV, ii | 1 | 3 |
| V, iii | 4 | 13 |
| | === | === |
| | 5 | 16 |
| | | |
CALPURNIA | I, ii | 1 | 1 |
| II, ii | 5 | 26 |
| | === | === |
| | 6 | 27 |
| | | |
PORTIA | II, i | 6 | 62 |
| II, iv | 10 | 30 |
| | === | === |
| | 16 | 92 |
| | | |
CARPENTER | I, i | 1 | 1 |
| | | |
COBBLER | I, i | 6 | 17 |
| | | |
SERVANT | II, ii | 3 | 5 |
| | | |
SERVANT | III, i | 2 | 16 |
| | | |
SERVANT | III, i | 3 | 5 |
| | | |
GHOST | IV, iii | 3 | 3 |
| | | |
CITIZENS (ALL)| III, ii | 13 | 14 |
| | | |
1 CITIZEN | III, ii | 14 | 17 |
| III, iii| 4 | 4 |
| | === | === |
| | 18 | 21 |
| | | |
2 CITIZEN | III, ii | 14 | 16 |
| III, iii| 4 | 6 |
| | === | === |
| | 18 | 22 |
| | | |
3 CITIZEN | III, ii | 12 | 16 |
| III, iii| 4 | 7 |
| | === | === |
| | 16 | 23 |
| | | |
4 CITIZEN | III, ii | 11 | 14 |
| III, iii| 5 | 7 |
| | === | === |
| | 16 | 21 |
| | | |
SERVANT | III, ii | 3 | 4 |
| | | |
1 SOLDIER | IV, ii | 1 | 1 |
| V, iv | 3 | 4 |
| | === | === |
| | 4 | 5 |
| | | |
2 SOLDIER | IV, ii | 1 | 1 |
| V, iv | 1 | 1 |
| | === | === |
| | 2 | 2 |
| | | |
3 SOLDIER | IV, ii | 1 | 1 |
| | | |
MESSENGER | V, i | 1 | 4 |
==============+=========+==========+========+
JULIUS CÆSAR
[Page 2]
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ[1]
JULIUS CÆSAR.
OCTAVIUS CÆSAR, } triumvirs after
MARCUS ANTONIUS,[2] } the death of
M. ÆMILIUS LEPIDUS, } Julius Cæsar.
CICERO, }
PUBLIUS, } senators.
POPILIUS LENA, }
MARCUS BRUTUS, }
CASSIUS, }
CASCA, } conspirators
TREBONIUS, } against
LIGARIUS, } Julius Cæsar.
DECIUS BRUTUS,[3] }
METELLUS CIMBER, }
CINNA, }
FLAVIUS and MARULLUS,[4] tribunes.
ARTEMIDORUS of Cnidos, a teacher of Rhetoric.[5]
A Soothsayer.
CINNA, a poet. Another Poet.
LUCILIUS, }
TITINIUS, }
MESSALA, } friends to Brutus
Young CATO, } and Cassius.
VOLUMNIUS, }
VARRO, }
CLITUS, }
CLAUDIUS, } servants to
STRATO, } Brutus.
LUCIUS, }
DARDANIUS, }
PINDARUS, servant to Cassius.
CALPURNIA,[6] wife to Cæsar.
PORTIA, wife to Brutus.
Senators, Commoners, Guards, Attendants, &c.
SCENE: _Rome; the neighborhood of Sardis; the neighborhood of
Philippi._
[Footnote 1: DRAMATIS PERSONÆ. Rowe was the first to give a list of
Dramatis Personæ. His list was imperfect and Theobald enlarged it.]
[Footnote 2: ANTONIUS. In I, ii, 3, 4, 6, the First Folio gives the name
in the Italian form, 'Antonio.' See note, p. 9, l. 3.]
[Footnote 3: DECIUS BRUTUS. The true classical name was Decimus Brutus.
In Amyot's _Les Vies des hommes illustres grecs et latins_ (1559) and in
North's Plutarch (1579) the name is given as in Shakespeare.]
[Footnote 4: MARULLUS. Theobald's emendation for the Murellus
(Murrellus, I, ii, 281) of the First Folio. Marullus is the spelling in
North's Plutarch.]
[Footnote 5: ARTEMIDORUS. Rowe (1709) had 'Artimedorus (Artemidorus,
1714) a Soothsayer.' This Theobald altered to 'Artemidorus, a Sophist of
Cnidos,' and made the Soothsayer a separate character].
[Footnote 6: CALPURNIA. Occasionally in North's Plutarch (twice in
_Julius Cæsar_) and always in the First Folio the name is given as
'Calphurnia.']
[Page 3]
ACT I
SCENE I. _Rome. A street_
_Enter_ FLAVIUS, MARULLUS, _and certain_ Commoners
_over the stage_
FLAVIUS. Hence! home, you idle creatures, get you home:
Is this a holiday? what! know you not,
Being mechanical, you ought not walk
Upon a labouring day without the sign
Of your profession? Speak, what trade art thou? 5
CARPENTER. Why, sir, a carpenter.
MARULLUS. Where is thy leather apron and thy rule?
What dost thou with thy best apparel on?
You, sir, what trade are you? 9
[Note: ACT I, SCENE I | Actus Primus. Scœna Prima
Ff.--_Rome. A street_ Capell | Rome Rowe | Ff omit.--Commoners
Ff | Plebeians Hanmer.]
[Note 6: CARPENTER | Car. Ff | First Com. Camb | 1 Pleb.
Hanmer.]
[Note: ACT I. In the First Folio _The Tragedie of Julius
Cæsar_ is divided into acts but not into scenes, though
'Scœna (so spelled in the Folios) Prima' is given here
after 'Actus Primus.'--_over the stage_. This, the Folio stage
direction, suggests a mob.]
[Note 3: /Being mechanical:/ being mechanics. Shakespeare
often uses adjectives with the sense of plural substantives.
Cf. 'subject' in _Hamlet_, I, i, 72. Twice in North's Plutarch
occurs "base mechanical people."--/ought not walk/. See
Abbott, § 349.]
[Note 4-5: Shakespeare transfers to ancient Rome the English
customs and usages of his own time. In Porter and Clarke's
'First Folio' _Julius Cæsar_, it is mentioned that
Shakespeare's uncle Henry, a farmer in Snitterfield, according
to a court order of October 25, 1583, was fined "viii d for
not havinge and wearinge cappes on Sondayes and hollydayes."]
[Note 9: /You./ On 'you' as distinct from 'thou,' see Abbott,
§ 232.]
[Page 4]
COBBLER. Truly, sir, in respect of a fine workman, I am but,
as you would say, a cobbler. 11
MARULLUS. But what trade art thou? answer me directly.
COBBLER. A trade, sir, that I hope I may use with a safe
conscience; which is, indeed, sir, a mender of bad soles. 15
FLAVIUS. What trade, thou knave? thou naughty knave, what
trade?
COBBLER. Nay, I beseech you, sir, be not out with me: yet,
if you be out, sir, I can mend you. 18
MARULLUS. What mean'st thou by that? mend me, thou saucy
fellow?
COBBLER. Why, sir, cobble you.
FLAVIUS. Thou art a cobbler, art thou? 22
[Note 10: COBBLER | Cobl. Ff | Sec. Com. Camb.]
[Note 15: /soles/ | soules F1 F2 | soals F4.]
[Note 16: FLAVIUS | Fla. Ff | Mur. Capell | Mar. Globe Camb.]
[Note 19: MARULLUS | Mur. Ff.]
[Note 10: /in respect of/: in comparison with. So in _The
Psalter_ (Book of Common Prayer), xxxix, 6. Cf. _Hamlet_, V,
ii, 120.]
[Note 11: /cobbler/. This word was used of a coarse workman,
or a bungler, in any mechanical trade. So the Cobbler's answer
does not give the information required, though it contains a
quibble.]
[Note 12: /directly/: in a straightforward manner, without
evasion.]
[Note 15: /soles/. The First Folio spelling, 'soules,' brings
out the pun. This 'immemorial quibble,' as Craik calls it, is
found also in _The Merchant of Venice_, IV, i, 123: "Not on
thy sole, but on thy soul."]
[Note 16: Modern editors give this speech to Marullus, but the
Folio arrangement is more natural and dramatic, the two
Tribunes alternately rating the people, as Knight puts it,
like two smiths smiting on the same anvil.]
[Note 17-18: A quibble upon two common meanings of 'out'--(1)
'at variance,' as in "Launcelot and I are out," _The Merchant
of Venice_, III, v, 34; and (2) as in 'out at heels,' or 'out
at toes.']
[Page 5]
COBBLER. Truly, sir, all that I live by is with the awl: I
meddle with no tradesman's matters, nor women's
matters, but withal I am, indeed, sir, a surgeon to old
shoes; when they are in great danger, I recover them. As
proper men as ever trod upon neat's-leather have gone upon
my handiwork. 28
FLAVIUS. But wherefore art not in thy shop to-day?
Why dost thou lead these men about the streets?
COBBLER. Truly, sir, to wear out their shoes, to get myself
into more work. But, indeed, sir, we make holiday, to see
Cæsar and to rejoice in his triumph. 33
[Note 25: withal I F1 | withall I F2 F3 | withawl. I (Farmer's
conj.) Camb Globe | with all. I Capell.]
[Note 34: Two lines in Ff.]
[Note 39-40: Pompey? Many ... oft Have Rowe | Pompey many ...
oft? Have Ff.]
[Note 25: The text of the First Folio needs no emendation. It
is good prose and involves a neat pun.]
[Note 26: /proper:/ goodly, handsome. This word has often this
meaning in Elizabethan literature, and is still so used in
provincial England. Cf. _The Tempest_, II, ii, 63; _Hebrews_
(King James version), xi, 23; Burns's _The Jolly Beggars_:
"And still my delight is in proper young men."]
[Note 27: /trod upon neat's-leather/. This expression and "as
proper a man as" are repeated in the second scene of the
second act of _The Tempest_.--/neat's-leather/: ox-hide.
'Neat' is Anglo-Saxon _neát_, 'ox,' 'cow,' 'cattle,' and is
still used in 'neat-herd,' 'neat's-foot oil.' See _The
Winter's Tale_, I, ii, 125. The form 'nowt' is still in common
use in the North of England and the South of Scotland. Cf.
Burns's _The Twa Dogs_: "To thrum guitars an' fecht wi
nowte."]
[Page 6]
MARULLUS. Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?
What tributaries follow him to Rome, 35
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 and battlements, 40
To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops,
Your infants in your arms, and 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, 45
Have you not made an universal shout,
That Tiber 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? 50
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?
Be gone!
Run to your houses, fall upon your knees, 55
Pray to the gods to intermit the plague
That needs must light on this ingratitude.
[Note 39: /Many a time and oft/. This form of emphasis occurs
also in _The Merchant of Venice_, I, iii, 107. Cf. _Timon of
Athens_, III, i, 25.]
[Note 41: /windows/, Rowe | Windowes? Ff.]
[Note 44: /Rome/: Ff | Rome? Rowe.]
[Note 47, 49: /her/ | his Rowe.]
[Note 47: /That/: so that. For the omission of 'so' before
'that,' see Abbott, § 283.--/her/. In Latin usage rivers are
masculine, and 'Father' is a common appellation of 'Tiber.' In
Elizabethan literature Drayton generally makes rivers
feminine, while Spenser tends to make them masculine.]
[Note 48: /To hear/: at hearing. A gerundive use of the
infinitive.--/replication/: echo, repetition (Lat.
_replicare_, to roll back).]
[Note 51: Is this a day to pick out for a holiday?]
[Note 53: The reference is to the great battle of Munda, in
Spain, which took place in March of the preceding year, B.C.
45. Cæsar was now celebrating his fifth triumph, which was in
honor of his final victory over the Pompeian, or conservative,
faction. Cnæus and Sextus, the two sons of Pompey the Great,
were leaders in that battle, and Cnæus perished. "And because
he had plucked up his race by the roots, men did not think it
meet for him to triumph so for the calamities of his
country."--Plutarch, _Julius Cæsar_.]
[Note 57: "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.]
[Page 7]
FLAVIUS. Go, go, good countrymen, and, for this fault,
Assemble all the poor men of your sort;
Draw them to Tiber banks, and weep your tears 60
Into the channel, till the lowest stream
Do kiss the most exalted shores of all.
[_Exeunt all the_ Commoners]
See, where their basest metal be not mov'd!
They vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness.
Go you down that way towards the Capitol; 65
This way will I: disrobe the images,
If you do find them deck'd with ceremonies.
[Note 62: [_Exeunt_ ... ] Ff | Exeunt Citizens Capell.]
[Note 63: /where/ Ff | whe're Theobald | whêr Dyce | whether
Camb.]
[Note 61-62: Till the river rises from the extreme low-water
mark to the extreme high-water mark.]
[Note 63: /where:/ whether. As in V, iv, 30, the 'where' of
the Folios represents the monosyllabic pronunciation of this
word common in the sixteenth century. In Shakespeare's verse
the 'th' between two vowels, as in 'brother,' 'other,'
'whither,' is frequently mute.--/basest metal./--The Folio
spelling is 'mettle,' and the word here may connote 'spirit,'
'temper.' If it be taken literally, the reference may be to
'lead.' Cf. 'base lead,' _The Merchant of Venice_, II, ix, 19.
In this case the meaning may be that even these men, though as
dull and heavy as lead, have yet the sense to be tongue-tied
with shame at their conduct. 'Mettle' occurs again in I, ii,
293; 'metal' (First Folio, 'mettle') in I, ii, 306.]
[Note 66: /images./ These images were the busts and statues of
Cæsar, ceremoniously decked with scarfs and badges in honor of
his triumph.]
[Note 67: /ceremonies:/ ceremonial symbols, festal ornaments.
Cf. 'trophies' in l. 71 and 'scarfs' in I, ii, 282.
Shakespeare employs the word in the same way, as an abstract
term used for the concrete thing, in _Henry V_, IV, i, 109;
and, in the singular, in _Measure for Measure_, II, ii, 59.
"After that, there were set up images of Cæsar in the city,
with diadems on their heads like kings. Those the two
tribunes, Flavius and Marullus, went and pulled
down."--Plutarch, _Julius Cæsar_.]
[Page 8]
MARULLUS. May we do so?
You know it is the feast of Lupercal.
FLAVIUS. It is no matter; let no images 70
Be hung with Cæsar's trophies. 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 Cæsar's wing
Will make him fly an ordinary pitch, 75
Who else would soar above the view of men,
And keep us all in servile fearfulness. [_Exeunt_]
[Note 69: /Lupercal./ The _Lupercalia_, originally a shepherd
festival, were held in honor of Lupercus, the Roman Pan, on
the 15th of February, the month being named from _Februus_, a
surname of the god. Lupercus was, primarily, the god of
shepherds, said to have been so called because he protected
the flocks from wolves. His wife Luperca was the deified
she-wolf that suckled Romulus. The festival, in its original
idea, was concerned with purification and fertilization.]
[Note 71: /Cæsar's trophies./ These are the scarfs and badges
mentioned in note on l. 66, as appears from ll. 281-282 in the
next scene, where it is said that the Tribunes "for pulling
scarfs off Cæsar's images, are put to silence."]
[Note 72: /the vulgar:/ the common people. So in _Love's
Labour's Lost_, I, ii, 51; _Henry V_, IV, vii, 80.]
[Note 75: /pitch./ A technical term in falconry, denoting the
height to which a hawk or falcon flies. Cf. _I Henry VI_, II,
iv, 11: "Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch."]
[Page 9]
SCENE II. _A public place_
_Enter_ CÆSAR; ANTONY, _for the course_; CALPURNIA,
PORTIA, DECIUS, CICERO, BRUTUS, CASSIUS, _and_ CASCA; _a
great crowd following, among them a_ Soothsayer.
CÆSAR. Calpurnia!
CASCA. Peace, ho! Cæsar speaks.
CÆSAR. Calpurnia!
CALPURNIA. Here, my lord.
CÆSAR. Stand you directly in Antonius' way,
When he doth run his course. Antonius!
ANTONY. Cæsar, my lord? 5
CÆSAR. 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.
ANTONY. I shall remember:
When Cæsar says 'Do this,' it is perform'd. 10
[Note: SCENE ... _place_ | Ff omit.]
[Note 3: /Antonius'/ Pope | Antonio's Ff.]
[Note 4, 6: /Antonius/ Pope | Antonio Ff (and so elsewhere).]
[Note 3: /Antonius'./ The 'Antonio's' of the Folios is the
Italian form with which both actors and audience would be more
familiar. So in IV, iii, 102, the Folios read "dearer than
Pluto's (i.e. Plutus') mine." Antonius was at this time
Consul, as Cæsar himself also was. Each Roman _gens_ had its
own priesthood, and also its peculiar religious rites. The
priests of the Julian gens (so named from Iulus the son of
Æneas) 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 of the Julian Luperci that he
officiated on this occasion, stripped, as the old stage
direction has it, "for the course."]
[Note 8-9: It was an old custom at these festivals for the
priests, naked except for 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 sterile curse." Cæsar was at this time
childless; his only daughter, Julia, married to Pompey the
Great, having died some years before, upon the birth of her
first child, who also died soon after.]
[Page 10]
CÆSAR. Set on; and leave no ceremony out. [_Flourish_]
SOOTHSAYER. Cæsar!
CÆSAR. Ha! who calls?
CASCA. Bid every noise be still. Peace yet again!
CÆSAR. Who is it in the press that calls on me? 15
I hear a tongue, shriller than all the music,
Cry 'Cæsar!' Speak; Cæsar is turn'd to hear.
SOOTHSAYER. Beware the Ides of March.
CÆSAR. What man is that?
BRUTUS. A soothsayer bids you beware the Ides of March.
CÆSAR. Set him before me; let me see his face. 20
CASSIUS. Fellow, come from the throng; look upon Cæsar.
CÆSAR. What say'st thou to me now? speak once again.
SOOTHSAYER. Beware the Ides of March.
CÆSAR. He is a dreamer; let us leave him. Pass.
[_Sennet. Exeunt all but_ BRUTUS _and_ CASSIUS]
CASSIUS. Will you go see the order of the course? 25
[Note 11: [Flourish] Ff omit.]
[Note 25: Scene III Pope.]
[Note 18: /the Ides of March:/ March 15th.]
[Note 19: 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 contempt,
characterizing Brutus even in his first casual
speech."--/soothsayer./ By derivation, 'truth teller.']
[Note 24: /Sennet./ This is an expression occurring repeatedly
in old stage directions. It is of uncertain origin (but cf.
'signature' in musical notation) and denotes a peculiar
succession of notes on a trumpet, used, as here, to signal the
march of a procession.]
[Page 11]
BRUTUS. Not I.
CASSIUS. I pray you, do.
BRUTUS. I am not gamesome: I do lack some part
Of that quick spirit that is in Antony.
Let me not hinder, Cassius, your desires; 30
I'll leave you.
CASSIUS. 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:
You bear too stubborn and too strange a hand 35
Over your friend that loves you.
[Note 36: /friend/ F1 | Friends F2 F3.]
[Note 28: /gamesome:/ fond of games. Here as in _Cymbeline_,
I, vi, 60, the word seems to be used in a literal and
restricted sense.]
[Note 29: /quick spirit:/ lively humor. The primary meaning of
'quick' is 'alive,' as in the phrase "the quick and the dead."
See Skeat.]
[Note 34: /as./ The three forms 'that,' 'who' ('which'), and
'as' are often interchangeable in Elizabethan usage. So in
line 174. See Abbott, §§ 112, 280.]
[Note 35: You hold me too hard on the bit, like a strange
rider who is doubtful of his steed, and not like one who
confides in his faithful horse, and so rides him with an easy
rein. See note on l. 310.]
[Note 36: Caius Cassius Longinus had married Junia, a sister
of Brutus. Both had lately stood for the chief prætorship of
the city, and Brutus, through Cæsar's favor, had won it;
though Cassius was at the same time elected one of the sixteen
prætors 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.]
[Page 12]
BRUTUS. Cassius,
Be not deceiv'd: 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, 40
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, 45
Than that poor Brutus, with himself at war,
Forgets the shows of love to other men.
CASSIUS. Then, Brutus, I have much mistook your passion;
By means whereof this breast of mine hath buried
Thoughts of great value, worthy cogitations. 50
Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face?
BRUTUS. No, Cassius; for the eye sees not itself
But by reflection, by some other things.
[Note 52-53: Three irregular lines in Ff.]
[Note 52: /itself/ | it selfe F1 | himselfe F2 | himself, F3 |
himself: F4.]
[Note 53: /by some/ Ff | from some Pope.]
[Note 39: /Merely:/ altogether, entirely. So in _The Tempest_,
I, i, 59.]
[Note 40: /passions of some difference:/ conflicting
emotions.]
[Note 41: /only proper to myself:/ belonging exclusively to
myself.]
[Note 42: /give some soil to:/ to a certain extent
tarnish.--/behaviours./ Shakespeare often uses abstract nouns
in the plural. This usage is common in Carlyle. Here, however,
and elsewhere in Shakespeare, as in _Much Ado about Nothing_,
II, iii, 100, the plural 'behaviours' may be regarded as
denoting the particular acts which make up what we call
'behavior.' See Clar.]
[Note 48: /mistook./ The _en_ of the termination of the past
participle of strong verbs is often dropped, and when the
resulting word might be mistaken for the infinitive, the form
of the past tense is frequently substituted.--/passion./
Shakespeare uses 'passion' for any feeling, sentiment, or
emotion, whether painful or pleasant. So in _Henry V_, II, ii.
132: "Free from gross passion or of mirth or anger."]
[Note 49: /By means whereof:/ and because of my mistaking it.
'Means' was sometimes used in the sense of 'cause.']
[Note 53: Except by an image or 'shadow' (l. 68; cf. _Venus
and Adonis_, 162) reflected from a mirror, or from water, or
some polished surface. Cf. _Troilus and Cressida_, III, iii,
105-111.]
[Page 13]
CASSIUS. 'Tis just:
And it is very much lamented, Brutus, 55
That you have no such mirrors as will turn
Your hidden worthiness into your eye,
That you might see your shadow. I have heard,
Where many of the best respect in Rome,
Except immortal Cæsar, speaking of Brutus, 60
And groaning underneath this age's yoke,
Have wish'd that noble Brutus had his eyes.
BRUTUS. Into what dangers would you lead me, Cassius,
That you would have me seek into myself
For that which is not in me? 65
CASSIUS. 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. 70
And be not jealous on me, gentle Brutus:
Were I a common laughter, or did use
To stale with ordinary oaths my love
To every new protester; if you know
That I do fawn on men and hug them hard, 75
And after scandal them; or if you know
That I profess myself in banqueting
To all the rout, then hold me dangerous. [_Flourish and shout_]
[Note 58: Two lines in Ff.]
[Note 63: Two lines in Ff.--/Cassius/, Pope Camb Globe |
Cassius? Ff.]
[Note 70: /you yet/ F1 F2 | yet you F3 F4.]
[Note 72: /laughter/ | Laughter Ff | laugher Rowe Camb Globe.]
[Note 77: /myself/ | my selfe F1 | omitted in F2 F3 F4.]
[Note 54: /'Tis just:/ that's so, exactly so. Cf. _All's Well
that Ends Well_, II, iii, 21; _As You Like It_, III, ii, 281;
_2 Henry IV_, III, ii, 89.]
[Note 59: /Where./ The adverb is here used of occasion, not of
place.--/of the best respect:/ held in the highest
estimation.]
[Note 60: /Except immortal Cæsar./ Keen, double-edged irony.]
[Note 71: /jealous on:/ suspicious of. In Shakespeare we find
'on' and 'of' used indifferently, even in the same sentence,
as in _Hamlet_, IV, v, 200. Cf. _Macbeth_, I, iii, 84;
_Sonnets_, LXXXIV, 14. See Abbott, § 181.]
[Note 72: /laughter:/ laughing-stock. Although most modern
editors have adopted Rowe's emendation, 'laugher,' the reading
of the Folios is perfectly intelligible and thoroughly
Shakespearian. Cf. IV, iii, 114.]
[Note 73: /To stale:/ to make common by frequent repetition,
to cheapen. So again in IV, i, 38. Cf. _Antony and Cleopatra_,
II, ii, 240.]
[Note 74: 'To protest' is used by Shakespeare in the sense of
'to profess,' 'to declare,' 'to vow,' as in _All's Well that
Ends Well_, IV, ii, 28, and _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, I, i,
89. The best commentary on ll. 72-74 is _Hamlet_, I, iii,
64-65: "But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each
new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade."]
[Page 14]
BRUTUS. What means this shouting? I do fear, the people
Choose Cæsar for their king.
CASSIUS. Ay, do you fear it? 80
Then must I think you would not have it so.
BRUTUS. 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, 85
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.
[Note 79-80: Three irregular lines in Ff.]
[Note 85: /aught/ Theobald | ought Ff.]
[Note 87: /both/ Ff | death Theobald (Warburton).]
[Note 76-78: If you know that, when banqueting, I make
professions of friendship to all the crowd.]
[Note 87: "Warburton would read 'death' for 'both'; but I
prefer the old text. There are here three things, the public
good, the individual Brutus' honour, and his death. The latter
two so balanced each other, that he could decide for the first
by equipoise; nay--the thought growing--that honour had more
weight than death."--Coleridge.--/indifferently:/ without
emotion. 'Impartially.'--Clar.]
[Note 88: /speed:/ prosper, bless. So in II, iv, 41. "The
notion of 'haste' which now belongs to the word is apparently
a derived sense. It is thus curiously parallel to the Latin
_expedio_, with which some would connect it etymologically....
The proverb 'more haste, worse speed' shows that haste and
speed are not the same."--Clar.]
[Page 15-17]
CASSIUS. I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus, 90
As well as I do know your outward favour.
Well, honour is the subject of my story.
I 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 95
In awe of such a thing as I myself.
I was born free as Cæsar; 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, 100
The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores,
Cæsar 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, 105
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;
But ere we could arrive the point propos'd, 110
Cæsar cried, 'Help me, Cassius, or I sink!'
I, as Æneas, our great ancestor,
Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder
The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber
Did I the tired Cæsar: and this man 115
Is now become a god, and Cassius is
A wretched creature, and must bend his body
If Cæsar carelessly but nod on him.
He had a fever when he was in Spain;
And, when the fit was on him, I did mark 120
How he did shake: 't is true, this god did shake:
His coward lips did from their colour fly;
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 125
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
So get the start of the majestic world 130
And bear the palm alone. [_Shout. Flourish_]
BRUTUS. Another general shout!
I do believe that these applauses are
For some new honours that are heap'd on Cæsar.
[Note 94: /for/ F1 | omitted in F2 F3 F4.]
[Note 101: /chafing/ F1 F4 | chasing F2 F3.]
[Note 102: /said/ | saide F1 | saies F2 F3.]
[Note 105: /Accoutred/ F1 | Accounted F2.]
[Note 124: /lose/ | loose F1.]
[Note 125: /bade/ Theobald | bad Ff.]
[Note 91: /favour:/ appearance. The word has often this
meaning in Shakespeare. Cf. 'well-favored,' 'ill-favored,' and
such a provincial expression as 'the child favors his
father.']
[Note 95: /lief:/ readily. The pronunciation of the _f_ as _v_
brings out the quibble. From the Anglo-Saxon _léof_, 'dear.'
See Murray.]
[Note 101: /chafing./ See Skeat for the interesting
development of the meanings of the verb 'chafe (Fr.
_chauffer_),' which Shakespeare uses twenty times, sometimes
transitively, sometimes intransitively.]
[Note 109: /hearts of controversy:/ controversial hearts,
emulation. In Shakespeare are many similar constructions and
expressions. Cf. 'passions of some difference,' l. 40, and
'mind of love' for 'loving mind,' _The Merchant of Venice_,
II, viii, 42.]
[Note 110: /arrive the point./ In sixteenth and early
seventeenth century literature the omission of the preposition
with verbs of motion is common. Cf. 'pass the streets' in I,
i, 44.]
[Note 119: In Elizabethan literature 'fever' is often used for
sickness in general as well as for what is now specifically
called a fever. Cæsar had three several campaigns in Spain at
different periods of his life, and the text does not show
which of these Shakespeare had in mind. One passage in
Plutarch indicates that Cæsar was first taken with the
'falling-sickness' during his third campaign, which closed
with the great battle of Munda, March 17, B.C. 45. See note,
p. 25, l. 252, and quotation from Plutarch, p. 26, l. 268.]
[Note 122: The image, very bold, somewhat forced, and not
altogether happy, is of a cowardly soldier running away from
his flag.]
[Note 123: /bend:/ look. So in _Antony and Cleopatra_, II, ii,
213: "tended her i' the eyes, And made their bends adornings."
In Shakespeare the verb 'bend,' when used of the eyes, has
usually the sense of 'direct,' as in _Hamlet_, II, i, 100:
"bended their light on me"; III, iv, 117: "That you do bend
your eye on vacancy."]
[Note 124: /his:/ its. 'Its' was just creeping into use at the
close of the sixteenth century. It does not occur once in the
King James version of the Bible as originally printed; it
occurs ten times in the First Folio, generally in the form
'it's'; it occurs only three times in Milton's poetry. See
Masson's _Essay on Milton's English_; Abbott, § 228; Sweet's
_New English Grammar_, § 1101.]
[Note 129: /temper:/ temperament, constitution. "The lean and
wrinkled Cassius" venting his spite at Cæsar, by ridiculing
his liability to sickness and death, is charmingly
characteristic. The mighty Cæsar, with all his electric energy
of mind and will, was of a rather fragile and delicate make;
and his countenance, as we have it in authentic busts, is of
almost feminine beauty. Cicero, who did not love him at all,
in one of his _Letters_ applies to him the Greek word that is
used for 'miracle' or 'wonder' in the New Testament; the
English of the passage being, "This miracle (monster?) is a
thing of terrible energy, swiftness, diligence."]
[Page 18-19]
CASSIUS. Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men 136
Walk under his huge legs, and 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, 140
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
Brutus and Cæsar: what should be in that 'Cæsar?'
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; 145
Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure with 'em,
'Brutus' will start a spirit as soon as 'Cæsar.'
Now, in the names of all the gods at once,
Upon what meat doth this our Cæsar feed,
That he is grown so great? Age, thou art sham'd! 150
Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!
When went there by an age, since the great flood,
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 walks encompass'd but one man? 155
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
That he is grown so great? Age, thou art sham'd! 150
Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!
When went there by an age, since the great flood,
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 walks encompass'd but one man? 155
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 160
As easily as a king.
[Note 155: /walks/ F4 | Walkes F1 F2 F3 | walls Rowe.]
[Note 135: Observe the force of 'narrow' here; as if Cæsar
were grown so enormously big that even the world seemed a
little thing under him. Some while before this, the Senate had
erected a bronze statue of Cæsar, standing on a globe, and
inscribed to "Cæsar the Demigod," but this inscription Cæsar
erased.]
[Note 136: It is only a legend that the bronze Colossus of
Rhodes bestrode the entrance to the famous harbor. The story
probably arose from the statement that the figure, which
represented Helios, the national deity of the Rhodians, was so
high that a ship might sail between its legs.]
[Note 140: In Shakespeare are many such allusions to the
tenets of the old astrology and the belief in planetary
influence upon the fortunes and characters of men which Scott
describes in the Introduction to _Guy Mannering_ and makes the
atmosphere of the story.]
[Note 142: /should be:/ can be. So in _The Tempest_, I, ii,
387: "Where should this music be? i' the air or the earth?"]
[Note 146-147: 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.]
[Note 152: /the great flood./ By this an ancient Roman would
understand the universal deluge of classical mythology, from
which only Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha escaped alive. The
story is told in Ovid's _Metamorphoses_, I. Shakespeare
mentions Deucalion twice.]
[Note 155: /walks./ The reasons why Rowe's emendation,
'walls,' is almost universally accepted, are that 'walls'
would be easily corrupted into 'walks' from the nearness of
'talk'd,' and that there is a disagreeable assonance in
'talk'd' and 'walks' in successive lines. But 'walks' is
picturesque and poetical; compared with it, 'walls' is
commonplace and obvious. Cf. _Paradise Lost_, IV, 586.]
[Note 156: A play upon 'Rome' and 'room,' which appear to have
been sounded more alike in Shakespeare's time than they are
now. So again in III, i, 289-290: "A dangerous Rome, No Rome
of safety for Octavius yet." Cf. also _King John_, III, i,
180.]
[Note 159: The allusion is to Lucius Junius Brutus, who bore a
leading part in driving out the Tarquins and in turning the
kingdom into a republic. Afterwards, as consul, he condemned
his own sons to death for attempting to restore the kingdom.
The Marcus Junius Brutus of the play, according to Plutarch,
supposed himself to be descended from him. His mother,
Servilia, also derived her lineage from Servilius Ahala, who
slew Spurius Mælius for aspiring to royalty. Merivale remarks
that "the name of Brutus forced its possessor into prominence
as soon as royalty began to be discussed."--/brook'd:/
endured, tolerated. See Murray for the history of this word.]
[Note 160: /eternal./ Johnson suggested 'infernal.' Dr. Wright
(Clar.) points out that in three plays printed in 1600
Shakespeare uses 'infernal,' but substitutes 'eternal' in
_Julius Cæsar_, _Hamlet_, and _Othello_, in obedience probably
to the popular Puritan agitation against profanity on the
stage. This has been used as evidence to determine dates of
composition. See Introduction, page xx. Cf. with this use of
'eternal' the old Yankee term 'tarnal' in such expressions as
'tarnal scamp,' 'tarnal shame,' etc.]
[Page 20]
BRUTUS. That you do love me, I am nothing jealous;
What you would work me to, I have some aim:
How I have thought of this and of these times,
I shall recount hereafter; for this present, 165
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. 170
Till then, my noble friend, chew upon this:
Brutus had rather be a villager
Than to repute himself a son of Rome
Under these hard conditions as this time
Is like to lay upon us. 175
[Note 166: /not, so with ... you/ | not so (with ... you) Ff.]
[Note 162: /am nothing jealous:/ do not doubt. Cf. l. 71.
'Jealous' and 'zealous' are etymologically the same word. See
Skeat.]
[Note 163: /work me to:/ prevail upon me to do. Cf. _Hamlet_,
IV, vii, 64.--/aim:/ guess. Cf. _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_,
III, i, 28. Similarly with the verb in _Romeo and Juliet_, I,
i, 211; _Othello_, III, iii, 223.]
[Note 171: 'To chew' is, literally, in the Latin equivalent,
'to ruminate.' Cf. _As You Like It_, IV, iii, 102: "Chewing
the food of sweet and bitter fancy." In Bacon's Essays, _Of
Studies_, we have, with reference to books: "Some few are to
be chewed and digested." So in Lyly's _Euphues_: "Philantus
went into the fields to walk there, either to digest his
choler, or chew upon his melancholy."]
[Note 174: /these ... as./ See note, l. 34; Abbott, §§ 112,
280.]
[Page 21]
CASSIUS. I am glad that my weak words
Have struck but thus much show of fire from Brutus.
_Enter_ CÆSAR _and his train_
BRUTUS. The games are done, and Cæsar is returning.
CASSIUS. As they pass by, pluck Casca by the sleeve;
And he will, after his sour fashion, tell you 180
What hath proceeded worthy note to-day.
BRUTUS. I will do so. But, look you, Cassius,
The angry spot doth glow on Cæsar's brow,
And all the rest look like a chidden train:
Calpurnia's cheek is pale; and Cicero 185
Looks with such ferret and such fiery eyes
As we have seen him in the Capitol,
Being cross'd in conference by some senators.
[Note 178: Scene IV Pope.]
[Note 178-179: Four lines in Ff.]
[Note 177: In _Troilus and Cressida_, III, iii, 256, Thersites
says of the wit of Ajax: "It lies as coldly in him as fire in
a flint, which will not show without knocking." The same
figure is found in the description which Brutus gives of his
unimpassioned nature, IV, iii, 112-114.]
[Note 181: /proceeded:/ happened, come to pass. So in _All's
Well that Ends Well_, IV, ii, 62.--/worthy note./ Cf. _All's
Well that Ends Well_, III, v, 104. For the ellipsis of the
preposition, see Abbott, § 198 a.]
[Note 186: One of the marked physical characteristics of the
albinotic ferret is the red or pink eye. Shakespeare turns the
noun 'ferret' into an adjective. The description of Cicero is
purely imaginary; but the angry spot on Cæsar's brow,
Calpurnia's pale cheek, and Cicero with fire in his eyes when
kindled by opposition in the Senate, make an exceedingly vivid
picture.]
[Page 22]
CASSIUS. Casca will tell us what the matter is.
CÆSAR. Antonius! 190
ANTONY. Cæsar?
CÆSAR. 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. 195
ANTONY. Fear him not, Cæsar; he's not dangerous;
He is a noble Roman, and well given.
[Note 191: /Cæsar/? Theobald | Cæsar. Ff.]
[Note 193: /o' nights/ Capeli | a-nights F1 F2.]
[Note 192-195: "Another time when Cæsar's friends complained
unto him of Antonius and Dolabella, that they pretended some
mischief towards him, he answered them again, As for those fat
men, and smooth-combed heads, quoth he, I never reckon of
them; but these pale visaged and carrion lean people, I fear
them most; meaning Brutus and Cassius."--Plutarch, _Julius
Cæsar_. There are similar passages in Plutarch's _Life of
Brutus_ and in the _Life of Marcus Antonius_. Cf. _Antony and
Cleopatra_, III, xi, 37. Falstaff's famous cry was for 'spare
men.' See _2 Henry IV_, III, ii, 288. 'Sleek-headed' recalls
Lamb's wish that the baby son of the tempestuous Hazlitt
should be "like his father, with something of a better temper
and a smoother head of hair."]
[Note 197: /well given:/ well disposed. So in _2 Henry VI_,
III, i, 72.]
[Page 23]
CÆSAR. Would he were fatter! but I fear him not:
Yet if my name were liable to fear,
I do not know the man I should avoid 200
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:
Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort 205
As if he mock'd himself, and scorn'd his spirit
That could be mov'd to smile at any thing.
Such men as he be never at heart's ease
Whiles they behold a greater than themselves,
And therefore are they very dangerous. 210
I rather tell thee what is to be fear'd
Than what I fear, for always I am Cæsar.
Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf,
And tell me truly what thou think'st of him.
[_Sennet. Exeunt_ CÆSAR _and all his train but_ CASCA]
CASCA. You pull'd me by the cloak; would you speak with me? 215
BRUTUS. Ay, Casca; tell us what hath chanc'd to-day,
That Cæsar looks so sad.
CASCA. Why, you were with him, were you not?
BRUTUS. I should not then ask Casca what had chanc'd.
[Note 215: Scene V Pope.]
[Note 203: /he loves no plays./ "In his house they did nothing
but feast, dance, and masque; and himself passed away the time
in hearing of foolish plays, and in marrying these players,
tumblers, jesters, and such sort of people."--Plutarch,
_Marcus Antonius_.]
[Note 204: The power of music is repeatedly celebrated by
Shakespeare, and sometimes in strains that approximate the
classical hyperboles about Orpheus, Amphion, and Arion. What
is here said of Cassius has an apt commentary in _The Merchant
of Venice_, V, 1, 83-85:
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils.]
[Note 213: This is one of the little touches of invention that
so often impart a fact-like vividness to Shakespeare's
scenes.]
[Note 217: /sad./ The word is used here probably in its early
sense of 'weary' (as in Middle English) or 'resolute' (as in
Chaucer and old Ballads). In _2 Henry IV_, V, i, 92, is the
expression "a jest with a sad brow," where 'sad' evidently
means 'wise,' 'sage.']
[Page 24]
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. 222
BRUTUS. What was the second noise for?
CASCA. Why, for that too.
CASSIUS. They shouted thrice: what was the last cry for?
CASCA. Why, for that too. 226
BRUTUS. 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. 230
CASSIUS. Who offer'd him the crown?
CASCA. Why, Antony.
BRUTUS. 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 offer'd 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 then he offer'd it the third time; he put it the third
time by: and, still, as he refus'd it, the rabblement hooted
and clapp'd their chopp'd hands, and threw up their sweaty
nightcaps and utter'd such a deal of stinking breath because
Cæsar refus'd the crown, that it had almost chok'd Cæsar;
for he swounded 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. 248
[Note 222: /a-shouting/ Dyce | a shouting Ff | a' shouting
Capell.]
[Note 235: /it was/ F1 | it were F2 F3 F4.]
[Note 242: /hooted/ Johnson | howted F1 F2 F3 | houted F4.]
[Note 243: /chopp'd/ | chopt Ff.]
[Note 246: /swounded/ | swoonded Ff | swooned Rowe.]
[Note 220: /there was a crown offer'd him./ In the _Life of
Marcus Antonius_ Plutarch gives a detailed and vivid
description of this scene.]
[Page 25]
CASSIUS. But, soft! I pray you: what, did Cæsar swound?
CASCA. He fell down in the market-place, and foam'd at
mouth, and was speechless.
BRUTUS. 'Tis very like; he hath the falling-sickness.
CASSIUS. No, Cæsar hath it not; but you, and I,
And honest Casca, we have the falling-sickness. 254
CASCA. I know not what you mean by that, but I am sure Cæsar
fell down. If the tag-rag people did not clap him and hiss
him, according as he pleas'd and displeas'd them, as they
use to do the players in the theatre, I am no true man.
BRUTUS. What said he when he came unto himself? 260
[Note 249: /swound/ Ff | swoon Rowe.]
[Note 252: /like; he/ Theobald | like he Ff.]
[Note 249: /soft!/ This is an elliptical use of the adverb
'soft' and was much used as an exclamation for arresting or
retarding the speed of a person or thing; meaning about the
same as 'hold!' 'stay!' or 'not too fast!' So in _Othello_, V,
ii, 338: "Soft you; a word or two before you go"; and _The
Merchant of Venice_, IV, i, 320: "Soft! The Jew shall have all
justice; soft! no haste."]
[Note 252: /falling-sickness./ An old English name for
epilepsy (Lat. _morbus caducus_, German _fallende Sucht_) used
by North in translating Plutarch. Another form of the word is
'falling-evil,' also used by North (see quotation, p. 26, l.
268). It is an interesting fact that the best authorities
allow that Napoleon suffered from epileptic seizures towards
the close of his life.]
[Note 256: /tag-rag people:/ Cf. 'the tag' in _Coriolanus_,
III, i, 248.]
[Note 259: /true:/ honest. Shakespeare frequently uses 'true'
in this sense, especially as opposed to 'thief.' Cf.
_Cymbeline_, II, iii, 76; _Venus and Adonis_, 724: "Rich preys
make true men thieves."]
[Page 26]
CASCA. 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. And I had
been a man of any occupation, if I would not have taken him
at a word, I would I might go to hell among the rogues. And
so 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. Three or four wenches, where
I stood, cried, 'Alas, good soul!' and forgave him with all
their hearts. But there's no heed to be taken of them: if
Cæsar had stabb'd their mothers, they would have done no
less. 272
[Note 263: /And/ Ff | an (an') Theobald.]
[Note 270: /no/ omitted in F2.]
[Note 261: /Marry./ The common Elizabethan exclamation of
surprise, or asseveration, corrupted from the name of the
Virgin Mary.]
[Note 263: /me./ The ethical dative. Cf. III, iii, 18; _The
Merchant of Venice_, I, iii, 85; _Romeo and Juliet_, III, i,
6. See Abbott, § 220.--/doublet./ This was the common English
name of a man's outer body-garment. Shakespeare dresses his
Romans like Elizabethan Englishmen (cf. II, i, 73-74), but the
expression 'doublet-collar' occurs in North's Plutarch (see
quotation in note on ll. 268-270).--/And:/ if. For 'and' in
this sense, see Murray, and Abbott, § 101.]
[Note 264: /a man of any occupation./ This probably means not
only a mechanic or user of cutting-tools, but also a man of
business and of action, as distinguished from a gentleman of
leisure, or an idler.]
[Note 265-266: /to hell among the rogues./ The early English
drama abounds in examples of such historical confusion. For
example, in the Towneley Miracle Plays Noah's wife swears by
the Virgin Mary.]
[Note 268-270: "Thereupon Cæsar rising departed home to his
house; and, tearing open his doublet-collar, making his neck
bare, he cried out aloud to his friends, that his throat was
ready to offer to any man that would come and cut it....
Afterwards, to excuse his folly, he imputed it to his disease,
saying that their wits are not perfect which have this disease
of the falling-evil."--Plutarch, _Julius Cæsar_.]
[Page 27]
BRUTUS. And after that, he came, thus sad, away?
CASCA. Ay.
CASSIUS. Did Cicero say any thing? 275
CASCA. Ay, he spoke Greek.
CASSIUS. To what effect?
CASCA. Nay, and I tell you that, I'll ne'er look you i' the
face again: but those that understood him smil'd at one
another and shook their heads; but, for mine own part, it
was Greek to me. I could tell you more news too: Marullus
and Flavius, for pulling scarfs off Cæsar's images, are put
to silence. Fare you well. There was more foolery yet, if I
could remember it.
CASSIUS. Will you sup with me to-night, Casca? 285
CASCA. No, I am promis'd forth.
CASSIUS. Will you dine with me to-morrow?
CASCA. Ay, if I be alive, and your mind hold, and your
dinner worth the eating.
CASSIUS. Good; I will expect you. 290
CASCA. Do so: farewell, both. [_Exit_]
[Note 273: /away?/ Theobald | away F1.]
[Note 278: /and/ Ff | an (an') Theobald.]
[Note 275-281: A charming invention, though in his _Life of
Cicero_ Plutarch refers to the orator's nicknames, 'Grecian'
and 'scholer,' due to his ability to "declaim in Greek."
Cicero had a sharp, agile tongue, and was fond of using it;
and nothing was more natural than that he should snap off some
keen, sententious sayings, prudently veiling them, however, in
a foreign language from all but those who might safely
understand them.--/Greek to me./ 'Greek,' often 'heathen
Greek,' was a common Elizabethan expression for unintelligible
speech. In Dekker's _Grissil_ (1600) occurs "It's Greek to
him." So in Dickens's _Barnaby Rudge_: "this is Greek to me."]
[Note 286: /I am promis'd forth:/ I have promised to go out.
'Forth' is often used in this way in Elizabethan literature
without any verb of motion. Cf. _The Merchant of Venice_, II,
v, 11. See Abbott, § 41.]
[Page 28]
BRUTUS. What a blunt fellow is this grown to be!
He was quick mettle when he went to school.
CASSIUS. So is he now, in execution
Of any bold or noble enterprise, 295
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.
BRUTUS. And so it is. For this time I will leave you: 300
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.
[Note 298: /digest/ F3 F4 | disgest F1 F2.]
[Note 299: /appetite/ F1 | appetites F2 F3 F4.]
[Note 300: Ff print as two lines.]
[Note 292: /blunt:/ dull, slow. Or there may be a quibble
involved in connection with 'mettle' in the next line. Brutus
alludes to the 'tardy form' (l. 296) Casca has just 'put on'
in winding so long about the matter before coming to the
point.]
[Note 293: /quick mettle:/ lively spirit. Collier conjectured
'quick-mettl'd.' 'Mettlesome' is still used of spirited
horses. Cf. I, i, 63.]
[Note 296: /However:/ notwithstanding. Cf. _Troilus and
Cressida_, I, iii, 322.--/tardy form:/ appearance of
tardiness. The construction in this expression is common in
Shakespeare, as 'shady stealth' for 'stealing shadow,' in
_Sonnets_, LXXVII, 7; 'negligent danger' for 'danger from
negligence,' in _Antony and Cleopatra_, III, v, 81.]
[Page 29]
CASSIUS. I will do so: till then, think of the world.
[_Exit_ BRUTUS]
Well, Brutus, thou art noble; yet, I see, 305
Thy honourable metal may be wrought
From that it is dispos'd: therefore it is meet
That noble minds keep ever with their likes;
For who so firm that cannot be seduc'd?
Cæsar doth bear me hard, but he loves Brutus: 310
If I were Brutus now and he were Cassius,
He should not humour me. I will this night,
In several hands, in at his windows throw,
As if they came from several citizens,
Writings, all tending to the great opinion 315
That Rome holds of his name; wherein obscurely
Cæsar's ambition shall be glanced at:
And after this let Cæsar seat him sure;
For we will shake him, or worse days endure. [_Exit_]
[Note 306: /metal/ F3 F4 | mettle F1 | mettall F2.]
[Note 307: /that it is dispos'd:/ that which it is disposed
to. For the omission of prepositions in Shakespeare, see
Abbott, §§ 198-202. Cassius in this speech is chuckling over
the effect his talk has had upon Brutus.]
[Note 310: /bear me hard:/ has a grudge against me. This
remarkable expression occurs three times in this play, but
nowhere else in Shakespeare. Professor Hales quotes an example
of it from Ben Jonson's _Catiline_, IV, v. It seems to have
been borrowed from horsemanship, and to mean 'carries tight
rein,' or 'reins hard,' like one who distrusts his horse. So
before, ll. 35, 36:
You bear too stubborn and too strange a hand
Over your friend that loves you.]
[Note 312: /humour./ To 'humor' a man, as the word is here
used, is to turn and wind and manage him by watching his moods
and crotchets, and to touch him accordingly. It is somewhat in
doubt whether the 'he' in the preceding line refers to Brutus
or to Cæsar. If to Brutus, the meaning of course is: he should
not play upon my humors and fancies as I do upon his. And this
sense is fairly required by the context, for the whole speech
is occupied with the speaker's success in cajoling Brutus, and
with plans for cajoling and shaping him still further. Johnson
refers 'he' to Cæsar.]
[Note 313: /hands:/ handwritings. So the word is used
colloquially to-day.]
[Note 319: We will either shake him, or endure worse days in
suffering the consequences of our attempt.--Shakespeare makes
Cassius overflow with intense personal spite against Cæsar.
This is in accordance with what he read in North's Plutarch.]
[Page 30]
SCENE III. _The same. A street_
_Thunder and lightning. Enter, from opposite sides_, CASCA,
_with his sword drawn, and_ CICERO
CICERO. Good even, Casca: brought you Cæsar home?
Why are you breathless? and why stare you so?
CASCA. Are you not mov'd, when all the sway of earth
Shakes like a thing unfirm? O Cicero,
I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds 5
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;
But never till to-night, never till now,
Did I go through a tempest dropping fire. 10
Either there is a civil strife in heaven,
Or else the world, too saucy with the gods,
Incenses them to send destruction.
[Note: SCENE III Capell | Scene VI Pope.]
[Note: _Enter, from ..._ | Enter Caska, and Cicero Ff.]
[Note 10: /tempest dropping fire/ Rowe | tempest-dropping-fire
Ff.]
[Note: SCENE III. Rowe added "with his sword drawn" to the
Folio stage direction, basing the note on l. 19.
A month has passed since the machinery of the conspiracy was
set in motion. The action in the preceding scene took place on
the day of the Lupercalia; the action in this is on the eve of
the Ides of March.]
[Note 1: /brought:/ accompanied. Cf. _Richard II_, I, iv, 2.]
[Note 3-4: /sway of earth:/ established order. "The balanced
swing of earth."--Craik. "The whole weight or momentum of this
globe."--Johnson. In such a raging of the elements, it seems
as if the whole world were going to pieces, or as if the
earth's steadfastness were growing 'unfirm.' "'Unfirm' is not
firm; while 'infirm' is weak."--Clar.]
[Note 11-13: Either the gods are fighting among themselves, or
else they are making war on the world for being overbearing in
its attitude towards them. For Shakespeare's use of 'saucy,'
see Century.]
[Note 13: /destruction./ Must be pronounced as a
quadrisyllable.]
[Page 31]
CICERO. Why, saw you any thing more wonderful?
[Note 14: /any thing more wonderful./ This may be interpreted
as 'anything that was more wonderful,' or 'anything more that
was wonderful.' The former seems the true interpretation. For
the 'wonderful' things that Casca describes, Shakespeare was
indebted to the following passage from Plutarch's _Julius
Cæsar_, which North in the margin entitles "Predictions and
foreshews of Cæsar's death": "Certainly destiny may easier be
foreseen than avoided, considering the strange and wonderful
signs that were said to be seen before Cæsar's death. For,
touching the fires in the element, and spirits running up and
down in the night, and also the solitary birds to be seen at
noondays sitting in the great market-place, are not all these
signs perhaps worth the noting, in such a wonderful chance as
happened? But Strabo the philosopher writeth, that divers men
were seen going up and down 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 been burnt; but when the fire was out, it was
found he had no hurt. Cæsar self also, doing sacrifice unto
the gods, found that one of the beasts which was sacrificed
had no heart: and that was a strange thing in nature, how a
beast could live without a heart." This passage is worth
special attention, as Shakespeare uses many of the details
again in II, ii, 17-24, 39-40. Cf. _Hamlet_, I, i, 113-125.]
[Page 32]
CASCA. A common slave--you know him well by sight-- 15
Held up his left hand, which did flame and burn
Like twenty torches join'd, and yet his hand,
Not sensible of fire, remain'd unscorch'd.
Besides--I ha' not since put up my sword--
Against the Capitol I met a lion, 20
Who glaz'd upon me and went surly by
Without annoying me: and there were drawn
Upon a heap a hundred ghastly women,
Transformed with their fear, who swore they saw
Men all in fire walk up and down the streets. 25
And yesterday the bird of night did sit
Even at noon-day upon the market-place,
Hooting and shrieking. When these prodigies
Do so conjointly meet, let not men say,
'These are their reasons; they are natural;' 30
For, I believe, they are portentous things
Unto the climate that they point upon.
[Note 21: /glaz'd/ Ff | glar'd Rowe.--/surly/ F1 F4 | surely
F2 F3.]
[Note 28: /Hooting/ Johnson | Howting F1 F2 F3 | Houting F4.]
[Note: 15. /you know./ Dyce suggested 'you'd know'; Craik,
'you knew.' But the text as it stands is dramatically vivid
and realistic.]
[Note 21: /Who./ See Abbott, § 264.--/glaz'd./ Rowe's change
to 'glar'd' is usually adopted as the reading here, but
'glaze' is used intransitively in Middle English in the sense
of 'shine brilliantly,' and Dr. Wright (Clar) says: "I am
informed by a correspondent that the word 'glaze' in the sense
of 'stare' is common in some parts of Devonshire, and that
'glazing like a conger' is a familiar expression in Cornwall."
See Murray for additional examples.]
[Note 23: /Upon a heap:/ together in a crowd. 'Heap' is often
used in this sense in Middle English as it is colloquially
to-day. The Anglo-Saxon _héap_ almost always refers to
persons. In _Richard III_, II, i, 53, occurs "princely heap."
So "Let us on heaps go offer up our lives" in _Henry V_, IV,
v, 18.]
[Note 26: /the bird of night./ The old Roman horror of the owl
is well shown in this passage (spelling modernized) of
Holland's Pliny, quoted by Dr. Wright (Clar): "The screech-owl
betokeneth always some heavy news, and is most execrable ...
in the presages of public affairs.... In sum, he is the very
monster of the night.... There fortuned one of them to enter
the very sanctuary of the Capitol, in that year when Sextus
Papellio Ister and Lucius Pedanius were Consuls; whereupon, at
the Nones of March, the city of Rome that year made general
processions, to appease the wrath of the gods, and was
solemnly purged by sacrifices."]
[Note 30: /These:/ such and such. Cf. "these and these" in II,
i, 31. Casca refers to the doctrine of the Epicureans, who
were slow to believe that such pranks of the elements had any
moral significance in them, or that moral causes had anything
to do with them, and held that the explanation of them was to
be sought for in the simple working of natural laws and
forces. Shakespeare deals humorously with these views in
_All's Well that Ends Well_, II, iii, 1-6.]
[Note 32: /climate:/ region, country. So _Richard II_, IV, i,
130. Cf. _Hamlet_, I, i, 125: "Unto our climatures and
countrymen."]
[Page 33]
CICERO. Indeed, it is a strange-disposed time:
But men may construe things after their fashion,
Clean from the purpose of the things themselves. 35
Comes Cæsar to the Capitol to-morrow?
CASCA. He doth; for he did bid Antonius
Send word to you he would be there to-morrow.
CICERO. Good night then, Casca: this disturbed sky 39
Is not to walk in.
CASCA. Farewell, Cicero. [_Exit_ CICERO]
_Enter_ CASSIUS
CASSIUS. Who's there?
CASCA. A Roman.
CASSIUS. Casca, by your voice.
CASCA. Your ear is good. Cassius, what night is this!
[Note 36: /to/ F1 F2 | up F3 F4.]
[Note 41: Scene VII Pope.]
[Note 42: Two lines in Ff.--/this!/ Dyce this? Ff.]
[Note 35: /Clean:/ quite, completely. From the fourteenth
century to the seventeenth 'clean' was often used in this
sense, usually with verbs of removal and the like, and so it
is still used colloquially. For 'from' without a verb of
motion, see Abbott, § 158.]
[Note 42: /what:/ what a. For the omission of the indefinite
article, common in Shakespeare, see Abbott, § 86. In the
Folios the interrogation mark and the exclamation mark are
often interchanged.]
[Page 34]
CASSIUS. A very pleasing night to honest men.
CASCA. Who ever knew the heavens menace so?
CASSIUS. Those that have known the earth so full of faults.
For my part, I have walk'd about the streets, 46
Submitting me unto the perilous night,
And thus unbraced, Casca, as you see,
Have bar'd my bosom to the thunder-stone:
And when the cross blue lightning seem'd to open 50
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 55
Such dreadful heralds to astonish us.
[Note 50: /blue/ | blew F1.]
[Note 48: /unbraced:/ unbuttoned, with open doublet. For such
anachronisms see note, p. 26, l. 263; also p. 48, l. 73.]
[Note 49: /thunder-stone:/ thunder-bolt. It is still a common
belief in Scotland and Ireland that a stone or bolt falls with
lightning. Cf. _Cymbeline_, IV, ii, 271: "Nor the all-dreaded
thunder-stone."]
[Note 50: /cross:/ zigzag. So in _King Lear_, IV, vii, 33-35:
To stand against the deep, dread-bolted thunder?
In the most terrible and nimble stroke
Of quick, cross lightning?]
[Page 35]
CASSIUS. 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 cast yourself in wonder, 60
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,
Why old men, fools, and children calculate; 65
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 70
Unto some monstrous state.
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, 75
A man no mightier than thyself or me
In personal action, yet prodigious grown,
And fearful, as these strange eruptions are.
[Note 57-60: Five lines in Ff.]
[Note 65: /old men, fools, and/ | Old men, Fooles, and F1 F2 |
Old men, Fools, and F3 F4 | old men fools, and Steevens | old
men fool and White.]
[Note 74: /roars/ | roares F1 | teares F2.]
[Note 60: /cast yourself in:/ throw yourself into a state of.
In previous editions of Hudson's Shakespeare Jervis's
conjecture 'case' for 'cast' was adopted. The change is
unnecessary. Cf. _Cymbeline_, III, ii, 38: "Though forfeiters
you cast in prison."]
[Note 63-68: The construction here is involved, and the
grammar confused, but the meaning is clear enough. The general
idea is that of elements and animals, and even human beings,
acting in a manner out of or against their nature, or changing
their natures and original faculties from the course in which
they were ordained to move, to monstrous or unnatural modes of
action.]
[Note 64: /from quality and kind:/ turn from their disposition
and nature. Emerson and Browning use 'quality' (cf. l. 68) in
this old sense of 'disposition.' 'Kind,' meaning 'nature,' is
common in Shakespeare.]
[Note 65: There seems no necessity for changing the reading of
the Folios. This conjunction of old men, fools, and children
is found in country sayings in England to-day. So in a
Scottish proverb: "Auld fowks, fules, and bairns should never
see wark half dune," White's reading was first suggested by
Mitford.]
[Note 67: /preformed:/ originally created for some special
purpose.]
[Note 71: /monstrous state:/ abnormal condition of things.
'Enormous state' occurs with probably the same general meaning
in _King Lear_, II, ii, 176. 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 hesitate to say what he does not himself
believe.]
[Note 75: This reads as if a lion were kept in the Capitol.
But the meaning probably is that Cæsar roars in the Capitol,
like a lion. Perhaps Cassius has the idea of Cæsar's claiming
or aspiring to be among men what the lion is among beasts. Dr.
Wright suggests that Shakespeare had in mind the lions kept in
the Tower of London, "which there is reason to believe from
indications in the play represented the Capitol to
Shakespeare's mind." It is possible, too, that we have here a
reference to the lion described by Casca in ll. 20-22.]
[Note 77: /prodigious:/ portentous. As in _A Midsummer Night's
Dream_, V, i, 419: "Never mole, hare lip, nor scar, Nor mark
prodigious."]
[Page 36]
CASCA. 'Tis Cæsar that you mean, is it not, Cassius?
CASSIUS. Let it be who it is; for Romans now 80
Have thews and limbs like to their ancestors;
But, woe the while! our fathers' minds are dead,
And we are govern'd with our mothers' spirits;
Our yoke and sufferance show us womanish.
CASCA. Indeed, they say the senators to-morrow 85
Mean to establish Cæsar as a king;
And he shall wear his crown by sea and land,
In every place save here in Italy.
[Note 79: Two lines in Ff.]
[Note 81: /thews/ | Thewes F1 F2 | Sinews F3 F4.]
[Note 80: /Let it be who it is:/ "no matter who it
is."--Clar.]
[Note 81: /thews:/ muscles. So in _Hamlet_, I, iii, 12, and _2
Henry IV_, III, ii, 276. In Chaucer and Middle English the
word means 'manners,' though in Layamon's _Brut_ (l. 6361), in
the singular, it seems to mean 'sinew' or 'strength.' See
Skeat for a suggestive discussion.]
[Note 83: /with:/ by. So in III, ii, 196. See Abbott, § 193.]
[Page 37]
CASSIUS. I know where I will wear this dagger then;
Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius. 90
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; 95
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. [_Thunder still_]
CASCA. So can I: 100
So every bondman in his own hand bears
The power to cancel his captivity.
CASSIUS. And why should Cæsar be a tyrant then?
Poor man! I know he would not be a wolf,
But that he sees the Romans are but sheep: 105
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 110
So vile a thing as Cæsar! 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. 115
[Note 95: Can repress by force man's energy of soul.]
[Note 101: /bondman./ The word 'cancel' in the next line shows
that Casca plays on the two senses of 'bond.' Cf. _Cymbeline_,
V, iv, 28.]
[Note 107-108: The idea seems to be that, as men start a huge
fire with worthless straws or shavings, so Cæsar is using the
degenerate Romans of the time to set the whole world a-blaze
with his own glory. Cassius's enthusiastic hatred of "the
mightiest Julius" is irresistibly delightful. For a good hater
is the next best thing to a true friend; and Cassius's honest
gushing malice is surely better than Brutus's stabbing
sentimentalism.]
[Note 112-115: The meaning is, Perhaps you will go and tell
Cæsar all I have said about him, and then he will call me to
account for it. Very well; go tell him; and let him do his
worst. I care not.]
[Page 38]
CASCA. You speak to Casca, and to such a man
That is no fleering tell-tale. Hold, my hand:
Be factious for redress of all these griefs,
And I will set this foot of mine as far
As who goes farthest.
CASSIUS. There's a bargain made. 120
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 125
In Pompey's porch: for now, this fearful night,
There is no stir or walking in the streets,
And the complexion of the element
In favour's like the work we have in hand,
Most bloody, fiery, and most terrible. 130
[Note 129: /In favour's like/ Camb | In favour's, like Johnson
| Is Favors, like F1 F2 | Is Favours, like F3 F4 | Is favour'd
like Capell | Is feav'rous, like Rowe.]
[Note 130: /bloody, fiery/ | bloodie, fierie Ff | bloody-fiery
Dyce.]
[Note 117: /Fleering./ This word of Scandinavian origin seems
to unite the senses of 'grinning,' 'flattering' (see _Love's
Labour's Lost_, V, ii, 109, and Ben Jonson's "fawn and fleer"
in _Volpone_, III, i, 20), and 'sneering,' and so is just the
right epithet for a telltale, who flatters you into saying
that of another which you ought not to say, and then mocks you
by going to that other and telling what you have said.--/Hold,
my hand:/ stay! here is my hand. As men clasp hands in sealing
a bargain. In Rowe's text the comma is omitted.]
[Note 118: /Be factious:/ be active. Or it may mean, 'form a
party,' 'join a conspiracy.'--/griefs:/ grievances. The effect
put for the cause. A common Shakespearian metonymy. Cf. III,
ii, 211; IV, ii, 42, 46.]
[Note 123: /undergo:/ undertake. So in _2 Henry IV_, I, iii,
54; _The Winter's Tale_, II, iii, 164; IV, iv, 554.]
[Note 125: /by this:/ by this time. So in _King Lear_, IV, vi,
45.]
[Note 126: /Pompey's porch./ This was a spacious adjunct to
the huge theater that Pompey had
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