Our arms, in strength of malice," and our hearts
Of brothers' temper, do receive you in
With all kind love, good thoughts, and reverence.
CAS. Your voice shall be as strong as any
man's

In the disposing of new dignities.

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

ANT. I doubt not of your wisdom. Let each man render me his bloody hand : First, Marcus Brutus, will I shake with you;Next, Caius Cassius, do I take hand ;your Now, Decius Brutus, yours;- now yours, Me

tellus ;

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, Cæsar, O, 'tis true:
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?
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;

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,
Dost thou here lie!

CAS. Mark Antony,-
ANT.
Pardon me, Caius Cassius:
The enemies of Cæsar shall say this;
Then, in a friend, it is cold modesty.

CAS. I blame you not for praising Cæsar so; But what compact mean you to have with us?

-in strength of malice,-] For "malice," an unquestionable corruption, Mr. Collier's annotator proposes, welcome, a word, as Mr. Dyce remarks, which no way resembles it in the ductus literarum. Mr. Singer, with far more likelihood, suggests, amity. b Sign'd in thy spoil, and crimson'd in thy lethe.-] The allusion is to the huntsmen's custom of tricking themselves out with the hide and antlers of the slaughtered deer and bathing their hands in its blood. Some difficulty, however, arises from the word "lethe," which, notwithstanding the assertion of Steevens that it was employed of old for death, has by many been pronounced a misprint. Theobald first proposed to read,

"crimson'd in thy death.”—

and this not improbably was what the poet wrote. Blood, it is

ANT.

That's all I seek:
And am moreover suitor that I may
Produce his body to the market-place;
And in the pulpit, as becomes a friend,
Speak in the order of his funeral.d
BRU. You shall, Mark Antony.
CAS.
Brutus, a word with you.-
[Aside to BRUTUS.] You know not what you do:
do not consent

That Antony speak in his funeral:
Know you how much the people may be mov'd
By that which he will utter?
BRU.

By your pardon ;-
I will myself into the pulpit first,
And show the reason of our Cæsar's death :
What Antony shall speak, I will protest
He speaks by leave and by permission;
And that we are contented Cæsar shall
Have all true rites and lawful ceremonies.
It shall advantage more than do us wrong.

CAS. I know not what may fall; I like it not. BRO. Mark Antony, here, take you Cæsar's

body.

You shall not in your funeral speech blame us,
But speak all good you can devise of Cæsar;
And say you do 't by our permission ;
Else shall you not have any hand at all
About his funeral: and you shall speak
In the same pulpit whereto I am going,
After my speech is ended.
ANT.

I do desire no more.

Be it so ;

BRU. Prepare the body, then, and follow us. [Exeunt all except ANTONY. ANT. O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,

well known, often signified death and life; we still hear, "I'll have his blood," for I'll take his life, or be the death of him; and in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Custom of the Country," Act V. Sc. 5, there is a passage, strikingly illustrative of the one under consideration, where "life" is used as a synonym for blood :— "When thine own bloody sword cried out against thee, Hatch'd in the life of him."

c Friends am I with you all,-] The inaccurate pluralism here, as Henley observes, "is still so prevalent, as that the omission of the anomalous s would give some uncouthness to the sound of an otherwise familiar expression."

d in the order of his funeral.] That is, in the course of the ceremonial.

That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times.
Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!
Over thy wounds now do I prophesy,-
Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips,
To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue,-
A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;
Domestic fury and fierce civil strife
Shall cumber all the parts of Italy;
Blood and destruction shall be so in use,
And dreadful objects so familiar,

That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quarter'd with the hands of war;
All pity chok'd with custom of fell deeds:
And Cæsar's spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Até by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines, with a monarch's voice,

a A curse shall light upon the limbs of men ;] The expression "limbs of men," has been much disputed. Hanmer substituted "the kind of men;" Warburton, "the line of men;" Johnson proposed, "the lives of men;" and Mr. Collier's annotator, "the loins of men." The last has been pronounced by Mr. Craik to be "one of the most satisfactory and valuable emendations ever made," yet to us it appears far more probable that Shakespeare wrote,

"A curse shall light upon the tombs of men;"

Cry Havoc, and let slip the dogs of war; That this foul deed shall smell above the earth With carrion men, groaning for burial!

Enter a Servant.

You serve Octavius Cæsar, do you not?
SERV. I do, Mark Antony.

ANT. Cæsar did write for him to come to Rome.
SERV. He did receive his letters, and is coming;
And bid me say to you by word of mouth,-
O, Cæsar!-

[Seeing the body. ANT. Thy heart is big; get thee apart and

weep.

Passion, I see, is catching; for mine eyes, Seeing those beads of sorrow stand in thine, Began to water. Is thy master coming?

"Cursed be thy grave," is a common Oriental form of malediction, and in "The Merchant of Venice," Act II. Sc. 7, the old copies exhibit a misprint, "Gilded timber," for "Gilded tombs," which closely resembles that we presume to have occurred in the present instance.

b Cry Hacoc, &c.] See note (b), p. 158.

C— for mine eyes,-] So the second folio; the first has,

66 - from mine eyes."

The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Cæsar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Cæsar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault;
And grievously hath Cæsar answer'd it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest,
(For Brutus is an honourable man ;
So are they all, all honourable men)
Come I to speak in Cæsar's funeral.

He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.

He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Cæsar seem ambitious?

When that the poor have cried, Cæsar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal

I thrice presented him a kingly crown,

Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.

speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, But here I am to speak what I do know. You all did love him once,-not without cause; What cause withholds you, then, to mourn for him?

O, judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason!-Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Cæsar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

1 CIT. Methinks there is much reason in his sayings.

2 CIT. If thou consider rightly of the matter, Cæsar has had great wrong.

3 CIT.

Has he, masters?

I fear there will a worse come in his place. 4 Crr. Mark'd ye his words? He would not take the crown;

Therefore 't is certain he was not ambitious.

1 CIT. If it be found so, some will dear abide it. 2 CIT. Poor soul! his eyes are red as fire with

weeping.

3 CIT. There's not a nobler man in Rome than

Antony.

4 CIT. Now mark him, he begins again to speak.

ANT. But yesterday the word of Cæsar might
Have stood against the world: now lies he there,
And none so poor to do him reverence.
O, masters! if I were dispos'd to stir
Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,

I should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong,
Who, you
all know, are honourable men.
I will not do them wrong; I rather choose

To wrong the dead, to wrong myself, and you,
Than I will wrong such honourable men.
But here's a parchment with the seal of Cæsar,-
I found it in his closet,-'t is his will:
Let but the commons hear this testament,
(Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read)
And they would go and kiss dead Cæsar's wounds,
And dip their napkins in his sacred blood;
Yea, beg a hair of him for memory,
And, dying, mention it within their wills,
Bequeathing it, as a rich legacy,
Unto their issue.

4 CIT. We'll hear the will! read it, Mark Antony.

CITIZENS. The will, the will! we will hear

Cæsar's will!

[read it: ANT. Have patience, gentle friends; I must not It is not meet you know how Cæsar lov'd you. You are not wood, you are not stones, but men; And, being men, hearing the will of Cæsar, It will inflame you, it will make you mad: "Tis good you know not that you are his heirs; For if you should, O, what would come of it!

4 CIT. Read the will; we'll hear it, Antony; You shall read us the will;-Cæsar's will!

ANT. Will you be patient? Will you stay a while?

I have o'ershot myself to tell you of it:
I fear I wrong the honourable men
Whose daggers have stabb'd Cæsar; I do fear it.
4 CIT. They were traitors! honourable men !
CITIZENS. The will! the testament!

2 CIT. They were villains, murderers! the will! read the will! [will? ANT. You will compel me then, to read the Then make a ring about the corpse of Cæsar, And let me show you him that made the will. Shall I descend? and will you give me leave? CITIZENS. Come down.

2 CIT. Descend.

[ANTONY descends.