CAS. Will you go see the order of the course?
BRU. Not I.

CAS. I pray you do.

BRU. I am not gamesome: I do lack some part1
Of that quick spirit that is in Antony.

Let me not hinder, Cassius, your desires:
I'll leave you,

CAS. Brutus, I do observe you now of late:
I have not from your eyes that gentleness,
And show of love, as I was wont to have:
You bear too stubborn and too strange a hand 2
Over your friend that loves you.

BRU.

Cassius,
Be not deceiv'd: if I have veil'd my look,

I turn the trouble of my countenance
Merely upon myself. Vexed I am,

Of late, with passions of some difference,3
Conceptions only proper to myself,

Which give some soil, perhaps, to my behaviours:
But let not therefore my good friends be grieved;
(Among which number, Cassius, be you one;)
Nor construe any further my neglect,

4

Than that poor Brutus, with himself at war,
Forgets the shows of love to other men.

ČAS. Then, Brutus, I have much mistook your passion,
By means whereof, this breast of mine hath buried
Thoughts of great value, worthy cogitations.
Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face?

BRU. No, Cassius: for the eye sees not itself, 6 But by reflection, by some other things,

1) Gamesome, i. e. gay, sportive. To lack, to want or need. 2) Strange, is alien, unfamiliar, such as might become a stranger. Johnson.

3) With a fluctuation of discordant opinions and desires. Johnson. 4) To construe, to interpret, to explain.

5) i. e. I have much mistaken the nature of the feelings from which you are now suffering.

"Is it because the mind is like the eye,

"Through which it gathers knowledge by degrees; "Whose rays reflect not, but spread outwardly;

"Not seeing itself, when other things it sees?" Again, in Marston's Parasitaster,

1606:

"Thus few strike sail until they run on shelf;
"The eye sees all things but its proper self."
Steevens.
Again, in Sir John Davies's poem:
"the lights which in my tower do shine,
"Mine eyes which see all objects nigh and
far,
"Look not into this little world of mine;

6) So, Sir John Davies in his poem "Nor see my face, wherein they fixed are." entitled Nosce Teipsum, 1599:

Malone.

CAS. 'Tis just:

And it is very much lamented, Brutus,
That you have no such mirrors, as will turn
Your hidden worthiness into your eye,

That you might see your shadow. I have heard,
Where many of the best respect1 in Rome,
(Except immortal Cæsar,) speaking of Brutus,
And groaning underneath this age's yoke,
Have wish'd that noble Brutus had his eyes.

BRU. Into what dangers would you lead me, Cassius, That you would have me seek into myself

For that which is not in me?

CAS. Therefore, good Brutus, be prepar'd to hear:
And since you know you cannot see yourself
So well as by reflection, I, your glass,

Will modestly discover to yourself

That of yourself which you yet know not of.
And be not jealous of me, gentle Brutus:
Were I a common laugher, 3 or did use
To stale with ordinary oaths my love
To every new protester; if you know
That I do fawn on men, and hug them hard, 5
And after scandal them; or if you know
That I profess myself in banqueting

To all the rout, then hold me dangerous.

[Flourish, and Shout. BRU. What means this shouting? I do fear, the people Choose Cæsar for their king.

CAS.
Ay, do you fear it?
Then must I think you would not have it so.

BRU. I would not, Cassius; yet I love him well:
But wherefore do you hold me here so long?
What is it that you would impart to me?
If it be aught toward the general good,
Set honour in one eye, and death i'the other,

1) Reverend character, honour.
2) Could clearly understand the
state of things see things in the
same light that they do.

3) Old copy-laugther; corrected by Pope. Malone.

4) To stale, to make common. To invite every new protester to my

affection by the stale or allurement of customary oaths. Johnson.

--

5) To fawn on men, to court them servilely, as a dog. To hug, to Press close in an embrace; to treat

with tenderness.

6) By this circumlocution Cassius means to say: if I were a man like Antonius.

.

And I will look on both indifferently: 1
For, let the gods so speed me, as I love
The name of honour more than I fear death.

CAS. I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus,
As well as I do know your outward favour.2
Well, honour is the subject of my story. -
I cannot tell, what you and other men
Think of this life; but, for my single self,
I had as lief3 not be, as live to be
In awe of such a thing as I myself.

6

I was born free as Cæsar; so were you:
We both have fed as well: and we can both
Endure the winter's cold, as well as he.
For once, upon a raw and gusty day, 4
The troubled Tyber chafing with her shores,
Cæsar said to me, Dar'st thou, Cassius, now,
Leap in with me into this angry flood,
And swim to yonder point? Upon the word,
Accoutred' as I was, I plunged in,
And bade him follow: so, indeed, he did.8
The torrent roar'd; and we did buffet it 9
With lusty sinews; throwing it aside
And stemming it with hearts of controversy.
But ere we could arrive the point propos'd, 10
Cæsar cry'd, Help me, Cassius, or I sink.
I, as Eneas, our great ancestor,

Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder

1) When Brutus first names honour | into the sea, when he was in danger and death, he calmly declares them indifferent; but as the image kindles in his mind, he sets honour above life. Johnson.

2) Favour, favourable countenance, good qualities.

3) Lief, willing, used now only in familiar speaking.

4) Raw, unseasonable, chill. Gusty, stormy, tempestuous. 5) To chafe, to rage.

6) Suetonius, in his life of Julius Cæsar, tells of him (§ 64) that, were rivers in his way to hinder his passage, he would cross over them, either swimming, or else bearing himself upon blowed leather bottles. So also, ibid. §64, he tells of Cæsar's leaping

by a boat's being overladen, and
swimming to the next ship with his
Commentaries in his left hand.
7) To accoutre, to dress.

8) This was a customary exercise
of young Roman patricians who made
profession of arms. Therefore Ho-
race says, speaking of an enervated
youth,"
cur timet flavum Tiberim
tangere," i. e. why does he fear to
touch the yellow Tyber.

9) To buffet, to beat. 10) To arrive, used without the preposition at. So in the Third Part of King Henry VI. Act. V. sc. 3: ". those powers that the queen hath raised in Gallia, have arriv'd our coast,"

The old Anchises bear, so, from the waves of Tyber
Did I the tired Cæsar: And this man

Is now become a god; and Cassius is

A wretched creature, and must bend his body,
If Cæsar carelessly but nod on him.

He had a fever when he was in Spain,

And, when the fit was on him, I did mark

How he did shake: 'tis true, this god did shake:
His coward lips did from their colour fly;1

And that same eye, whose bend doth awe the world, 2
Did lose his lustre: I did hear him groan:

Ay, and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans
Mark him, and write his speeches in their books,
Alas! it cried, Give me some drink, Titinius,

As a sick girl. Ye gods, it doth amaze me,
A man of such a feeble temper3 should
So get the start of the majestick world,
And bear the palm alone. 4

BRU. Another general shout!

I do believe, that these applauses are

[Shout. Flourish.

For some new honours that are heap'd on Cæsar.

CAS. Why, man, he doth bestride 5 the narrow world,

Like a Colossus; and we petty men

Walk under his huge legs, and peep about

To find ourselves dishonourable graves.

Men at some time are masters of their fates;
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,

But in ourselves, that we are underlings.7

Brutus and Cæsar: What should be in that Cæsar?
Why should that name be sounded more than yours?
Write them together, yours is as fair a name;
Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well;

Warburton takes the majestick world to be a fine periphrasis for the Roman empire; the citizens of Rome set themselves on a footing with kings, and they called their dominion orbis

1) A plain man would have said, | lotted to the foremost in the race. the colour fled from his lips, and not his lips from their colour. Warburton says, that the false expression was for the sake of as false a piece of wit: a poor quibble, alluding to a coward flying from his colours.

2) i. e. whose look strikes the world with fear.

3) Temper, temperament, constitution.

4) The allusion is to the price al

terrarum.

5) To bestride, to step over.
6) Huge, vast immense.

7) i. e. inferior agents; sorry, mean fellows.

Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure with them,
Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Cæsar.
Now in the names of all the gods at once,
Upon what meat doth this our Cæsar feed,
That he is grown so great? Age, thou art sham'd:
Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods! 1
When went there by an age, since the great flood,
But it was fam'd with more than with one man?2
When could they say, till now, that talk'd of Rome,
That her wide walks encompass'd but one man?
Now is it Rome indeed, and room enough,
When there is in it but one only man

O! you and I have heard our fathers say,

There was a Brutus once, that would have brook'd3
The eternal devil to keep his state in Rome,

As easily as a king.4

BRU. That you do love me, I am nothing jealous;
What you would work me to, I have some aim; 5
How I have thought of this, and of these times,
I shall recount hereafter; for this present,
I would not, so with love I might entreat you,
Be any further mov'd. What you have said,
I will consider; what you have to say

I will with patience hear: and find a time

Both meet to hear, and answer, such high things.
Till then, my noble friend, chew upon this;

Brutus had rather be a villager,

6

Than to repute himself a son of Rome
Under these hard conditions as this time

Is like to lay upon us.

7

CAS. I am glad that my weak words

Have struck but thus much show of fire from Brutus.

[Shout.

1) i. e. thou hast lost the power to | nuing to read eternal devil. Lucius Juproduce heroes, to give birth to great

men.

2) In every age which passed since the great flood, i. e. since the deluge in the time of Deucalion, there were living several great men.

3) To brook means to endure, to submit to.

4) Though Johnson proposes to read infernal devil, Steevens prefers conti

nius Brutus, says Cassius, would as soon have submitted to the perpetual dominion of a dæmon, as to the lasting government of a king.

5) Aim in the meaning of guess, conjecture.

6) Consider this at leisure; ruminate on this. Johnson.

7) As, in our author's age, was frequently used in the sense of that,