I will proclaim my name about the field :- A foe to tyrants, and my country's friend; [Charges the enemy. Bru. And I am Brutus, Marcus Brutus, I; Brutus, my country's friend; know me for Brutus. [Exit, charging the enemy. CATO is overpowered, and falls. Luc. O young and noble Cato, art thou down? Why, now thou diest as bravely as Titinius; And mayst be honour'd, being Cato's son. 1 Sold. Yield, or thou diest. Luc. Only I yield to die: There is so much that thou wilt kill me straight; [Offering money. Kill Brutus, and be honour'd in his death. 1 Sold. We must not.-A noble prisoner! 2 Sold. Room, ho! Tell Antony, Brutus is ta'en. 1 Sold. I'll tell the news.- -Here comes the general: Enter ANTONY. Brutus is ta'en, Brutus is ta'en, my lord. Ant. Where is he? Luc. Safe, Antony; Brutus is safe enough; Ant. This is not Brutus, friend; but, I assure you, SCENE V.-Another part of the Field. Enter BRUTUS, DARDANIUS, CLITUS, STRATO, and VOLUMNIUS. Bru. Come, poor remains of friends, rest on this rock. Cli. Statilius show'd the torchlight; but, my lord, He came not back; he is or ta'en, or slain. Bru. Sit thee down, Clitus: Slaying is the word; It is a deed in fashion. Hark thee, Clitus.[Whispering. Cli. What, I, my lord? No, not for all the world. I'll rather kill myself. [Whispers him. Bru. Hark thee, Dardanius. Cli. O, Dardanius! Shall I do such a deed! Cli. What ill request did Brutus make to thee? Dar. To kill him, Clitus. Look, he meditates. Cli. Now is that noble vessel full of grief, That it runs over even at his eyes. Bru. Come hither, good Volumnius: list a word. Vol. What says my lord? Bru. Why, this, Volumnius: The ghost of Cæsar hath appeared to me Two several times by night: at Sardis, once; And, this last night, here in Philippi fields. I know my hour is come. Vol. Not so, my lord. Bru. Nay, I am sure it is, Volumnius. Thou seest the world, Volumnius, how it goes; Our enemies have beat us to the pit: It is more worthy to leap in ourselves, Than tarry till they push us. Good Volumnius, Thou know'st that we two went to school together; Even for that our love of old, I prithee, Hold thou my sword-hilts, whilst I run on it. Vol. That's not an office for a friend, my lord. [Alarum still. Cli. Fly, fly, my lord; there is no tarrying here. Bru. Farewell to you-and you;-and you, Vo lumnius. Strato, thou hast been all this while asleep; Hence; I will follow. Bru. Farewell, good Strato.-Cæsar, now be still: I kill'd not thee with half so good a will. [He runs on his sword, and dies. = Alarum. Retreat. Enter OCTAVIUS, ANTONY, MESSALA, LUCILIUS, and their Army. Oct. What man is that? Mes. My master's man.-Strato, where is thy master? Stra. Free from the bondage you are in, Messala; The conquerors can but make a fire of him; For Brutus only overcame himself, And no man else hath honour by his death. Luc. So Brutus should be found.-I thank thee, Brutus, That thou hast prov'd Lucilius' saying true. Fellow, wilt thou bestow thy time with me? 105* Mes. How died my master, Strato? Stra. I held the sword, and he did run on it. Mes. Octavius, then take him to follow thee, That did the latest service to my master. Ant. This was the noblest Roman of them all: All the conspirators, save only he, Did that they did in envy of great Cæsar; Oct. According to his virtue let us use him, 41 [Exeunt. "What trade, thou knave"-This edition follows Knight and Collier, in retaining the original assignment of the speeches, altered by Malone and others, who assume that only one should take the lead; whereas it is clear that the dialogue is more natural and more dramatic, according to the original arrangement, where Flavius and Marullus alternately rate the people, like two smiths smiting on the same anvil. "-but WITH ALL"-The original has withal. Several editors write with awl, which is of course the word intended to be played upon; but the jest is not made more clear by substituting either word for the other. Malone well observes, that "when Shakespeare uses words equivocally, there is some difficulty as to the mode of exhibiting them in print; he wrote for the stage, and was contented if his quibble satisfied the ear." "Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?" T. Campbell's remarks on this scene show how truly he entered into the feeling and spirit of the great Poet, on whom he comments. "It is evident from the opening scene of JULIUS CESAR, 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 cobblers, the eloquence of the Roman tribune, Marullus, springs upward like a pyramid of fire.' It can be no great exaggeration to say, that the lines in the speech of Marullus are among the most magnificent in the English language. They roll over my mind's ear like the lordliest notes of a cathedral organ; and yet they succeed immediately to the ludicrous idea of a cobbler leading a parcel of fools about the streets, in order to make them wear out their shoes, and get himself into more work." 66- Tiber trembled underneath HER banks"-Stevens remarks that the Tiber, being always personified as a god, the feminine gender is here, strictly speaking, improper. Milton says that the river of bliss Rolls o'er Elysian flowers her amber streams. But he is speaking of the water, and not of its presiding power or genius. Malone observes that Drayton de scribes the presiding powers of the rivers of England as females; Spenser more classically represents them as males. "-hung with Casar's trophies"-We gather from a passage in the next scene what these "trophies" were. Casca there informs Cassius that Marullus and Flavius. for pulling scarfs off Cæsar's images, are put to silence. 111 SCENE II. - DECIUS"-Dr. Farmer shows that this person was not Decius, but Decimus Brutus. The Poet (as Voltaire has done since) confounds the characters of Marcus and Decimus. Decimus Brutus was the most cherished by Cæsar of all his friends, while Marcus kept aloof, and declined so large a share of his favours and honours as the other had constantly accepted. Lord Sterline has made the same mistake in his tragedy of "Julius Cæsar." The error, as to the name, has its source in North's translation of Plutarch, or in Holland's Suetonius, (1606;) which last Malone thinks that Shakespeare read, and used for his historical material. In both of these occurs the misprint of "Decius" for Decimus. "Stand you directly in Antonius' way," etc. The allusion is to a custom at the Lupercalia, "the which (says Plutarch) in older time men say was the feaste of shepheards or heardsmen, and is much like unto the feast Lyceians in Arcadia. But howsoever it is, that day there are diverse noble men's sonnes, young men (and some of them magistrates themselves that govern them) which run naked through the city, striking in sport them they meet in their way with leather thongs. And many noblewomen and gentlewomen also go of to stand in their way, and doe put forth purpose their handes to be stricken, persuading themselves that being with childe they shall have good deliverie: and also being barren, that it will make them conceive with child. Caesar sat to behold that sport upon the pulpit for orations, in a chayre of gold, apparelled in a triumphant manner. Antonius, who was consul at that time, was one of them that ronne this holy course."-NORTH'S Translation. "A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March." 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. The line is a trimeter,-each dipodia containing two accented and two unaccented syllables, but variously arranged, as thus: U A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March. COLERIDGE. "Will you go see the order of the course?" "Cassius asked him if he were determined to be in the Senate-house the 1st day of the month of March, because he heard say that Caesar's friends should move the council that day that Cæsar should be called king by the Senate. Brutus answered him he would not be there.. But if we be sent for, (said Cassius,) how then? For myself then, (said Brutus,) I mean not to hold my peace, but to withstand it, and rather die than lose my liberty. Cassius being bold, and taking hold of this word-Why, (quoth he,) what Roman is he alive that will suffer thee to die for thy liberty? What? knowest thou not that thou art Brutus? Thinkest thou that they be cobblers, tapsters, or such like base mechanical people, that write these bills and scrolls which are found daily in thy prætor's chair, and not the noblest men and best citizens that do it? No; be thou well assured that of other prætors they look for gifts, common distributions amongst the people, and for common plays, and to see fencers fight at the sharp, to show the people pastime; but at thy hands they specially require (as a due debt unto them) the taking away of the tyranny, being fully bent to suffer any extremity for thy sake, so that thou wilt show thyself to be the man thou art taken for, and that they hope thou art."-NORTH'S Plutarch. 111 be not jealous ON me"-So the original. With Knight, "We do not change this idiomatic language of Shakespeare's time into the of me of the modern." "To STALE with ordinary oaths"-Johnson has erroneously given the meaning of allurement to "stale," in this place. "To stale with ordinary oaths my love," is to prostitute my love, or make it common with ordinary oaths, etc. The use of the verb "to stale" here, may be adduced as a proof that in a disputed passage of CoRIOLANUS, (act i. scene 1,) we should read "stale" instead of scale. 'Leap in with me into this angry flood," etc. Shakespeare probably remembered what Suetonius relates of Cæsar's leaping into the sea, when he was in danger by a boat being overladen, and swimming to the next ship with his "Commentaries" in his hand. (Holland's Translation of Suetonius, 1606, p. 26.) And in another passage, "Were rivers in his way to hinder his passage, cross over them he would, either swimming, or else bearing himself upon blowed leather bottles." (Ibid. p. 24.)-MALONE. “ARRIVE the point propos'd"—The use of "arrive" without the preposition has an example in the later writings of Milton: who shall spread his airy flight "Under these hard conditions As this time"-" As," according to Tooke, is an article, and means the same as that, which, or it; accordingly we find it often so employed by old writers, and particularly in our excellent version of the Bible. Thus Lord Bacon, also, in his "Apophthegmes," No. 210:-"One of the Romans said to his friend, what think you of such a one, as was taken with the manner in adultery?" Like other vestiges of old phraseology, it still lingers among the common people:-"I cannot say as I did," etc., for that I did. "Let me have men about me that are fat," etc. "Cæsar also had Cassius in great jealousy, and suspected him much: whereupon he said on a time to his friends, What will Cassius do, think you? I like not his pale looks. 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."-NORTH'S Plutarch. "a man of any OCCUPATION"-i. e. One of any trade, in the same sense as in CORIOLANUS, (act iv. scene 6;) one of the plebeians, to whom Cæsar offered his throat. "Thy honourable metal may be wrought," etc. That is, "The best metal,' or temper, may be worked into qualities contrary to its disposition, or what it is disposed to." "Cæsar doth bear me hard"-i. e. Has an unfavour able opinion of me. The same phrase occurs again in the first scene of the third act. "If I were Brutus now, and HE were Cassins, It is not clear whether the "he" be meant for Brutus or for Cæsar: Warburton assumes the former, Johnson the latter sense; and they thus severally explain : If I were Brutus, (says he,) and Brutus were Cassius, he should not cajole me as I do him. To "humour" signifies here to turn and wind him, by inflaming his passions.-WARBURTON. The meaning, I think, is this:-Cæsar loves Brutus, but if Brutus and I were to change places, his love should not humour me, should not take hold of my affection, so as to make me forget my principles.-JOHNSON. I agree with Johnson, though the other sense has been thought preferable by some editors. SCENE III. BROUGHT you Casar home"-To bring one on his way was to accompany him. "all the SWAY of earth"-i. e. The whole weight or momentum of this globe.-JOHNSON. "Who GLAR'D upon me"-The original has glaz'd This is a meaningless word; and we have therefore to choose between "glar'd" and gaz'd. "Glare" is a favourite word of the Poet, as in MACBETHThou hast no speculation in those eyes That thou dost glare with. And again in HAMLET:-"How pale he glares." Malone contends for gaze, but Stevens well remarks:To gaze is only to look stedfastly, or with admiration. 'Glar'd' has a singular propriety, as it expresses the furious scintillation of a lion's eye; and that a lion should appear full of fury, and yet attempt no violence, augments the prodigy." "Men all in fire walk up and down the streets," etc. "Touching the fires in the element, and spirits running up and down in the night and also the solitary birds to be seen at noon-days 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 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 burned; but when the fire was out, it was found he had no hurt."-NORTH'S Plutarch. Why old men, fools, and children CALCULATE," etc. "Calculate" is here used in its once familiar astrological sense, as to "calculate a nativity." Why do all these calculate and foretell the future, who are inclined to superstition from any cause, whether age, mental weakness, or childish folly? There seems no reason for altering the old punctuation (retained in our text) into "old men fools, and children," as meaning only silly old men; which is a common reading of the later editions. 66 - scorning the base DEGREES By which he did ascend," etc. "Degrees" for steps, taken in the primitive and literal sense of the word; now used only in its figurative or secondary meaning. The following passage of a contemporary, first published in 1602, has been quoted as having suggested the thought, though it is quite as probably one of those mere coincidences of those obvious thoughts and images which are the common property of authors. It, however, affords quite as powerful an argument that JULIUS CESAR was written after 1602, as Collier's quotation from Drayton does that it was acted before Drayton had written the lines published in 1603: The aspirer once attain'd unto the top, objection to a king, or to Cæsar, a monarch in Rome. would Cæsar but be as good a monarch as he now seems disposed to be! How, too, could Brutus say that he found no personal cause-none in Cæsar's past conduct as a man? Had he not passed the Rubicon? Had he not entered Rome as a conqueror! Had he not placed his Gauls in the senate ?-Shakespeare, it may be said. has not brought these things forwards. True :-and this is just the ground of my perplexity. What charac ter did Shakespeare mean his Brutus to be!-COLE RIDGE. "the IDES of March"-In the original, “the first of March." Theobald made the correction. The error must have been that of a transcriber or printer; for our author, without any minute calculation, might have found the ides, nones, and kalends, opposite the respective days of the month, in the almanacs of the time. In Hopton's "Concordancie of Yeares," (1616,) opposite to the fifteenth of March is printed Idus.MALONE. "-March is wasted FIFTEEN days"-So the original: but most later editors join in altering it to "fourteen days," because, say they, "Lucius was speaking on the dawn of the fifteenth day." This minute calculation is over-nice, and certainly does not agree with the ordinary modes of talking. "Like a PHANTASMA”—“A phantasme," says Bull kar, in his "English Expositor," (1616,) “is a vision, or imagined appearance." "The genius and the MORTAL INSTRUMENTS," etc. "Mortal" is deadly, as it is in MACBETH:Come, you spirits, That tend on mortal thoughts. By "instruments," I understand our bodily powers, our members: as Othello calls his eyes and hands his speculative and active instruments; and Menenius, in CORIOLANUS, (act i. scene 1,) speaks of the cranks and offices of man, The strongest nerves, and small inferior veins. So intending to paint, as he does very finely, the inward conflict which precedes the commission of some dreadful crime; he represents, as I conceive him, the genius, or soul, consulting with the body, and, as it were, questioning the limbs, the instruments which are to perform this deed of death, whether they can undertake to bear her out in the affair, whether they can screw up their courage to do what she shall enjoin them. The tumultuous commotion of opposing sentiments and feelings, produced by the firmness of the soul contending with the secret misgivings of the body; during which the mental faculties are, though not actually dormant, yet in a sort of waking stupor, "crushed by one overwhelming image," is finely compared to a phantasm or a hideous dream, and by the state of man suffering the nature of an insurrection. Tybalt has something like it in RoMEO AND JULIET: Patience perforce with wilful choler meeting and the state of man"-So the original; but Stevens and other modern editors omit the article, which clearly explains what has preceded it. "A man" individualizes the description; and shows that "the genius," on the one hand, means the spirit, or the impelling higher power moving the spirit, while "the mortal instruments" has reference to the bodily powers which the will sets in action. The condition of Macbeth before the murder of Duncan illustrates this: Then, lest he may, prevent." This speech is singular;—at least, I do not at present see into Shakespeare's motive, his rationale, or in what point of view he meant Brutus's character to appear. For surely-(this I mean is what I say to myself, with my present quantum of insight, only modified by my experience in how many instances I have ripened into a perception of beauties, where I had before descried faults;) surely, nothing can seem more discordant with our historical preconceptions of Brutus, or more lowering to the intellect of the Stoico-Platonic tyrannicide, nia, the sister of Brutus. than the tenets here attributed to him-to him, the stern Roman republican; namely,-that he would have no -I am settled, and bend up Each corporal agent to this terrible feat. KNIGHT. your brother Cassius"-Cassius had married Ju any mark of FAVOUR"-i. e. Countenance. |