[Page 43]

BRUTUS. It must be by his death: and, for my part, 10 I know no personal cause to spurn at him, But for the general. He would be crown'd: How that might change his nature, there's the question. It is the bright day that brings forth the adder, And that craves wary walking. Crown him?—that;— 15 And then, I grant, we put a sting in him, That at his will he may do danger with. Th' abuse of greatness is when it disjoins Remorse from power; and, to speak truth of Caesar, I have not known when his affections sway'd 20 More than his reason. But 'tis a common proof, That lowliness is young ambition's ladder, Whereto the climber upward turns his face; But when he once attains the upmost round, He then unto the ladder turns his back, 25 Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees By which he did ascend. So Caesar may; Then, lest he may, prevent. And, since the quarrel Will bear no colour for the thing he is, Fashion it thus; that what he is, augmented, 30 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.

[Note 15: /him? that;/ Camb Globe him that, Ff him that Rowe.]

[Note 23: /climber upward/ Ff climber-upward Warburton.]

[Note 28: /lest/ F2 F3 F4 least F1.]

[Note 10: Brutus has been casting about on all sides to find some means to prevent Caesar's being king, and here admits that it can be done only by killing him. Thus the soliloquy opens in just the right way to throw us back upon his antecedent meditations. In expression and in feeling it anticipates Hamlet, III, i, 56-88. From now onwards the speeches of Brutus strangely adumbrate those of Hamlet.]

[Note 12: /the general/: the general public, the community at large. Cf. Hamlet, II, ii, 457, "pleas'd not the million; 't was caviare to the general." See III, ii, 89, and V, v, 71-72.]

[Note 14: The sunshine of royalty will kindle the serpent in Caesar. The figure in 32-34 suggests that 'bring forth' may here mean 'hatch.']

[Note 17: /do danger with/: do mischief with, prove dangerous. Cf. Romeo and Juliet, V, ii, 20: "neglecting it May do much danger."]

[Note 19: /Remorse./ Constantly in Shakespeare 'remorse' is used for 'pity' or 'compassion.' Here it seems to mean something more, 'conscience,' 'conscientiousness.' So in Othello, III, iii, 468:

Let him command, And to obey shall be in me remorse, What bloody business ever.

The possession of dictatorial power is apt to stifle or sear the conscience, so as to make a man literally remorseless.]

[Note 20: /affections sway'd/ passions (inclinations) governed.]

[Note 21: /proof:/ experience. So in Twelfth Night, III, i, 135.]

[Note 23: Warburton put a hyphen between 'climber' and 'upward.' Delius, however, would connect 'upward' with 'whereto' and 'turns.']

[Note 26: /base degrees/: lower steps. 'Degrees' is here used in its original, literal sense for the rounds, or steps, of the ladder.]

[Note 28: /prevent/: anticipate.—/quarrel/: cause of complaint.]

[Note 29-34: /colour/: pretext, plausible appearance. The general meaning of this somewhat obscure passage is, Since we have no show or pretext of a cause, no assignable ground or apparent ground of complaint, against Caesar, in what he is, or in anything he has yet done, let us assume that the further addition of a crown will quite upset his nature, and metamorphose him into a serpent. The strain of casuistry used in this speech is very remarkable. Coleridge found it perplexing. On the supposition that Shakespeare meant Brutus for a wise and good man, the speech seems unintelligible. But Shakespeare must have regarded him simply as a well-meaning but conceited and shallow idealist; and such men are always cheating and puffing themselves with the thinnest of sophisms, feeding on air and conceiving themselves inspired, or "mistaking the giddiness of the head for the illumination of the Spirit."]

[Page 44-45]

Re-enter LUCIUS

LUCIUS. The taper burneth in your closet, sir. 35 Searching the window for a flint, I found This paper, thus seal'd up; and I am sure It did not lie there when I went to bed.

[Gives him the letter]

BRUTUS. Get you to bed again; it is not day. Is not to-morrow, boy, the first of March? 40

LUCIUS. I know not, sir.

BRUTUS. Look in the calendar, and bring me word.

LUCIUS. I will, sir. [Exit]

BRUTUS. The exhalations whizzing in the air Give so much light that I may read by them. 45

[Opens the letter and reads]

Brutus, thou sleep'st: awake, and see thyself. Shall Rome, etc. Speak, strike, redress! Brutus, thou sleep'st: awake!

Such instigations have been often dropp'd Where I have took them up. 50 'Shall Rome, etc.' Thus must I piece it out: Shall Rome stand under one man's awe? What, Rome? My ancestors did from the streets of Rome The Tarquin drive, when he was call'd a king. 'Speak, strike, redress!' Am I entreated 55 To speak and strike? O Rome, I make thee promise, If the redress will follow, thou receivest Thy full petition at the hand of Brutus!

[Note 35, 59, 70: Re-enter Enter Ff.]

[Note 40: /first/ Ff Ides Theobald.]

[Note 49: /dropp'd/ dropt, F1 F2.]

[Note 52: /What, Rome?/ Rowe What Rome Ff.]

[Note 53: /ancestors/ Ff ancestor Dyce.]

[Note 56: /thee/ F1 F4 the F2 F3.]

[Note 40: The Folio reading 'first of March' cannot be right chronologically, though it is undoubtedly what Shakespeare wrote, for in Plutarch, Marcus Brutus, he read: "Cassius asked him if he were determined to be in the Senate-house the first day of the month of March, because he heard say that Caesar's friends should move the Council that day that Caesar should be called king by the Senate." This inconsistency is not without parallels in Shakespeare. Cf. the "four strangers" in The Merchant of Venice, I, ii, 135, when six have been mentioned. In Scott, too, are many such inconsistencies.]

[Note 44: /exhalations/: meteors. In Plutarch's Opinions of Philosophers, Holland's translation, is this passage (spelling modernized): "Aristotle supposeth that all these meteors come of a dry exhalation, which, being gotten enclosed within a moist cloud, seeketh means, and striveth forcibly to get forth." Shakespeare uses 'meteor' repeatedly in the same way. So in Romeo and Juliet, III, v, 13.]

[Note 48: The Folios give this line as it is here. Some editors arrange it as the beginning of the letter repeated ponderingly by Brutus.]

[Note 49-50: See quotation from Plutarch in note, p. 40, l. 143.]

[Page 46-47]

Re-enter LUCIUS

LUCIUS. Sir, March is wasted fifteen days.

[Knocking within]

BRUTUS. 'T is good. Go to the gate; somebody knocks.

[Exit LUCIUS]

Since Cassius first did whet me against Caesar, 61 I have not slept. Between the acting of a dreadful thing And the first motion, all the interim is Like a phantasma or a hideous dream: 65 The Genius and the mortal instruments Are then in council; and the state of a man, Like to a little kingdom, suffers then The nature of an insurrection.

[Note 59: /fifteen/ Ff fourteen Theobald.]

[Note 60, 76: [Exit LUCIUS] Ff omit.]

[Note 67: /a man/ F1 man F2 F3 F4.]

[Note 59: /fifteen./ This, the Folio reading, is undoubtedly correct. Lines 103-104 and 192-193 show that it is past midnight, and Lucius is including in his computation the dawn of the fifteenth day, a natural thing for any one to do, especially a Roman.]

[Note 64: /motion/: prompting of impulse. Cf. King John, IV, ii, 255.]

[Note 65: /phantasma/: a vision of things that are not. "Shakespeare seems to use it ('phantasma') in this passage in the sense of nightmare, which it bears in Italian."—Clar. What Brutus says here is in the very spirit of Hamlet's speeches. Cf. also the King's speech to Laertes, Hamlet, IV, vii, 115-124, and Macbeth, I, vii, 1-28.]

[Note 66: Commentators differ about 'Genius' here; some taking it for the 'conscience,' others for the 'anti-conscience.' Shakespeare uses 'genius,' 'spirit,' and 'demon,' as synonymous, and all three, apparently, both in a good sense and in a bad, as every man was supposed to have a good and a bad angel. So, in this play, IV, iii, 282, we have "thy evil spirit"; in The Tempest, IV, i, 27, "our worser genius"; in Troilus and Cressida, IV, iv, 52, "some say the Genius so Cries 'come' to him that instantly must die"; in Antony and Cleopatra, II, iii, 19, "Thy demon, that's thy spirit which keeps thee"; where, as often, 'keeps' is 'guards.' In these and some other cases the words have some epithet or context that determines their meaning, but not so with 'Genius' in the text. But, in all such cases, the words indicate the directive power of the mind. And so we often speak of a man's 'better self,' or a man's 'worser self,' according as one is in fact directed or drawn to good or to evil.—The sense of 'mortal' here is also somewhat in question. Shakespeare sometimes uses it for 'perishable,' or that which dies; but oftener for 'deadly,' or that which kills. 'Mortal instruments' may well be held to mean what Macbeth refers to when he says, "I'm settled, and bend up Each corporal agent to this terrible feat."—As Brutus is speaking with reference to his own case, he probably intends 'Genius' in a good sense, for the spiritual or immortal part of himself. If so, then he would naturally mean by 'mortal' his perishable part, or his ministerial faculties, which shrink from executing what the directing power is urging them to. The late Professor Ferrier of St. Andrews seems to take a somewhat different view of the passage. He says, "In this speech of Brutus, Shakespeare gives a fine description of the unsettled state of the mind when the will is hesitating about the perpetration of a great crime, and when the passions are threatening to overpower, and eventually do overpower, the reason and the conscience."]

[Note 67-69: Cf. I, ii, 39-47; Macbeth, I, iii, 137-142.]

[Page 48]

Re-enter LUCIUS

LUCIUS. Sir, 't is your brother Cassius at the door, 70 Who doth desire to see you.

BRUTUS. Is he alone?

LUCIUS. No, sir, there are moe with him.

BRUTUS. Do you know them?

LUCIUS. No, sir; their hats are pluck'd about their ears, And half their faces buried in their cloaks, That by no means I may discover them 75 By any mark of favour.

BRUTUS. Let 'em enter. [Exit LUCIUS] They are the faction. O conspiracy, Sham'st thou to show thy dangerous brow by night, When evils are most free? O, then, by day Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough 80 To mask thy monstrous visage? Seek none, conspiracy; Hide it in smiles and affability: For if thou path, thy native semblance on, Not Erebus itself were dim enough To hide thee from prevention. 85

[Note 72: /moe/ Ff more Rowe.]

[Note 74: /cloaks/ Cloakes F1 cloathes F2 cloaths F3 F4.]

[Note 76: /'em/ F1 F2 F3 them F4.]

[Note 83: /path, thy/ F2 path thy F1 F3 F4 hath thy Quarto (1691) march, thy Pope put thy Dyce (Coleridge conj.).]

[Note 70: /brother./ Cassius was married to Junia, the sister of Brutus.]

[Note 72: /moe/: more. The old comparative of 'many.' In Middle English 'moe,' or 'mo,' was used of number and with collective nouns; 'more' had reference specifically to size. See Skeat.]

[Note 73: Pope was evidently so disgusted with Shakespeare's tendency to dress his Romans like Elizabethans, that in his two editions he omits 'hats' altogether, indicating the omission by a dash!]

[Note 76: /favour/: countenance. So in I, ii, 91; I, iii, 129.]

[Note 79: /evils/: evil things. So in Lucrece, l. 1250, we have 'cave-keeping evils.' The line in the text means, When crimes and mischiefs, and evil and mischievous men, are most free from the restraints of law or of shame. So Hamlet speaks of night as the time "when hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world." Cf. l. 265.]

[Note 83: /path:/ take thy way. Drayton employs 'path' as a verb, both transitively and intransitively, literally and figuratively, in England's Heroicall Epistles (1597-1598). The verb seems to have been in use from the fourteenth century to the close of the seventeenth.]

[Note 84: /Erebus:/ the region of nether darkness between Earth and Hades. Cf. The Merchant of Venice, V, i, 87: "dark as Erebus."]

[Note 85: /prevention:/ discovery, anticipation. This, the original sense, would lead to 'prevention,' as the term is used to-day.]

[Page 49]

Enter the conspirators, CASSIUS, CASCA, DECIUS, CINNA, METELLUS CIMBER, and TREBONIUS.

CASSIUS. I think we are too bold upon your rest: Good morrow, Brutus; do we trouble you?

BRUTUS. I have been up this hour, awake all night. Know I these men that come along with you?

CASSIUS. Yes, every man of them; and no man here 90 But honours you; and every one doth wish You had but that opinion of yourself Which every noble Roman bears of you. This is Trebonius.

BRUTUS. He is welcome hither.

CASSIUS. This, Decius Brutus.

BRUTUS. He is welcome too. 95

CASSIUS. This, Casca; this, Cinna; and this, Metellus Cimber.

[Note 86: Scene II Pope.]

[Note 95: /Decius Brutus./ See notes, Dramatis Personae, and p. 40, l. 148.]

[Page 50]

BRUTUS. They are all welcome. What watchful cares do interpose themselves Betwixt your eyes and night? 99

CASSIUS. Shall I entreat a word? [They whisper]

DECIUS. Here lies the east: doth not the day break here?

CASCA. No.

CINNA. O, pardon, sir, it doth; and yon gray lines That fret the clouds are messengers of day.

CASCA. You shall confess that you are both deceiv'd. 105 Here, as I point my sword, the sun arises, Which is a great way growing on the south, Weighing the youthful season of the year. Some two months hence up higher toward the north He first presents his fire, and the high east 110 Stands, as the Capitol, directly here.

BRUTUS. Give me your hands all over, one by one.

CASSIUS. And let us swear our resolution.

[Note 101-111: This little side-talk on a theme so different from the main one of the scene, is finely conceived, and aptly marks the men as seeking to divert anxious thoughts of the moment by any casual chat. It also serves the double purpose of showing that they are not listening, and of preventing suspicion if any were listening to them. In itself it is thoroughly Shakespearian; and the description of the dawn-light flecking the clouds takes high place among Shakespeare's great sky pictures.]

[Note 104: /fret:/ "mark with interlacing lines like fretwork."—Clar. There are two distinct verbs spelled 'fret,' one meaning 'to eat away,' the other 'to ornament.' See Skeat. In Hamlet, II, ii, 313, we have "this majestical roof fretted with golden fire."]

[Note 107: /growing on:/ encroaching upon, tending towards.]

[Note 108: /Weighing:/ if you take into consideration.]

[Note 110: /high:/ full, perfect. Cf. 'high day,' 'high noon,' etc.]

[Note 112: /all over:/ one after the other until all have been included.]

[Page 51-52]

BRUTUS. No, not an oath: if not the face of men, The sufferance of our souls, the time's abuse,— 115 If these be motives weak, break off betimes, And every man hence to his idle bed; So let high-sighted tyranny range on, Till each man drop by lottery. But if these, As I am sure they do, bear fire enough 120 To kindle cowards and to steel with valour The melting spirits of women, then, countrymen, What need we any spur but our own cause To prick us to redress? what other bond Than secret Romans, that have spoke the word, 125 And will not palter? and what other oath Than honesty to honesty engag'd, That this shall be, or we will fall for it? Swear priests and cowards and men cautelous, Old feeble carrions and such suffering souls 130 That welcome wrongs; unto bad causes swear Such creatures as men doubt; but do not stain The even virtue of our enterprise, Nor th' insuppressive mettle of our spirits, To think that or our cause or our performance 135 Did need an oath; when every drop of blood That every Roman bears, and nobly bears, Is guilty of a several bastardy, If he do break the smallest particle Of any promise that hath pass'd from him. 140

CASSIUS. But what of Cicero? shall we sound him? I think he will stand very strong with us.

[Note 114: /No, not an oath./ This is based on Plutarch's statement in Marcus Brutus: "Furthermore, the only name and great calling of Brutus did bring on the most of them to give consent to this conspiracy: who having never taken oaths together, nor taken or given any caution or assurance, nor binding themselves one to another by any religious oaths, they all kept the matter so secret to themselves, and could so cunningly handle it, that notwithstanding the gods did reveal it by manifest signs and tokens from above, and by predictions of sacrifices, yet all this would not be believed."—/if not the face of men./ This means, probably, the shame and self-reproach with which Romans must now look each other in the face under the consciousness of having fallen away from the republican spirit of their forefathers. The change in the construction of the sentence gives it a more colloquial cast, without causing any real obscurity. Modern editors have offered strange substitutes for 'face' here,—'faith,' 'faiths,' 'fate,' 'fears,' 'yoke,' etc.]

[Note 115: /sufferance:/ suffering. So in Measure for Measure, III, i, 80; Coriolanus, I, i, 22. In I, iii, 84, 'sufferance' is used in its ordinary modern sense.—/the time's abuse:/ the miserable condition of things in the present. Such 'time's abuse' in his own day Shakespeare describes in detail in Sonnets, LXVI.]

[Note 118-119: Brutus seems to have in mind the capriciousness of a high-looking and heaven-daring Oriental tyranny, where men's lives hung upon the nod and whim of the tyrant, as on the hazards of a lottery.]

[Note 123: /What need we:/ why need we. So in Antony and Cleopatra, V, ii, 317; Titus Andronicus, I, i, 189. Cf. Mark, xiv, 63.]

[Note 125: /secret Romans:/ Romans who had promised secrecy.]

[Note 126: /palter:/ equivocate, quibble. The idea is of shuffling as in making a promise with what is called a "mental reservation." "Palter with us in a double sense" is the famous expression in Macbeth, V, viii, 20, and it brings out clearly the meaning implicit in the term.]

[Note 129: /cautelous:/ deceitful. The original meaning is 'wary,' 'circumspect.' It is the older English adjective for 'cautious.' "The transition from caution to suspicion, and from suspicion to craft and deceit, is not very abrupt."—Clar. Cf. 'cautel' in Hamlet, I, iii, 5.]

[Note 130: /carrions:/ carcasses, men as good as dead.]

[Note 133: /The even virtue:/ the virtue that holds an equable and uniform tenor, always keeping the same high level. Cf. Henry VIII, III, i, 37.]

[Note 134: /insuppressive:/ not to be suppressed. The active form with the passive sense. Cf. 'unexpressive,' in As You Like It, III, ii, 10.]

[Note 135: /To think:/ by thinking. The infinitive used gerundively.]

[Page 53]

CASCA. Let us not leave him out.

CINNA. No, by no means.

METELLUS. O, let us have him, for his silver hairs Will purchase us a good opinion, 145 And buy men's voices to commend our deeds: It shall be said, his judgment rul'd our hands; Our youths and wildness shall no whit appear, But all be buried in his gravity.

BRUTUS. O, name him not; let us not break with him, For he will never follow any thing 151 That other men begin.

CASSIUS. Then leave him out.

CASCA. Indeed he is not fit.

DECIUS. Shall no man else be touch'd but only Caesar?

[Note 145: /opinion:/ reputation. So in The Merchant of Venice, I, i, 91.]

[Note 150: /break with him:/ broach the matter to him. This bit of dialogue is very charming. Brutus knows full well that Cicero is not the man to take a subordinate position; that if he have anything to do with the enterprise it must be as the leader of it; and that is just what Brutus wants to be himself. Merivale thinks it a great honor to Cicero that the conspirators did not venture to propose the matter to him. In Plutarch, Marcus Brutus, the attitude of the conspirators to Cicero is described thus: "For this cause they durst not acquaint Cicero with their conspiracy, although he was a man whom they loved dearly and trusted best; for they were afraid that he, being a coward by nature, and age also having increased his fear, he would quite turn and alter all their purpose, and quench the heat of their enterprise (the which specially required hot and earnest execution), seeking by persuasion to bring all things to such safety, as there should be no peril."]

[Page 54]

CASSIUS. Decius, well urg'd: I think it is not meet, 155 Mark Antony, so well belov'd of Caesar, Should outlive Caesar: we shall find of him A shrewd contriver; and, you know, his means, If he improve them, may well stretch so far As to annoy us all; which to prevent, 160 Let Antony and Caesar fall together.

BRUTUS. Our course will seem too bloody, Caius Cassius, To cut the head off and then hack the limbs, Like wrath in death and envy afterwards; For Antony is but a limb of Caesar. 165 Let's be sacrificers, but not butchers, Caius. We all stand up against the spirit of Caesar, And in the spirit of men there is no blood: O, that we then could come by Caesar's spirit, And not dismember Caesar! But, alas, 170 Caesar must bleed for it! And, gentle friends, Let's kill him boldly, but not wrathfully; Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods, Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds: And let our hearts, as subtle masters do, 175 Stir up their servants to an act of rage, And after seem to chide 'em. This shall make Our purpose necessary and not envious; Which so appearing to the common eyes, We shall be call'd purgers, not murderers. 180

[Note 166: /Let's/ Ff Let us Theobald.]

[Note 168: /men/ Ff man Pope.]

[Note 169: /spirit/ F1 spirits F2 F3 F4.]

[Note 177: /'em/ F1 F2 F3 them F4.]

[Note 157: /of him:/ in him. The "appositional genitive." See Abbott, Sect. 172.]

[Note 164: /envy:/ malice. Commonly so in Shakespeare, as in The Merchant of Venice, IV, i, 10. So 'envious' in the sense of 'malicious' in l. 178.]

[Note 175-177: So the king proceeds with Hubert in King John. And so men often proceed when they wish to have a thing done, and to shirk the responsibility; setting it on by dark hints and allusions, and then, after it is done, affecting to blame or to scold the doers of it.]

[Note 180: /purgers:/ healers, cleansers of the land from tyranny.]

[Page 55]

And for Mark Antony, think not of him; For he can do no more than Caesar's arm When Caesar's head is off.

CASSIUS. Yet I fear him, For in the ingrafted love he bears to Caesar—

BRUTUS. Alas, good Cassius, do not think of him: 185 If he love Caesar, all that he can do Is to himself, take thought and die for Caesar: And that were much he should, for he is given To sports, to wildness, and much company. 189

TREBONIUS. There is no fear in him; let him not die; For he will live, and laugh at this hereafter. [Clock strikes]

BRUTUS. Peace! count the clock.

CASSIUS. The clock hath stricken three.

TREBONIUS. 'Tis time to part.

[Note 187: 'Think and die,' as in Antony and Cleopatra, III, xiii, 1, seems to have been a proverbial expression meaning 'grieve oneself to death'; and it would be much indeed, a very wonderful thing, if Antony should fall into any killing sorrow, such a light-hearted, jolly companion as he is. Cf. Hamlet, III, i, 85. 'Thoughtful' (sometimes in the form 'thoughtish') is a common provincial expression for 'melancholy' in Cumberland and Roxburghshire to-day.]

[Note 188-189: Here is Plutarch's account in Marcus Antonius, of contemporary criticism of Antony's habits: "And on the other side, the noblemen (as Cicero saith), did not only mislike him, but also hate him for his naughty life: for they did abhor his banquets and drunken feasts he made at unseasonable times, and his extreme wasteful expenses upon vain light huswives; and then in the daytime he would sleep or walk out his drunkenness, thinking to wear away the fume of the abundance of wine which he had taken over night."]

[Note 190: /no fear:/ no cause of fear. Cf. The Merchant of Venice, II, i, 9.]

[Note 192: /stricken./ In II, ii, 114, we have the form 'strucken.' An interesting anachronism is this matter of a striking clock in old Rome.]

[Page 56]

CASSIUS. But it is doubtful yet Whether Caesar will come forth to-day or no; For he is superstitious grown of late, 195 Quite from the main opinion he held once Of fantasy, of dreams, and ceremonies: It may be these apparent prodigies, The unaccustom'd terror of this night, And the persuasion of his augurers, 200 May hold him from the Capitol to-day.

[Note 194: /Whether./ So in the Folios. Cf. the form 'where' in I, i, 63.]

[Note 196: For 'from' without a verb of motion see Abbott, Sect. 158. 'Main' is often found in sixteenth century literature in the sense of 'great,' 'strong,' 'mighty.' Caesar was, in his philosophy, an Epicurean, like most of the educated Romans of the time. Hence he was, in opinion, strongly skeptical about dreams and ceremonial auguries. But his conduct, especially in his later years, was characterized by many gross instances of superstitious practice.]

[Note 198: /apparent prodigies:/ evident portents. 'Apparent' in this sense of 'plainly manifest,' and so 'undeniable,' is found more than once in Shakespeare. Cf. King John, IV, ii, 93; Richard II, I, i, 13.]

[Page 57]

DECIUS. Never fear that: if he be so resolv'd, I can o'ersway him; for he loves to hear That unicorns may be betray'd with trees, And bears with glasses, elephants with holes, 205 Lions with toils, and men with flatterers: But when I tell him he hates flatterers, He says he does, being then most flattered. Let me work; For I can give his humour the true bent, 210 And I will bring him to the Capitol.

CASSIUS. Nay, we will all of us be there to fetch him.

BRUTUS. By the eighth hour; is that the uttermost?

CINNA. Be that the uttermost, and fail not then.

METELLUS. Caius Ligarius doth bear Caesar hard, 215 Who rated him for speaking well of Pompey: I wonder none of you have thought of him.

[Note 213: /eighth/ F4 eight F1 F2 F3.]

[Note 215: /hard/ F1 hatred F2 F3 F4.]

[Note 204: So in Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II, v, 10:

Like as a Lyon, whose imperiall powre A prowd rebellious Unicorn defyes, T' avoide the rash assault and wrathful stowre Of his fiers foe, him to a tree applyes, And when him ronning in full course he spyes, He slips aside; the whiles that furious beast His precious home sought of his enimyes, Strikes in the stocke ne thence can be releast, But to the mighty victor yields a bounteous feast.]

[Note 205: Bears are said to have been caught by putting looking-glasses in their way; they being so taken with the images of themselves that the hunters could easily master them. Elephants were beguiled into pitfalls, lightly covered over with hurdles and turf.]

[Note 206: /toils:/ nets, snares. The root idea of the word is a 'thing woven' (Cf. Spenser's 'welwoven toyles' in Astrophel, xvii, 1), and while it seems to have primary reference to a web or cord spread for taking prey, the old Fr. toile sometimes means a 'stalking-horse of painted canvas.' Shakespeare uses the word several times. Cf. Antony and Cleopatra, V, ii, 351; Hamlet, III, ii, 362.]

[Note 215: /doth bear Caesar hard./ For a discussion of this interesting expression see note, p. 29, l. 310. "Now amongst Pompey's friends there was one called Caius Ligarius, who had been accused unto Caesar for taking part with Pompey, and Caesar discharged him. But Ligarius thanked not Caesar so much for his discharge, as he was offended with him for that he was brought in danger by his tyrannical power: and therefore in his heart he was always his mortal enemy, and was besides very familiar with Brutus, who went to see him being sick in his bed, and said unto him: 'Ligarius, in what a time art thou sick?' Ligarius, rising up in his bed, and taking him by the right hand, said unto him: 'Brutus,' said he, 'if thou hast any great enterprise in hand, worthy of thyself, I am whole.'"—Plutarch, Marcus Brutus.]

[Page 58]

BRUTUS. Now, good Metellus, go along by him: He loves me well, and I have given him reasons; Send him but hither, and I'll fashion him. 220

CASSIUS. The morning comes upon 's: we'll leave you, Brutus: And, friends, disperse yourselves; but all remember What you have said, and show yourselves true Romans.

BRUTUS. Good gentlemen, look fresh and merrily; Let not our looks put on our purposes; 225 But bear it as our Roman actors do, With untir'd spirits and formal constancy: And so, good morrow to you every one. [Exeunt all but BRUTUS] Boy! Lucius! Fast asleep? It is no matter; Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber: 230 Thou hast no figures nor no fantasies, Which busy care draws in the brains of men; Therefore thou sleep'st so sound.

[Note 221: Two lines in Ff.]

[Note 228: [Exeunt ...] Exeunt. Manet Brutus Ff.]

[Note 230: /honey-heavy dew/ hony-heavy-Dew Ff honey heavy dew Johnson heavy honey-dew Collier.]

[Note 218: /by him:/ by his house. Make your way home that way.]

[Note 225: Let not our looks betray our purposes by wearing, or being attired with, any indication of them. Cf. Macbeth, I, vii, 81.]

[Note 230: The compound epithet, 'honey-heavy,' is very expressive and apt. The 'dew of slumber' is called 'heavy' because it makes the subject feel heavy, and 'honey-heavy,' because the heaviness it induces is sweet. But there may be a reference to the old belief that the bee gathered its honey from falling dew. So in Vergil's Georgics, IV, i, we have "the heavenly gifts of honey born in air." Brutus is naturally led to contrast the free and easy state of the boy's mind with that of his own, which the excitement of his present undertaking is drawing full of visions and images of trouble.]

[Page 59]

Enter PORTIA

PORTIA. Brutus, my lord!

BRUTUS. Portia, what mean you? wherefore rise you now? It is not for your health thus to commit 235 Your weak condition to the raw cold morning.

PORTIA. Nor for yours neither. You've ungently, Brutus, Stole from my bed: and yesternight at supper You suddenly arose, and walk'd about, Musing and sighing, with your arms across; 240 And when I ask'd you what the matter was, You star'd upon me with ungentle looks: I urg'd you further; then you scratch'd your head, And too impatiently stamp'd with your foot: Yet I insisted, yet you answer'd not, 245 But with an angry wafture of your hand Gave sign for me to leave you. So I did, Fearing to strengthen that impatience Which seem'd too much enkindled, and withal Hoping it was but an effect of humour, 250 Which sometime hath his hour with every man. It will not let you eat, nor talk, nor sleep, And, could it work so much upon your shape As it hath much prevail'd on your condition, I should not know you, Brutus. Dear my lord, 255 Make me acquainted with your cause of grief.

[Note 233: Scene III Pope.]

[Note 237: /You've/ Rowe Y' have Ff.]

[Note 239: /suddenly/ sodainly Ff.]

[Note 246: /wafture/ Rowe wafter Ff.]

[Note 255: /you, Brutus/ F4 you Brutus F1 F2 F3.]

[Note 233: Similarities and differences between this scene with Brutus and Portia and that between Hotspur and his wife in 1 King Henry IV, II, iii, will prove a suggestive study. The description of the development of Portia's suspicion here is taken directly from Plutarch. "Out of his house he (Brutus) did so frame and fashion his countenance and looks that no man could discern he had anything to trouble his mind. But when night came that he was in his own house, then he was clean changed: for either care did wake him against his will when he would have slept, or else oftentimes of himself he fell into such deep thoughts of this enterprise, casting in his mind all the dangers that might happen: that his wife, lying by him, found that there was some marvellous great matter that troubled his mind, not being wont to be in that taking, and that he could not well determine with himself."—Plutarch, Marcus Brutus.]

[Note 237: Double negatives abound in Shakespeare. See Abbott, Sect. 406.]

[Note 250: /humour:/ moody caprice. The word comes to have this meaning from the theory of the old physiologists that four cardinal humors—blood, choler or yellow bile, phlegm, and melancholy or black bile—determine, by their conditions and proportions, a person's physical and mental qualities. The influence of this theory survives in the application of the terms 'sanguine,' 'choleric,' 'phlegmatic,' and 'melancholy' to disposition and temperament.]

[Note 254: /condition:/ disposition, temper. So in The Merchant of Venice, I, ii, 143: "If he have the condition of a saint and the complexion of a devil, I had rather he should shrive me than wive me." Cf. the term 'ill-conditioned,' still in use to describe an irascible or quarrelsome disposition. In l. 236 'condition' refers to bodily health.]

[Note 255: /Dear my lord./ This transposition, common in earnest address, is due to close association of possessive adjective and noun.]

[Page 60]

BRUTUS. I am not well in health, and that is all.

PORTIA. Brutus is wise, and, were he not in health, He would embrace the means to come by it.

BRUTUS. Why, so I do. Good Portia, go to bed. 260

[Page 61]

PORTIA. Is Brutus sick? and is it physical To walk unbraced and suck up the humours Of the dank morning? What, is Brutus sick, And will he steal out of his wholesome bed, To dare the vile contagion of the night, 265 And tempt the rheumy and unpurged air To add unto his sickness? No, my Brutus; You have some sick offence within your mind, Which by the right and virtue of my place I ought to know of: and, upon my knees, 270 I charm you, by my once-commended beauty, By all your vows of love and that great vow Which did incorporate and make us one, That you unfold to me, yourself, your half, Why you are heavy, and what men to-night 275 Have had resort to you; for here have been Some six or seven, who did hide their faces Even from darkness.

[Note 263: /dank/ danke F1 darke F2 dark F3 F4.]

[Note 267: /his/ hit F1]

[Note 271: /charm/ F3 F4 charme F1 F2 charge Pope.]

[Note 261: /physical:/ wholesome, salutary. Cf. Coriolanus, I, v, 19.]

[Note 266: 'Rheumy' here means that state of the air which causes the unhealthy issue of 'rheum,' a word which was specially used of the fluids that issue from the eyes or mouth. So in Hamlet, II, ii, 529, we have 'bisson rheum' for 'blinding tears.' So in A Midsummer Night's Dream, II, i, 105, Titania speaks of the moon as washing "all the air, That rheumatic diseases do abound."]

[Note 271: /charm:/ conjure, appeal by charms. So in Lucrece, l. 1681.]

[Page 62]

BRUTUS. Kneel not, gentle Portia.

PORTIA. I should not need, if you were gentle Brutus. Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus, 280 Is it excepted I should know no secrets That appertain to you? Am I yourself But, as it were, in sort or limitation, To keep with you at meals, comfort your bed, And talk to you sometimes? Dwell I but in the suburbs 285 Of your good pleasure? If it be no more, Portia is Brutus' harlot, not his wife.

[Note 280: /the/ tho F1.]

[Note 279: This speech, and that beginning with l. 291, follow Plutarch very closely: "His wife Porcia[A] ... was the daughter of Cato, whom Brutus married being his cousin, not a maiden, but a young widow after the death of her first husband Bibulus, by whom she had also a young son called Bibulus, who afterwards wrote a book of the acts and gests of Brutus .... This young lady, being excellently well seen[B] in philosophy, loving her husband well, and being of a noble courage, as she was also wise: because she would not ask her husband what he ailed before she had made some proof by her self: she took a little razor, such as barbers occupy to pare men's nails, and, causing her maids and women to go out of her chamber, gave herself a great gash withal in her thigh, that she was straight all of a gore blood: and incontinently after a vehement fever took her, by reason of the pain of her wound. Then perceiving her husband was marvellously out of quiet, and that he could take no rest, even in her greatest pain of all she spake in this sort unto him: 'I being, O Brutus,' said she, 'the daughter of Cato, was married unto thee; not to be thy bed-fellow and companion in bed and at board only, like a harlot, but to be partaker also with thee of thy good and evil fortune. Now for thyself, I can find no cause of fault in thee touching our match: but for my part, how may I shew my duty towards thee and how much I would do for thy sake; if I cannot constantly bear a secret mischance or grief with thee, which requireth secrecy and fidelity? I confess that a woman's wit commonly is too weak to keep a secret safely: but yet, Brutus, good education, and the company of virtuous men, have some power to reform the defect of nature. And for my self, I have this benefit moreover, that I am the daughter of Cato, and wife of Brutus. This notwithstanding, I did not trust to any of these things before, until that now I have found by experience, that no pain or grief whatsoever can overcome me.' With those words she shewed him her wound on her thigh, and told him what she had done to prove herself. Brutus was amazed to hear what she said unto him, and lifting up his hands to heaven, he besought the gods to give him the grace he might bring his enterprise to so good pass, that he might be found a husband, worthy of so noble a wife as Porcia: so he then did comfort her the best he could."—Marcus Brutus.]

[Note A: the correct classical spelling.]

[Note B: i.e. versed.]

[Note 285-286: In the outskirts or borders, and not at the center or near the heart. The image is exceedingly apposite and expressive.]

[Page 63]

BRUTUS. You are my true and honourable wife, As dear to me as are the ruddy drops That visit my sad heart. 290

PORTIA. If this were true, then should I know this secret. I grant I am a woman; but withal A woman that Lord Brutus took to wife: I grant I am a woman; but withal A woman well-reputed, Cato's daughter. 295 Think you I am no stronger than my sex, Being so father'd and so husbanded? Tell me your counsels; I will not disclose 'em. I have made strong proof of my constancy, Giving myself a voluntary wound 300 Here, in the thigh: can I bear that with patience, And not my husband's secrets?

BRUTUS. O ye gods, Render me worthy of this noble wife! [Knocking within] Hark, hark! one knocks. Portia, go in a while; And by and by thy bosom shall partake 305 The secrets of my heart: All my engagements I will construe to thee, All the charactery of my sad brows. Leave me with haste. [Exit PORTIA] Lucius, who's that knocks?

[Note 303: [Knocking within] Malone Knocke F1 F2.]

[Note 289-290: This embodies what was known about the circulation of the blood at the close of the sixteenth century. In 1616, the year of Shakespeare's death, William Harvey, born in 1578, lectured on his great discovery, but his celebrated treatise was not published until 1628. The general fact of the circulation was known in ancient times, and Harvey's discovery lay in ascertaining the modus operandi of it, and in reducing it to matter of strict science.]

[Note 295: Cf. The Merchant of Venice, I, 1, 166:

Her name is Portia, nothing undervalued To Cato's daughter, Brutus' Portia.]

[Note 308: /charactery:/ "writing by characters or strange marks." Brutus therefore means that he will divulge to her the secret cause of the sadness marked on his countenance. 'Charactery' seems to mean simply 'writing' in the well-known passage in The Merry Wives of Windsor, V, v, 77: "Fairies use flowers for their charactery." So in Keats: "Before high-piled books in charactery Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain."]

[Note 309: Editors from Pope down have been busy trying to mend the grammar and the rhythm of this line. But in Shakespeare the full pause has often the value of a syllable, and the omission of the relative is common in Elizabethan literature. See Abbott, Sect. 244.]

[Page 64]

Re-enter LUCIUS with LIGARIUS

LUCIUS. Here is a sick man that would speak with you. 310

BRUTUS. Caius Ligarius, that Metellus spake of. Boy, stand aside. Caius Ligarius! how?

LIGARIUS. Vouchsafe good morrow from a feeble tongue.

BRUTUS. O, what a time have you chose out, brave Caius, To wear a kerchief! Would you were not sick! 315

LIGARIUS. I am not sick, if Brutus have in hand Any exploit worthy the name of honour.

[Note 310: Re-enter ... with Dyce Enter ... and Ff after [Exit Portia].]

[Note 313 (and elsewhere): LIGARIUS Cai. Ff.]

[Note 315: /To wear a kerchief./ It was a common practice in England for those who were sick to wear a kerchief on their heads. So in Fuller's Worthies, Cheshire, 1662, quoted by Malone: "If any there be sick, they make him a posset and tye a kerchief on his head: and if that will not mend him, then God be merciful to him."]

[Page 65]

BRUTUS. Such an exploit have I in hand, Ligarius, Had you a healthful ear to hear of it.

LIGARIUS. By all the gods that Romans bow before, 320 I here discard my sickness! Soul of Rome! Brave son, deriv'd from honourable loins! Thou, like an exorcist, hast conjur'd up My mortified spirit. Now bid me run, And I will strive with things impossible; 325 Yea, get the better of them. What's to do?

BRUTUS. A piece of work that will make sick men whole.

LIGARIUS. But are not some whole that we must make sick?

BRUTUS. That must we also. What it is, my Caius, I shall unfold to thee, as we are going 330 To whom it must be done.

LIGARIUS. Set on your foot, And with a heart new-fir'd I follow you, To do I know not what; but it sufficeth That Brutus leads me on.

BRUTUS. Follow me, then. [Exeunt]

[Note 327: Two lines in Ff.]

[Note 334: Thunder Ff.]

[Note 321: /I here discard my sickness./ Ligarius here pulls off the kerchief. Cf. Northumberland's speech, 2 Henry IV, I, i, 147, "hence, thou sickly quoif! Thou art a guard too wanton for the head."]

[Note 323: In Shakespeare's time, 'exorcist' and 'conjurer' were used indifferently. The former has since come to mean only 'one who drives away spirits'; the latter, 'one who calls them up.']

[Note 324: /My mortified spirit:/ my spirit that was dead in me. So 'mortifying groans' in The Merchant of Venice, I, i, 82, and 'mortified man' in Macbeth, V, ii, 5. Words directly derived from Latin are often used, by Shakespeare and sixteenth century writers, in a signification peculiarly close to the root notion of the word.]

[Page 66]

SCENE II. CAESAR'S house

Thunder and lightning. Enter CAESAR, in his night-gown

CAESAR. Nor heaven nor earth have been at peace to-night: Thrice hath Calpurnia in her sleep cried out, 'Help, ho! they murder Caesar!' Who's within?

[Note: SCENE II Rowe Scene IV Pope.] [Note: CAESAR'S house Ff omit.] [Note: Enter CAESAR ... Enter Julius Caesar ... Ff. in his night-gown Pope omits.]

[Note 1: Two lines in Ff.]

[Note: This scene, taken with the preceding, affords an interesting study in contrasts: Caesar and Brutus; Calpurnia the yielding wife, and Portia the heroic.]

[Note: Enter CAESAR in his night-gown.' Night-gown' here, as in Macbeth, II, ii, 70, V, 1, 5, means 'dressing-robe' or 'dressing-gown.' This is the usual meaning of the word in English from the fifteenth century to the eighteenth. So Addison and Steele use it in The Spectator.]

[Note 2: In Plutarch the scene is thus graphically described: "Then going to bed the same night, as his manner was, and lying with his wife Calpurnia, all the windows and doors of his chamber flying open, the noise awoke him, and made him afraid when he saw such light; but more, when he heard his wife Calpurnia, being fast asleep, weep and sigh, and put forth many fumbling lamentable speeches: for she dreamed that Caesar was slain.... Caesar rising in the morning, she prayed him, if it were possible, not to go out of the doors that day, but to adjourn the session of the Senate until another day. And if that he made no reckoning of her dream, yet that he would search further of the soothsayers by their sacrifices, to know what should happen him that day. Thereby it seemed that Caesar did likewise fear or suspect somewhat, because his wife Calpurnia until that time was never given to any fear and superstition; and that then he saw her so troubled in mind with this dream she had. But much more afterwards, when the soothsayers having sacrificed many beasts one after another, told him that none did like[A] them: then he determined to send Antonius to adjourn the session of the Senate."—Julius Caesar.]

[Note A: i.e. satisfy.]

[Page 67]

Enter a Servant

SERVANT. My lord?

CAESAR. Go bid the priests do present sacrifice, 5 And bring me their opinions of success.

SERVANT. I will, my lord. [Exit]

Enter CALPURNIA

CALPURNIA. What mean you, Caesar? think you to walk forth? You shall not stir out of your house to-day. 9

CAESAR. Caesar shall forth: the things that threaten'd me Ne'er look'd but on my back; when they shall see The face of Caesar, they are vanished.

CALPURNIA. Caesar, I never stood on ceremonies, Yet now they fright me. There is one within, Besides the things that we have heard and seen, 15 Recounts most horrid sights seen by the watch. A lioness hath whelped in the streets; And graves have yawn'd, and yielded up their dead; Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds, In ranks and squadrons and right form of war, 20 Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol; The noise of battle hurtled in the air, Horses did neigh, and dying men did groan; And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets. O Caesar, these things are beyond all use, 25 And I do fear them!

[Note 22: /hurtled/ F1 hurried F2 F3 F4.]

[Note 23: /did neigh/ F2 F3 F4 do neigh F1.]

[Note 6: /success:/ the result. The root notion of the word. See note, p. 65, l. 324. But in V, iii, 65, the word is used in its modern sense.]

[Note 13: 'Ceremonies' is here put for the ceremonial or sacerdotal interpretation of prodigies and omens, as in II, i, 197.]

[Note 16-24: Cf. Hamlet, I, i, 113-125; Vergil, Georgics, I, 465-488.]

[Note 22: /hurtled:/ clashed. The onomatopoetic 'hurtling' is used in As You Like It, IV, iii, 132, to describe the clashing encounter between Orlando and the lioness. Chaucer, in The Knightes Tale l. 1758, uses the verb transitively, suggesting a diminutive of 'hurt':

And he him hurtleth with his horse adown.]

[Page 68]

CAESAR. What can be avoided Whose end is purpos'd by the mighty gods? Yet Caesar shall go forth; for these predictions Are to the world in general as to Caesar.

CALPURNIA. When beggars die, there are no comets seen; 30 The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.

CAESAR. Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, It seems to me most strange that men should fear; 35 Seeing that death, a necessary end, Will come when it will come.

[Note 33: /taste of death./ This expression occurs thrice in the New Testament (King James version). Plutarch relates that, a short time before Caesar fell, some of his friends urged him to have a guard about him, and he replied that it was better to die at once than live in the continual fear of death. He is also said to have given as his reason for refusing a guard, that he thought Rome had more need of him than he of Rome. "And the very day before, Caesar, supping with Marcus Lepidus, sealed certain letters, as he was wont to do, at the board: so, talk falling out amongst them, reasoning what death was best, he, preventing their opinions, cried out aloud, 'Death unlooked for.'"—Plutarch, Julius Caesar.]

[Page 69]

Re-enter Servant

What say the augurers?

SERVANT. They would not have you to stir forth to-day. Plucking the entrails of an offering forth, They could not find a heart within the beast. 40

CAESAR. The gods do this in shame of cowardice: Caesar should be a beast without a heart, If he should stay at home to-day for fear. No, Caesar shall not: danger knows full well That Caesar is more dangerous than he: 45 We are two lions litter'd in one day, And I the elder and more terrible; And Caesar shall go forth.

CALPURNIA. Alas, my lord, Your wisdom is consum'd in confidence! Do not go forth to-day: call it my fear 50 That keeps you in the house, and not your own. We'll send Mark Antony to the senate-house, And he shall say you are not well to-day: Let me, upon my knee, prevail in this.

CAESAR. Mark Antony shall say I am not well; 55 And, for thy humour, I will stay at home.

Enter DECIUS

Here's Decius Brutus, he shall tell them so.

DECIUS. Caesar, all hail! good morrow, worthy Caesar: I come to fetch you to the senate-house.

[Note 37: Re-enter ... Enter a ... Ff.]

[Note 46: /are/ Capell heare F1 F2 hear F3 F4 heard Rowe.]

[Note 57: Scene V Pope.]

[Note 42: /should:/ would. The present-day usage is post-Elizabethan.]

[Page 70]

CAESAR. And you are come in very happy time, 60 To bear my greeting to the senators And tell them that I will not come to-day. Cannot, is false, and that I dare not, falser; I will not come to-day. Tell them so, Decius.

CALPURNIA. Say he is sick.

CAESAR. Shall Caesar send a lie? 65 Have I in conquest stretch'd mine arm so far, To be afeard to tell graybeards the truth? Decius, go tell them Caesar will not come.

DECIUS. Most mighty Caesar, let me know some cause, Lest I be laugh'd at when I tell them so. 70

CAESAR. The cause is in my will; I will not come; That is enough to satisfy the senate. But, for your private satisfaction, Because I love you, I will let you know: Calpurnia here, my wife, stays me at home. 75 She dreamt to-night she saw my statue, Which, like a fountain with an hundred spouts, Did run pure blood; and many lusty Romans Came smiling and did bathe their hands in it: And these does she apply for warnings and portents 80 And evils imminent, and on her knee Hath begg'd that I will stay at home to-day.

[Note 67: /afeard/ F1 F2 F3 afraid F4 /truth?/ truth: Ff.]

[Note 76: /statue/ Ff statua Steevens statue Camb.]

[Note 76: /to-night:/ last night. So in The Merchant of Venice, II, v, 18.—/statue./ In Shakespeare's time 'statue' was pronounced indifferently as a word of two syllables or three. Bacon uses it repeatedly as a trisyllable, and spells it 'statua,' as in his Advancement of Learning: "It is not possible to have the true pictures or statuaes of Cyrus, Alexander, Caesar, no, nor of the kings or great personages."]

[Page 71]

DECIUS. This dream is all amiss interpreted: It was a vision fair and fortunate. Your statue spouting blood in many pipes, 85 In which so many smiling Romans bath'd, Signifies that from you great Rome shall suck Reviving blood, and that great men shall press For tinctures, stains, relics, and cognizance. This by Calpurnia's dream is signified. 90

CAESAR. And this way have you well expounded it.

DECIUS. I have, when you have heard what I can say; And know it now: the senate have concluded To give this day a crown to mighty Caesar. If you shall send them word you will not come, 95 Their minds may change. Besides, it were a mock Apt to be render'd, for some one to say 'Break up the senate till another time, When Caesar's wife shall meet with better dreams.' If Caesar hide himself, shall they not whisper, 100 'Lo, Caesar is afraid'? Pardon me, Caesar; for my dear dear love To your proceeding bids me tell you this; And reason to my love is liable. 104

[Note 88-89: In ancient times, when martyrs or other distinguished men were executed, their friends often pressed to stain handkerchiefs with their blood, or to get some other relic, which they might keep, either as precious memorials of them, or as having a kind of sacramental virtue. 'Cognizance' is here used in a heraldic sense, meaning any badge to show whose friends the wearers were.]

[Note 94: The Roman people were specially yearning to avenge the slaughter of Marcus Crassus and his army by the Parthians, and Caesar was at this time preparing an expedition against them. But a Sibylline oracle was alleged, that Parthia could only be conquered by a king; and it was proposed to invest Caesar with the royal title and authority over the foreign subjects of the state. It is agreed on all hands that, if his enemies did not originate this proposal, they at least craftily urged it on, in order to make him odious, and exasperate the people against him. To the same end, they had for some time been plying the arts of extreme sycophancy, heaping upon him all possible honors, human and divine, hoping thereby to kindle such a fire of envy as would consume him.]

[Note 96-97: /it were a mock Apt to be render'd:/ it were a sarcastic reply likely to be made. Cf. the expression, 'make a mock of.']

[Note 104: /liable:/ subject. Cf. King John, II, i, 490. The thought here is that love stands as principal, reason as second or subordinate. "The deference which reason holds due from me to you is in this instance subject and amenable to the calls of personal affection."]

[Page 72]

CAESAR. How foolish do your fears seem now, Calpurnia! I am ashamed I did yield to them. Give me my robe, for I will go.

[Note 107: Plutarch thus describes the scene: "But in the mean time Decius Brutus, surnamed Albinus, in whom Caesar put such confidence, that in his last will and testament he had appointed him to be his next heir, and yet was of the conspiracy with Cassius and Brutus: he, fearing that if Caesar did adjourn the session that day, the conspiracy would be betrayed, laughed at the soothsayers, and reproved Caesar, saying, 'that he gave the Senate occasion to mislike with him, and that they might think he mocked them, considering that by his commandment they were assembled, and that they were ready willingly to grant him all things, and to proclaim him king of all his provinces of the Empire of Rome out of Italy, and that he should wear his diadem in all other places both by sea and land. And furthermore, that if any man should tell them from him they should depart for that present time, and return again when Calpurnia should have better dreams, what would his enemies and ill-willers say, and how could they like of his friends' words? And who could persuade them otherwise, but that they should think his dominion a slavery unto them and tyrannical in himself? And yet if it be so,' said he, 'that you utterly mislike of this day, it is better that you go yourself in person, and, saluting the Senate, to dismiss them till another time.' Therewithal he took Caesar by the hand, and brought him out of his house."—Julius Caesar.]

[Page 73]

Enter PUBLIUS, BRUTUS, LIGARIUS, METELLUS, CASCA, TREBONIUS, and CINNA

And look where Publius is come to fetch me.

PUBLIUS. Good morrow, Caesar.

CAESAR. Welcome, Publius. What, Brutus, are you stirr'd so early too? 110 Good morrow, Casca. Caius Ligarius, Caesar was ne'er so much your enemy As that same ague which hath made you lean. What is 't o'clock?

BRUTUS. Caesar, 't is strucken eight.

CAESAR. I thank you for your pains and courtesy. 115

Enter ANTONY

See! Antony, that revels long o' nights, Is notwithstanding up. Good morrow, Antony.

ANTONY. So to most noble Caesar.

CAESAR. Bid them prepare within: I am to blame to be thus waited for. Now, Cinna; now, Metellus: what, Trebonius! 120 I have an hour's talk in store for you; Remember that you call on me to-day. Be near me, that I may remember you.

[Note 108: Scene VI Pope. Enter PUBLIUS ... Ff have Publius after Cinna.]

[Note 114: /o'clock/ Theobald a Clocke Ff.]

[Note 116: /o' nights/ Theobald a-nights Ff.]

[Note 108: This was probably Publius Silicius, not a conspirator. See III, i, 87, where he is described as "quite confounded with this mutiny."]

[Note 113: This is a graphic and charming touch. Here, for the first time, we have Caesar speaking fairly in character; for he was probably the most finished gentleman of his time, one of the sweetest of men, and as full of kindness as of wisdom and courage. Merivale aptly styles him "Caesar the politic and the merciful."]

[Page 74]

TREBONIUS. Caesar, I will. [Aside] And so near will I be, That your best friends shall wish I had been further. 125

CAESAR. Good friends, go in and taste some wine with me; And we, like friends, will straightway go together.

BRUTUS. [Aside] That every like is not the same, O Caesar, The heart of Brutus yearns to think upon! [Exeunt]

[Note 124: [Aside] Rowe Ff omit.]

[Note 128: [Aside] Pope Ff omit.]

[Note 129: /yearns/ Capell earnes F1 F2.]

[Note 129: /yearns:/ grieves. The Folios read 'earnes.' Skeat considers earn (yearn) 'to grieve' of distinct origin from earn (yearn) 'to desire.' Shakespeare uses the verb both transitively and intransitively. The winning and honest suavity of Caesar here starts a pang of remorse in Brutus. Drinking wine together was regarded as a sacred pledge of truth and honor. Brutus knows that Caesar is doing it in good faith; and it hurts him to think that the others seem to be doing the like, and yet are doing a very different thing.]

[Page 75]

SCENE III. A street near the Capitol

Enter ARTEMIDORUS, reading a paper

ARTEMIDORUS. Caesar, beware of Brutus; take heed of Cassius; come not near Casca; have an eye to Cinna; trust not Trebonius; mark well Metellus Cimber; Decius Brutus loves thee not; thou hast wrong'd Caius Ligarius. There is but one mind in all these men, and it is bent against Caesar. If thou beest not immortal, look about you: security gives way to conspiracy. The mighty gods defend thee!

Thy lover, ARTEMIDORUS.

Here will I stand till Caesar pass along, And as a suitor will I give him this. 10 My heart laments that virtue cannot live Out of the teeth of emulation. If thou read this, O Caesar, thou mayest live; If not, the Fates with traitors do contrive. [Exit]

SCENE IV. Another part of the same street, before the house of BRUTUS

Enter PORTIA and LUCIUS

PORTIA. I prithee, boy, run to the senate-house; Stay not to answer me, but get thee gone. Why dost thou stay?

[Note: SCENE III Rowe Scene VII Pope. A street ... Ff omit.]

[Note: reading a paper Rowe Ff omit.]

[Note: SCENE IV Capell. Another part ... Capell Ff omit.]

[Note: Enter ARTEMIDORUS ... In Plutarch, Julius Caesar, Artemidorus is thus introduced: "And one Artemidorus also, born in the isle of Gnidos, a doctor of rhetoric in the Greek tongue, who by means of his profession was very familiar with certain of Brutus' confederates, and therefore knew the most part of all their practices against Caesar, came and brought him a little bill, written with his own hand, of all that he meant to tell him. He, marking how Caesar received all the supplications that were offered him, and that he gave them straight to his men that were about him, pressed nearer to him, and said: 'Caesar, read this memorial to yourself, and that quickly, for they be matters of great weight, and touch you nearly.'"]

[Note 6-7: /security gives way to:/ false confidence opens a way for.]

[Note 8: /lover:/ friend. See note, p. 100, l. 13.]

[Note 12: /emulation:/ envious rivalry. So in Troilus and Cressida, I, iii, 134: "an envious fever Of pale and bloodless emulation."]

[Note 14: /contrive:/ plot, conspire. Cf. The Merchant of Venice, IV, i, 360.]

[Note 1: The anxiety of Portia is thus described by Plutarch, Marcus Brutus: "For Porcia, being very careful and pensive for that which was to come, and being too weak to away with so great and inward grief of mind, she could hardly keep within, but was frighted with every little noise and cry she heard, as those that are taken and possessed with the fury of the Bacchantes; asking every man that came from the market-place what Brutus did, and still sent messenger after messenger, to know what news."]

[Page 76]

LUCIUS. To know my errand, madam.

PORTIA. I would have had thee there, and here again, Ere I can tell thee what thou shouldst do there. 5 O constancy, be strong upon my side! Set a huge mountain 'tween my heart and tongue! I have a man's mind, but a woman's might. How hard it is for women to keep counsel! Art thou here yet?

LUCIUS. Madam, what should I do? 10 Run to the Capitol, and nothing else? And so return to you, and nothing else?

PORTIA. Yes, bring me word, boy, if thy lord look well, For he went sickly forth: and take good note What Caesar doth, what suitors press to him. 15 Hark, boy! what noise is that?

LUCIUS. I hear none, madam.

PORTIA. Prithee, listen well: I heard a bustling rumour, like a fray, And the wind brings it from the Capitol.

LUCIUS. Sooth, madam, I hear nothing. 20

[Note 18: /bustling/ Rowe bussling Ff.]

[Note 6: /constancy:/ firmness. Cf. II, i, 299. So in Macbeth, II, ii, 68.]

[Note 18: A loud noise, or murmur, as of stir and tumult, is one of the old meanings of 'rumor.' So in King John, V, iv, 45: "the noise and rumour of the field." Since the interview of Brutus and Portia, he has unbosomed all his secrets to her; and now she is in such a fever of anxiety that she mistakes her fancies for facts.]

[Note 20: /Sooth:/ in truth. Cf. The Merchant of Venice, I, i, 1. See Skeat, and cf. note on 'soothsayer,' p. 10, l. 19.]

[Page 77]

Enter the SOOTHSAYER

PORTIA. Come hither, fellow: which way hast thou been?

SOOTHSAYER. At mine own house, good lady.

PORTIA. What is 't o'clock?

SOOTHSAYER. About the ninth hour, lady.

PORTIA. Is Caesar yet gone to the Capitol?

SOOTHSAYER. Madam, not yet: I go to take my stand, 25 To see him pass on to the Capitol.

PORTIA. Thou hast some suit to Caesar, hast thou not?

SOOTHSAYER. That I have, lady: if it will please Caesar To be so good to Caesar as to hear me, I shall beseech him to befriend himself. 30

PORTIA. Why, know'st thou any harm's intended towards him?

SOOTHSAYER. None that I know will be, much that I fear may chance. Good morrow to you. Here the street is narrow: The throng that follows Caesar at the heels, Of senators, of praetors, common suitors, 35 Will crowd a feeble man almost to death: I'll get me to a place more void, and there Speak to great Caesar as he comes along. [Exit]

[Note 21: Enter the SOOTHSAYER Ff Enter Artemidorus Rowe.]

[Note 23: /o'clock/ Theobald a clocke F1.]

[Note 32: Two lines in Ff.]

[Note 39: Two lines in Ff.]

[Note 21: Enter the SOOTHSAYER. Rowe substituted 'Artemidorus' for 'the Soothsayer' here, and many modern editors have adopted this change. But North's Plutarch furnishes a source for the Soothsayer as distinct from Artemidorus, and the reading of the Folios has a dramatic edge and effectiveness which Rowe's change destroys.]

[Page 78]

PORTIA. I must go in. Ay me, how weak a thing The heart of woman is! O Brutus, 40 The heavens speed thee in thine enterprise! Sure, the boy heard me. Brutus hath a suit That Caesar will not grant. O, I grow faint. Run, Lucius, and commend me to my lord; Say I am merry: come to me again, 45 And bring me word what he doth say to thee. [Exeunt severally]

[Note 39: /Ay/ Aye Ff ah Johnson.]

[Note 46: [Exeunt severally] Theobald Exeunt F1.]

[Note 42-43: /Brutus hath a suit That Caesar will not grant./ These words Portia speaks aloud to the boy, Lucius, evidently to conceal the true cause of her uncontrollable flutter of spirits.]

[Page 79]



ACT III

SCENE I. Rome. Before the Capitol; the Senate sitting

A crowd of people; among them ARTEMIDORUS and the Soothsayer. Flourish. Enter CAESAR, BRUTUS, CASSIUS, CASCA, DECIUS, METELLUS, TREBONIUS, CINNA, ANTONY, LEPIDUS, POPILIUS, PUBLIUS, and others

CAESAR. The Ides of March are come.

SOOTHSAYER. Ay, Caesar; but not gone.

ARTEMIDORUS. Hail, Caesar! read this schedule.

DECIUS. Trebonius doth desire you to o'er-read, At your best leisure, this his humble suit. 5

ARTEMIDORUS. O Caesar, read mine first; for mine's a suit That touches Caesar nearer: read it, great Caesar.

CAESAR. What touches us ourself shall be last serv'd.

[Note: Rome. Before ... PUBLIUS, and others Capell (substantially) Flourish. Enter Caesar ... Artimedorus, Publius, and the Soothsayer Ff Ff omit Popilius.]

[Note 3: /schedule/ F3 F4 Scedule F1 F2.]

[Note 1-2: Cf. Plutarch, Julius Caesar: "There was a certain soothsayer, that had given Caesar warning long time afore, to take heed of the day of the Ides of March, which is the fifteenth of the month; for on that day he should be in great danger. That day being come, Caesar, going unto the Senate-house, and speaking merrily unto the soothsayer, told him 'the Ides of March be come.'—'So they be,' softly answered the soothsayer, 'but yet are they not past.'" Note Shakespeare's development of his material.]

[Note 8: /us ourself./ The plural of modern English royalty transferred to ancient Rome. Another of the famous anachronisms.]

[Page 80]

ARTEMIDORUS. Delay not, Caesar; read it instantly.

CAESAR. What, is the fellow mad?

PUBLIUS. Sirrah, give place. 10

CASSIUS. What, urge you your petitions in the street? Come to the Capitol.

CAESAR goes up to the Senate-house, the rest following

POPILIUS. I wish your enterprise to-day may thrive.

CASSIUS. What enterprise, Popilius?

POPILIUS. Fare you well.

[Advances to CAESAR]

BRUTUS. What said Popilius Lena? 15

CASSIUS. He wish'd to-day our enterprise might thrive. I fear our purpose is discovered.

BRUTUS. Look, how he makes to Caesar: mark him.

CASSIUS. Casca, be sudden, for we fear prevention. Brutus, what shall be done? If this be known, 20 Cassius or Caesar never shall turn back, For I will slay myself.

[Note 13: CAESAR goes ... Ff omit.]

[Note 14: Advances ... Ff omit.]

[Note 9: See quotation from Plutarch, Julius Caesar, above, p. 74.]

[Note 12: As already indicated (see note, p. 39, l. 126), the murder of Caesar did not take place in the Capitol, but Shakespeare, departing from Plutarch, followed a famous literary tradition. So in Chaucer, The Monkes Tale, ll. 713-720. Cf. the speech of Polonius, Hamlet, III, ii, 108-109: "I did enact Julius Caesar; I was kill'd i' the Capitol; Brutus kill'd me." See Introduction, Sources, p. xv.]

[Note 13: This is mainly Steevens's (1773) stage direction. Capell's (1768) is interesting: "Artemidorus is push'd back. Caesar, and the rest, enter the Senate: The Senate rises. Popilius presses forward to speak to Caesar; and passing Cassius, says, ..."]

[Note 18: /makes to:/ advances to, presses towards.—/mark./ No necessity to pronounce this as dissyllabic. The pause has the effect of a syllable.]

[Page 81]

BRUTUS. Cassius, be constant: Popilius Lena speaks not of our purposes; For, look, he smiles, and Caesar doth not change.

CASSIUS. Trebonius knows his time; for, look you, Brutus, 25 He draws Mark Antony out of the way.

[Exeunt ANTONY and TREBONIUS]

[Note 26: [Exeunt ANTONY ...] Ff omit.]

[Note 22: /constant:/ firm. So in ll. 60, 72, 73. Cf. II, i, 227, 299; iv, 6.]

[Note 23-26: So in Plutarch, Marcus Brutus: "Another senator called Popilius Laena after he had saluted Brutus and Cassius more friendly than he was wont to do, he rounded[A] softly in their ears, and told them, 'I pray the gods you may go through with that you have taken in hand; but, withal, dispatch, I read[B] you, for your enterprise is bewrayed.' When he had said, he presently departed from them, and left them both afraid that their conspiracy would out.... When Caesar came out of his litter, Popilius Laena went ... and kept him a long time with a talk. Caesar gave good ear unto him; wherefore the conspirators ... conjecturing ... that his talk was none other but the very discovery of their conspiracy, they were afraid every man of them; and one looking in another's face, it was easy to see that they all were of a mind, that it was no tarrying for them till they were apprehended, but rather that they should kill themselves with their own hands. And when Cassius and certain other clapped their hands on their swords under their gowns, to draw them, Brutus marking the countenance and gesture of Laena, and considering that he did use himself rather like an humble and earnest suitor than like an accuser, he said nothing to his companion (because there were many amongst them that were not of the conspiracy), but with a pleasant countenance encouraged Cassius; and immediately after, Laena went from Caesar, and kissed his hand.... Trebonius on the other side drew Antonius aside, as he came into the house where the Senate sat, and held him with a long talk without." In the Julius Caesar Plutarch makes Decius detain Antony in talk.]

[Note A: i.e. whispered.]

[Note B: i.e. advise.]

[Page 82]

DECIUS. Where is Metellus Cimber? Let him go, And presently prefer his suit to Caesar.

BRUTUS. He is address'd: press near and second him.

CINNA. Casca, you are the first that rears your hand. 30

CAESAR. Are we all ready? What is now amiss That Caesar and his senate must redress?

METELLUS. Most high, most mighty, and most puissant Caesar, Metellus Cimber throws before thy seat An humble heart,— [Kneeling]

[Note 31: /Are ... ready?/ Dyce gives to Casca; Ritson (conj.) to Cinna.]

[Note 35: [Kneeling] Rowe Ff omit.]

[Note 28: /presently:/ immediately, at once. So Shakespeare and other Elizabethan writers always use the word. See l. 143; IV, i, 45.]

[Note 29: /address'd:/ prepared. Often so in sixteenth century literature. Cf. As You Like It, V, iv, 162; Henry V, III, iii, 58; 2 Henry IV, IV, iv, 5. This old meaning survives in a well-known golf term.]

[Page 83]

CAESAR. I must prevent thee, Cimber. 35 These couchings and these lowly courtesies Might fire the blood of ordinary men, And turn pre-ordinance and first decree Into the law of children. Be not fond, To think that Caesar bears such rebel blood 40 That will be thaw'd from the true quality With that which melteth fools, I mean, sweet words, Low-crooked curtsies, and base spaniel-fawning. Thy brother by decree is banished: If thou dost bend and pray and fawn for him, 45 I spurn thee like a cur out of my way. Know, Caesar doth not wrong, nor without cause Will he be satisfied.

[Note 36: /courtesies/ F1 curtsies F4.]

[Note 39: /law/ lane Ff.]

[Note 43: /Low-crooked curtsies/ Low-crooked-curtsies Ff. /spaniel-fawning/ Johnson Spaniell fawning F1.]

[Note 36: /couchings:/ stoopings. 'Couch' is used in the sense of 'bend' or 'stoop' as under a burden, in Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III, i, 4:

An aged Squire there rode, That seemd to couch under his shield three-square.

So in Genesis, xlix, 14: "Issachar is a strong ass couching down between two burdens." The verb occurs six times in the Bible (King James version). In Roister Doister, I, iv, 90, we have "Couche! On your marybones ... Down to the ground!"]

[Note 38: /pre-ordinance and first decree:/ the ruling and enactment of the highest authority in the state. "What has been pre-ordained and decreed from the beginning."—Clar.]

[Note 39: /law./ This is one of the textual cruces of the play. 'Law' is Johnson's conjecture for the 'lane' of the Folios. It was adopted by Malone. In previous editions of Hudson's Shakespeare, Mason's conjecture, 'play,' was adopted. 'Line,' 'bane,' 'vane' have each been proposed. Fleay defends the Folio reading and interprets 'lane' in the sense of 'narrow conceits.' 'Law of children' would mean 'law at the mercy of whim or caprice.']

[Note 39-40: /Be not fond, To think:/ be not so foolish as to think.]

[Note 47-48: In previous editions of Hudson's Shakespeare was adopted, with a slight change, Tyrwhitt's suggested restoration of these lines to the form indicated by Ben Jonson in the famous passage in his Discoveries, when, speaking of Shakespeare, he says: "Many times he fell into those things could not escape laughter: as when he said in the person of Caesar, one speaking to him, 'Caesar, thou dost me wrong,' he replied, 'Caesar did never wrong but with just cause,' and such like; which were ridiculous." Based upon this note the Tyrwhitt restoration of the text was:

METELLUS. Caesar, thou dost me wrong.

CAESAR. Know, Caesar doth not wrong, but with just cause, Nor without cause will he be satisfied.

In the old Hudson Shakespeare text the first line of Caesar's reply was: "Caesar did never wrong but with just cause." Jonson has another gird at what he deemed Shakespeare's blunder, for in the Induction to The Staple of News is, "Prologue. Cry you mercy, you never did wrong, but with just cause." Either Jonson must have misquoted what he heard at the theater, or the passage was altered to the form in the text of the Folios on his remonstrance. This way of conveying meanings by suggestion rather than direct expression was intolerable to Jonson. Jonson must have known that 'wrong' could mean 'injury' and 'punishment' as well as 'wrong-doing.' 'Wrong' meaning 'harm' occurs below, l. 243. See note, p. 105, l. 110.]

[Page 84]

METELLUS. Is there no voice more worthy than my own, To sound more sweetly in great Caesar's ear 50 For the repealing of my banish'd brother?

BRUTUS. I kiss thy hand, but not in flattery, Caesar, Desiring thee that Publius Cimber may Have an immediate freedom of repeal.

CAESAR. What, Brutus!

CASSIUS. Pardon, Caesar; Caesar, pardon: As low as to thy foot doth Cassius fall, 56 To beg enfranchisement for Publius Cimber.

CAESAR. I could be well mov'd, if I were as you; If I could pray to move, prayers would move me: But I am constant as the northern star, 60 Of whose true-fix'd and resting quality There is no fellow in the firmament. The skies are painted with unnumber'd sparks; They are all fire and every one doth shine; But there's but one in all doth hold his place: 65 So in the world; 'tis furnish'd well with men, And men are flesh and blood, and apprehensive; Yet in the number I do know but one That unassailable holds on his rank, Unshak'd of motion: and that I am he, 70 Let me a little show it, even in this; That I was constant Cimber should be banish'd, And constant do remain to keep him so. 73

[Note 61: /true-fix'd/ true fixt Ff.]

[Note 51: /repealing:/ recall. So 'repeal' in l. 54. Often so in Shakespeare.]

[Note 59: If I could seek to move, or change, others by prayers, then I were capable of being myself moved by the prayers of others.]

[Note 67: /apprehensive:/ capable of apprehending, intelligent.]

[Note 72-73: All through this scene, Caesar is made to speak quite out of character, and in a strain of hateful arrogance, in order, apparently, to soften the enormity of his murder, and to grind the daggers of the assassins to a sharper point. Perhaps, also, it is a part of the irony which so marks this play, to put the haughtiest words in Caesar's mouth just before his fall.]

[Page 85]

CINNA. O Caesar,—

CAESAR. Hence! wilt thou lift up Olympus?

DECIUS. Great Caesar,—

CAESAR. Doth not Brutus bootless kneel?

CASCA. Speak, hands, for me! [They stab Caesar]

CAESAR. Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Caesar! [Dies]

[Note 75: /Doth not/ F1 Do not F2 F3 F4.]

[Note 77: [Dies] Dyes F1 F2 F3 F4 omit.]

[Note 75: The 'Do not' of the three later Folios was adopted by Johnson because Marcus Brutus would not have knelt.]

[Note 76: The simple stage direction of the Folios is retained. That of the Cambridge and the Globe editions is, "Casca first, then the other Conspirators and Marcus Brutus stab Caesar."]

[Note 77: /Et tu, Brute?/ There is no classical authority for putting this phrase into the mouth of Caesar. It seems to have been an Elizabethan proverb or 'gag,' and it is found in at least three works published earlier than Julius Caesar. (See Introduction, Sources, p. xvi.) Caesar had been as a father to Brutus, who was fifteen years his junior; and the Greek, [Greek: kai sy teknon] "and thou, my son!" which Dion and Suetonius put into his mouth, though probably unauthentic, is good enough to be true. In Plutarch are two detailed accounts of the assassination, that in Marcus Brutus differing somewhat from that in Julius Caesar with regard to the nomenclature of the persons involved. The following is from Marcus Brutus: "Trebonius on the other side drew Antonius aside, as he came into the house where the Senate sat, and held him with a long talk without. When Caesar was come into the house, all the Senate rose to honour him at his coming in. So when he was set, the conspirators flocked about him, and amongst them they presented one Tullius Cimber, who made humble suit for the calling home again of his brother that was banished. They all made as though they were intercessors for him, and took Caesar by the hands, and kissed his head and breast. Caesar at the first simply refused their kindness and entreaties; but afterwards, perceiving they still pressed on him, he violently thrust them from him. Then Cimber with both his hands plucked Caesar's gown over his shoulders, and Casca, that stood behind him, drew his dagger first and strake Caesar upon the shoulder, but gave him no great wound. Caesar, feeling himself hurt, took him straight by the hand he held his dagger in, and cried out in Latin: 'O traitor Casca, what dost thou?' Casca on the other side cried in Greek, and called his brother to help him. So divers running on a heap together to fly upon Caesar, he, looking about him to have fled, saw Brutus with a sword drawn in his hand ready to strike at him: then he let Casca's hand go, and casting his gown over his face, suffered every man to strike at him that would. Then the conspirators thronging one upon another, because every man was desirous to have a cut at him, so many swords and daggers lighting upon one body, one of them hurt another, and among them Brutus caught a blow on his hand, because he would make one in murthering of him, and all the rest also were every man of them bloodied."]

[Page 86]

CINNA. Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead! Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets.

CASSIUS. Some to the common pulpits, and cry out, 80 'Liberty, freedom, and enfranchisement!'

[Note 80: /common pulpits:/ rostra, the public platforms in the Forum.]

[Note 81: This is somewhat in the style of Caliban, when he gets glorious with "celestial liquor," The Tempest, II, ii, 190, 191: "Freedom, hey-day! hey-day, freedom! freedom, hey-day, freedom!"]

[Page 87]

BRUTUS. People, and senators, be not affrighted; Fly not; stand still: ambition's debt is paid.

CASCA. Go to the pulpit, Brutus.

DECIUS. And Cassius too. 85

BRUTUS. Where's Publius?

CINNA. Here, quite confounded with this mutiny.

METELLUS. Stand fast together, lest some friend of Caesar's Should chance—

BRUTUS. Talk not of standing. Publius, good cheer; 90 There is no harm intended to your person, Nor to no Roman else: so tell them, Publius.

CASSIUS. And leave us, Publius; lest that the people, Rushing on us, should do your age some mischief.

BRUTUS. Do so; and let no man abide this deed 95 But we the doers.

Re-enter TREBONIUS

CASSIUS. Where is Antony?

TREBONIUS. Fled to his house amaz'd. Men, wives, and children stare, cry out, and run As it were doomsday.

[Note 97: Scene II Pope. Re-enter ... Capell Enter ... Ff.]

[Note 82-83: "Caesar being slain in this manner, Brutus, standing in the middest of the house, would have spoken, and stayed the other Senators that were not of the conspiracy, to have told them the reason why they had done this fact. But they, as men both afraid and amazed, fled one upon another's neck in haste to get out at the door, and no man followed them."—Plutarch, Marcus Brutus.]

[Note 95: /abide:/ pay for, suffer for. So in III, ii, 114. "Through confusion of form with 'abye,' when that verb was becoming archaic, and through association of sense between abye (pay for) a deed, and abide the consequences of a deed, 'abide' has been erroneously used for 'abye' = pay for, atone for, suffer for."—Murray.]

[Note 97: "But Antonius and Lepidus, which were two of Caesar's chiefest friends, secretly conveying themselves away, fled into other men's houses and forsook their own."—Plutarch, Julius Caesar.]

[Note 98: "When the murder was newly done, there were sudden outcries of people that ran up and down."—Plutarch, Marcus Brutus.]

[Page 88]

BRUTUS. Fates, we will know your pleasures: That we shall die, we know; 'tis but the time, 100 And drawing days out, that men stand upon.

CASCA. Why, he that cuts off twenty years of life Cuts off so many years of fearing death.

BRUTUS. Grant that, and then is death a benefit: So we are Caesar's friends, that have abridg'd 105 His time of fearing death. Stoop, Romans, stoop, And let us bathe our hands in Caesar's blood Up to the elbows, and besmear our swords: Then walk we forth, even to the market-place, And, waving our red weapons o'er our heads, 110 Let's all cry 'Peace, freedom, and liberty!'

CASSIUS. Stoop, then, and wash. How many ages hence Shall this our lofty scene be acted over In states unborn and accents yet unknown!

[Note 102: CASCA Cask. Ff Cas. Pope Camb Globe.]

[Note 114: /states/ F2 F3 F4 State F1.]

[Note 101: /stand upon/: concern themselves with. Cf. II, ii, 13. What men are chiefly concerned about is how long they can draw out their little period of mortal life. Cf. Sophocles, Ajax, 475-476: "What joy is there in day following day, as each but draws us on towards or keeps us back from death?"—J. Churton Collins.]

[Note 102-103: Many modern editors have followed Pope and given this speech to Cassius. But there is no valid reason for this change from the text of the Folios. In the light of Casca's sentiments expressed in I, iii, 100-102, this speech is more characteristic of him than of Cassius. Pope also gave Casca ll. 106-111.]

[Page 89]

BRUTUS. How many times shall Caesar bleed in sport, 115 That now on Pompey's basis lies along No worthier than the dust!

CASSIUS. So oft as that shall be, So often shall the knot of us be call'd The men that gave their country liberty.

DECIUS. What, shall we forth?

CASSIUS. Ay, every man away: 120 Brutus shall lead; and we will grace his heels With the most boldest and best hearts of Rome.

Enter a Servant

BRUTUS. Soft! who comes here? A friend of Antony's.

[Note 115: BRUTUS Casc. Pope.]

[Note 116: /lies/ F3 F4 lye F1.]

[Note 117: /CASSIUS/ Bru. Pope.]

[Note 116: "Caesar ... was driven ... by the counsel of the conspirators, against the base whereupon Pompey's image stood, which ran all of a gore-blood till he was slain."—Plutarch, Julius Caesar.]

[Note 117-119: This speech and the two preceding, vaingloriously anticipating the stage celebrity of the deed, are very strange; and, unless there be a shrewd irony lurking in them, it is hard to understand the purpose of them. Their effect is to give a very ambitious air to the work of these professional patriots, and to cast a highly theatrical color on their alleged virtue, as if they had sought to immortalize themselves by "striking the foremost man of all this world."]

[Note 122: /most boldest./ See Abbott, Sect. 11. So in III, ii, 182.]

[Note 123: /Enter a Servant./ "This simple stage direction is the ... turning-round of the whole action; the arch has reached its apex and the Re-action has begun."—Moulton.]

[Page 90]

SERVANT. Thus, Brutus, did my master bid me kneel; Thus did Mark Antony bid me fall down; 125 And, being prostrate, thus he bade me say: Brutus is noble, wise, valiant, and honest; Caesar was mighty, bold, royal, and loving: Say I love Brutus and I honour him; Say I fear'd Caesar, honour'd him, and lov'd him. 130 If Brutus will vouchsafe that Antony May safely come to him, and be resolv'd How Caesar hath deserv'd to lie in death, Mark Antony shall not love Caesar dead So well as Brutus living; but will follow 135 The fortunes and affairs of noble Brutus Thorough the hazards of this untrod state With all true faith. So says my master Antony.

BRUTUS. Thy master is a wise and valiant Roman; I never thought him worse. 140 Tell him, so please him come unto this place, He shall be satisfied, and, by my honour, Depart untouch'd.

SERVANT. I'll fetch him presently. [Exit]

BRUTUS. I know that we shall have him well to friend.

CASSIUS. I wish we may: but yet have I a mind 145 That fears him much, and my misgiving still Falls shrewdly to the purpose.

[Note 132: /resolv'd/: informed. This meaning is probably connected with the primary one of 'loosen,' 'set free,' through the idea of setting free from perplexity. 'Resolve' continued to be used in the sense of 'inform' and 'answer' until the beginning of the nineteenth century. Shakespeare uses the word in the three main senses of (1) 'relax,' 'dissolve,' Hamlet, I, ii, 130; (2) 'inform,' as here; and (3) 'determine,' 3 Henry VI, III, iii, 219.]

[Note 137: /Thorough/. Shakespeare uses 'through' or 'thorough' indifferently, as suits his verse. The two are but different forms of the same word. 'Thorough,' the adjective, is later than the preposition.]

[Note 141: /so please him come/: provided that it please him to come. 'So' is used with the future and subjunctive to denote 'provided that.']

[Note 146-147: /still Falls shrewdly to the purpose/: always comes cleverly near the mark. See Skeat under 'shrewd' and 'shrew.']

[Page 91]

Re-enter ANTONY

BRUTUS. But here comes Antony. Welcome, Mark Antony.

ANTONY. O mighty Caesar! dost thou lie so low? Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils, 150 Shrunk to this little measure? Fare thee well! I know not, gentlemen, what you intend, Who else must be let blood, who else is rank: If I myself, there is no hour so fit As Caesar's death's hour, nor no instrument 155 Of half that worth as those your swords, made rich With the most noble blood of all this world. I do beseech ye, if you bear me hard, Now, whilst your purpled hands do reek and smoke, Fulfil your pleasure. Live a thousand years, 160 I shall not find myself so apt to die: No place will please me so, no mean of death, As here by Caesar, and by you cut off, The choice and master spirits of this age.

[Note 148: Scene III Pope.—Two lines in Ff.]

[Note 153: /be let blood:/ be put to death. So in Richard III, III, i, 183.—/is rank:/ has grown grossly full-blooded. The idea is of one who has overtopped his equals, and grown too high for the public safety. So in the speech of Oliver in As You Like It, I, i, 90, when incensed at the high bearing of Orlando: "Is it even so? begin you to grow upon me? I will physic your rankness."]

[Note 160: /Live:/ if I live. Cf. The Merchant of Venice, III, ii, 61.]

[Note 163: In this line /'by'/ is used (1) in the sense of 'near,' 'beside,' and (2) in its ordinary sense to denote agency.]

[Page 92]

BRUTUS. O Antony, beg not your death of us. 165 Though now we must appear bloody and cruel, As, by our hands and this our present act, You see we do; yet see you but our hands And this the bleeding business they have done: Our hearts you see not; they are pitiful; 170 And pity to the general wrong of Rome— As fire drives out fire, so pity pity— Hath done this deed on Caesar. For your part, To you our swords have leaden points, Mark Antony: Our arms in strength of malice, and our hearts 175 Of brothers' temper, do receive you in With all kind love, good thoughts, and reverence.

CASSIUS. Your voice shall be as strong as any man's In the disposing of new dignities.

[Note 172: The first 'fire' is dissyllabic. The allusion is to the old notion that if a burn be held to the fire the pain will be drawn or driven out. Shakespeare has four other very similar allusions to this belief—Romeo and Juliet, I, ii, 46; Coriolanus, IV, vii, 54; The Two Gentlemen of Verona, II, iv, 192; King John, III, i, 277.]

[Note 175: /in strength of malice:/ strong as they have shown themselves to be in malice towards tyranny. Though the Folio text may be corrupt, and at least twelve emendations have been suggested, the figure as it stands is intelligible, though elliptically obscure. Grant White has indicated how thoroughly the expression is in the spirit of what Brutus has just said. In previous editions of Hudson's Shakespeare, Singer's conjecture of 'amity' for 'malice' was adopted. What makes this conjecture plausible is Shakespeare's frequent use of 'amity,' and "strength of their amity" occurs in Antony and Cleopatra, II, vi, 137.]

[Note 178-179: Brutus has been talking about "our hearts," and "kind love, good thoughts, and reverence." To Cassius, all that is mere rose-water humbug, and he knows it is so to Antony too. He hastens to put in such motives as he knows will have weight with Antony, as they also have with himself. And it is remarkable that several of these patriots, especially Cassius, the two Brutuses, and Trebonius, afterwards accepted the governorship of fat provinces for which they had been prospectively named by Caesar.]

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BRUTUS. Only be patient till we have appeas'd 180 The multitude, beside themselves with fear, And then we will deliver you the cause Why I, that did love Caesar when I struck him, Have thus proceeded.

ANTONY. I doubt not of your wisdom. Let each man render me his bloody hand: 185 First, Marcus Brutus, will I shake with you; Next, Caius Cassius, do I take your hand; Now, Decius Brutus, yours; now yours, Metellus; Yours, Cinna; and, my valiant Casca, yours; Though last, not least in love, yours, good Trebonius. 190 Gentlemen all,—alas, what shall I say? My credit now stands on such slippery ground, That one of two bad ways you must conceit me, Either a coward or a flatterer. That I did love thee, Caesar, O, 'tis true: 195 If, then, thy spirit look upon us now, Shall it not grieve thee dearer than thy death, To see thy Antony making his peace, Shaking the bloody fingers of thy foes, Most noble! in the presence of thy corse? 200 Had I as many eyes as thou hast wounds, Weeping as fast as they stream forth thy blood, It would become me better than to close In terms of friendship with thine enemies. Pardon me, Julius! Here wast thou bay'd, brave hart; 205 Here didst thou fall, and here thy hunters stand, Sign'd in thy spoil and crimson'd in thy lethe. O world, thou wast the forest to this hart; And this, indeed, O world, the heart of thee. How like a deer, strucken by many princes, 210 Dost thou here lie!

[Note 183: /struck/ strooke F1 F2 strook F3 F4.]

[Note 184: /wisdom/ F3 F4 Wisedome F1 F2.]

[Note 205: /hart/ F1 Heart F2 F3 F4.]

[Note 207: /lethe/ Lethe F2 F3 F4 Lethee F1 death Pope.]

[Note 209: /heart/ Theobald hart Ff.]