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Cas. Be you content: Good Cinna, take this | That lowliness is young ambition's ladder,

paper,

And look you lay it in the prætor's chair,
Where Brutus may but find it; and throw this
In at his window: set this up with wax
Upon old Brutus' statue: all this done,
Repair to Pompey's porch, where you shall find us.
Is Decius Brutus, and Trebonius, there?

Cin. All but Metellus Cimber; and he's gone
To seek you at your house. Well, I will hie,
And so bestow these papers as you bade me.
Cas. That done, repair to Pompey's theatre.
[Exit CINNA.
Come, Casca, you and I will yet, ere day,
See Brutus at his house: three parts of him
Is ours already; and the man entire,
Upon the next encounter, yields him ours.

Casca. O, he sits high in all the people's hearts:
And that, which would appear offence in us,
His countenance, like richest alchymy,
Will change to virtue, and to worthiness.

Cas Him and his worth, and our great need of
him,

You have right well conceited. Let us go,
For it is after midnight; and, ere day,

We will awake him, and be sure of him. [Exeunt.

ACT II.

Whereto the climber-upward turns his face :
But when he once attains the utmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend: So Cæsar 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,
Would run to these, and these extremities:
And therefore think him as a serpent's egg,
Which, hatch'd, would, as his kind, grow mis-
chievous,
And kill him in the shell.

Re-enter LUCIUS.

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

Bru. Get you to bed again, it is not day.
Is not to-morrow, boy, the ides of March?
Luc. I know not, sir.

Bru. Look in the calendar, and bring me word.
Luc. I will, sir.
[Exit.

Bru. The exhalations, whizzing in the air,
Give so much light, that I may read by them.
[Opens the Letter, and reads.
Brutus, thou sleep'st; awake, and see thyself.

SCENE I. The same. Brutus's Orchard. Enter Shall Rome, &c. Speak, strike, redress!

BRUTUS.

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Brutus, thou sleep'st; awake,

Such instigations have been often dropp'd
Where I have took them up.

Shall Rome, &c. 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

To speak, and strike? O Rome! I make thee pro-
mise,

If the redress will follow, thou receivest
Thy full petition at the hand of Brutus!
Re-enter LUCIUS.

Luc. Sir, March is wasted fourteen days."

[Knock within. Bru. 'Tis good. Go to the gate; somebody [Exit LUCIUS. Since Cassius first did whet me against Cæsar,

knocks.

It is the bright day, that brings forth the adder;
And that craves wary walking. Crown him?-I have not slept.

That ;

And then, I grant, we put a sting in him,
That at his will he may do danger with.

The abuse of greatness is, when it disjoins

Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream:
The genius, and the mortal instruments,

Remorse from power: And, to speak truth of Are then in council; and the state of man,"

Cæsar,

I have not known when his affections sway'd
More than his reason. But 'tis a common proof,3

1 Orchard and garden appear to have been synonymous with our ancestors. In Romeo and Juliet, Capulet's garden is twice called orchard.

Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection."

one of his earliest comments on Shakspeare, addressed to Concanen, when, in league with Theobald and others, he made war against Pope. The following note, by the Rev. Mr. Blakeway, is quite of another char 2 Shakspeare usually uses remorse for pity, tender-acter, and takes with it my entire concurrence and apness of heart. probation :

4

3 i. e. a matter proved by common experience. The aspirer once attain'd unto the top, Cuts off those means by which himself got up: And with a harder hand, and straighter rein, Doth curb that looseness he did find before: Doubting the occasion like might serve again, His own example makes him fear the more." Daniel's Civil Wars, 1602. 5. As his kind,' like the rest of his species. Thus in Antony and Cleopatra :- You must think this, look you, the worm [i. e. serpent] will do his kind.'

6 The old copy erroneously reads, the first of March. The correction was made by Theobald; as was the following.

7 Here again the old copy reads, fifteen. This was only the dawn of the fifteenth when the boy makes his

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The genius, and the mortal instruments,' &c. Mortal is assuredly 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 spe culative and active instruments and Menenius, in Coriolanus, Act i. Sc. 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

Re-enter Lucius.

Luc. Sir, 'tis your brother Cassius at the door, Who doth desire to see you.

Bru.

Is he alone?

Luc. No, sir; there are more with him.
Bru.

Do you know them?
Luc. No, sir; their hats are pluck'd about their

ears.

And half their faces buried in their cloaks,
That by no means may discover them
By any mark of favour.

Bru.

Let them 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

To mask thy monstrous visage? Seek none, con-
spiracy;

Hide it in smiles, and affability:

For if thou path thy native semblance2 on,'
Not Erebus itself were dim enough

To hide thee from prevention.

The sufferance of our souls, the time's abuse,-
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
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,
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
That welcome wrongs; unto bad causes swear
Such creatures as men doubt: but do not stain
The even virtue of our enterprise,

Nor the insuppressive mettle of our spirits,
To think, that, or our cause, or our performance,
Did need an oath; when every drop of blood,
That every Roman bears, and nobly bears,
Is guilty of a several bastardy,

Enter CASSIUS, CASCA, DECIUS, CINNA, METEL-If he do break the smallest particle

LUS CIMBER, and TREBONIUS.

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

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

Cas. Yes, every man of them; and no man here,
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.

Bru.

He is welcome hither.
Cas. This, Decius Brutus.
Bru.

Of any promise that hath pass'd from him.

Cas. But what of Cicero? Shall we sound him?

I think, he will stand very strong with us.
Casca. Let us not leave him out.

Cin.
No, by no means.
Met. O, let us have him; for his silver hairs
Will purchase us a good opinion,"
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.
Bru. O, name him not; let us not break with him;

He is welcome too. For he will never follow any thing

Cas. This, Casca; this, Cinna; And this, Metellus Cimber.

Bru.

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

Cas. Shall I entreat a word?

[They whisper. Dec. Here lies the east: Doth not the day break here?

Casca. No.

Cin. 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 de-
ceiv'd.

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
Stands as the Capitol, directly here."

Bru. Give me your hands all over, one by one.
Cas. And let us swear our resolution.

Bru. No, not an oath: If not the face3 of men, mental faculties are, though not actually dormant, yet in a sort of waking stupor, crushed by one overwhelm. ing image, is finely compared to a phantasm or a hideous dream, and by the state of man suffering the nature of an insurrection. Tibalt has something like it in Romeo and Juliet :

Patience perforce with wilful choler meeting, Makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting:' 1 See Act i. Sc. 3.

2 If thou walk in thy true form.'

3 Johnson thus explains this passage; in which, with a view perhaps to imitate the abruptness of dis. course, Shakspeare has constructed the latter part without any regard to the beginning. The face of men' is the countenance, the regard, the esteem of the public; in other terms, honour and reputation: or the face of men may mean the dejected look of the people. Thus Cicero in Catilinam:- Nihil horum ora vultusque moverunt.'

Gray may perhaps support Johnson's explanation: And read their history in a nation's eyes. Mason thought we should read, the faith of men ;' to which, he says, the context evidently gives support :— what other bond,

Than secret Romans, that have spoke the word,
And will not palier,' &c.

That other men begin.

Cas.

Then leave him out.
Casca. Indeed, he is not fit.

Dec. Shall no man else be touch'd but only Casar?
Cas. Decius, well urg'd:-I think it is not meet,
Mark Antony, so well belov'd of Caesar,
Should outlive Cæsar: We shall find of him
A shrewd contriver; and, you know, his means
As to annoy us all; which to prevent,
If he improves them, may well stretch so far,

Let Antony, and Cæsar, fall together.

Bru. 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:
Let us be sacrificers, but not butchers, Caius.
For Antony is but a limb of Cæsar.
We all stand up against the spirit of Cæsar;
And in the spirit of men there is no blood:
O, that we then could come by Caesar's spirit,
And not dismember Cæsar! But, alas,
Cæsar must bleed for it! And, gentle friends,

The speech is formed on the following passage in North's Plutarch:- The conspirators having never taken oath together, nor taken or given any caution or assurance, nor binding themselves one to another by any religious oaths, they kept the matter so secret to themselves,' &c.

4 Steevens thinks there may be an allusion here to the custom of decimation, i. e. the selection by lot of every tenth soldier in a general mutiny for punishment. The poet speaks of this in Coriolanus:

By decimation and a tithed death
Take thou thy fate.'

5 To palter is to shuffle, to equivocate; to go from engagements once made.

6 Though cautelous is often used for wary, circum. spect, by old writers, the context plainly shows that Shakspeare uses it here for artful, insidious; opposed to honesty. It is used in Coriolanus, Act iv Sc 1, in the same sense.

7 i. e. character. Thus in King Henry IV. Parti, Act v. Sc. 4:

Thou hast redeem'd thy lost opinion,

8 Let us not break the matter to him.

9 Envy here, as alinost always by Shakspeare, is used for malice.

Let's kill him boldly, but not wrathfully;
Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods,
Not hew him as a carcase fit for hounds:
And let our hearts, as subtle masters do,
Stir up their servants to an act of rage,
And after seem to chide them. This shall make
Our purpose necessary, and not envious:
Which so appearing to the common eyes,
We shall be call'd purgers, not murderers.
And for Mark Antony, think not of him;
For he can do no more than Cæsar's arm,
When Cæsar's head is off,

Cas.
Yet I do fear him:
For in the ingrafted love he bears to Cæsar,-
Bru. Alas, good Cassius, do not think of him:
If he love Cæsar, all that he can do
Is to himself; take thought,2 and die for Cæsar:
And that were much he should; for he is given
To sports, to wildness, and much company.

Treb. There is no fear in him; let him not die; For he will live, and laugh at this hereafter.

[Clock strikes.
The clock hath stricken three.
Treb. 'Tis time to part.
Cas.
But it is doubtful yet,
Whe'r Caesar will come forth to-day, or no:
For he is superstitious grown of late;
Quite from the main opinion he held once
Of fantasy, of dreams, and ceremonies :4
It may be, these apparent prodigies,
The unaccustom'd terror of this night,
And the persuasion of his augurers,
May hold him from the Capitol to-day.

Bru. Peace, count the clock.
Cas.

Dec. 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,"
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;
And I will bring him to the Capitol.

Cas. Nay, we will all of us be there to fetch him.
Bru. By the eighth hour: Is that the uttermost?
Cin. Be that the uttermost, and fail not then.
Met. Caius Ligarius doth bear Caesar hard,
Who rated him for speaking well of Pompey;
I wonder, none of you have thought of him.

Bru. 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.

Cas. The morning comes upon us: We'll leave you, Brutus ;

And, friends, disperse yourselves: but all remember "Gradive, dedisti,

1

Ne qua manus vatem, ne quid mortalia bello Lædere tela queant, sanctum et venerabile Diti Funus erat.' Statius, Theb. vii. 1. 696. The following passage of the old translation of Plu tarch was probably in the poet's thoughts:- Cesar turned himself no-where but he was stricken at by some, and still naked swords in his face, and was hacked and mangled among them as a wild beast taken of hunters.'

2 To take thought, is to grieve, to be troubled in mind. See note on Hamlet, Act iv. Sc. 5; and Antony and Cleopatra, Act iii. Sc. 2. 'My bodie surely is well, or in good case; but I take thought, or my minde is full

of fancies and trouble.'- Baret.

3 Whether.

4

Quite from the main opinion he held once
Of fantasy, of dreams, and ceremonies.'
Main opinion is fixed opinion, general estimation.

Thus in Troilus and Cressida :

'Why then should we our main opinion crush, In taint of our best man?'

Fantasy was used for imagination or conceit in Shakspeare's time; but the following passage from Lavaterus on Ghostes and Spirites, 1572, may elucidate its meaning in the present instance -- Suidas maketh a difference between phantasma and phantasia, saying that phantasma is an imagination or appearance of a Bight or thing which is not, as are those sights which

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Bru. Good gentlemen, look fresh and merrily;
Let not our looks put on our purposes;
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 :
Thou hast no figures, nor no fantasies,
Which busy care draws in the brains of men;
Therefore thou sleep'st so sound.

Por.

Enter PORTIA.

Brutus, my lord! Bru. Portia, what mean you? Wherefore rise you now?

It is not for your health, thus to commit
Your weak condition to the raw-cold morning.

Por. Nor for yours, neither. You have ungently,
Brutus,

Stole from my bed: And yesternight, at supper,
You suddenly arose, and walk'd about,
Musing, and sighing, with your arms across
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;
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,
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,
Make me acquainted with your cause of grief.

Bru. I am not well in health, and that is all. Por. Brutus is wise, and were he not in health, He would embrace the means to come by it.

Bru. Why, so I do :-Good Portia, go to bed, Por. 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? 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, I charm you,10 by my once commended beauty,

men in their sleepe do thinke they see; but that phantasia is the seeing of that only which is in very deede.' Ceremonies signify omens or signs deduced from sacrifices or other ceremonial rites. Thus in a subsequent passage :

Cæsar, I never stood on ceremonies,
Yet now they fright me.'

running behind a tree, eluded the violent push the ani5 Unicorns are said to have been taken by one, who, mal was making at him, so that his horn spent its force he was despatched by the hunter. This is alluded to on the trunk, and stuck fast, detaining the animal till by Spenser, F. Q. b. ii. c. 5; and by Chapman, in his Bussy d'Ambois, 1607. Bears are reported to have been surprised by means of a mirror, which they would gaze on, affording their pursuers an opportunity of taking the surer aim. This circumstance is mentioned by Claudian. Elephants were seduced into pitfalls, lightly covered with hurdles and turf, on which a proper bait to tempt them was placed. See Pliny's Natural History,

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JULIUS CESAR.

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
Have had resort to you: for here have been
Some six or seven, who did hide their faces
Even from darkness.

Bru.

Kneel not, gentle Portia.
Por. I should not need, if you were gentle Brutus.
Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus,
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

Of your good pleasure? If it be no more,
Portia is Brutus' harlot, not his wife.1

Bru. You are my true and honourable wife;
As dear to me, as are the ruddy drops
That visit my sad heart.2

Por. If this were true, then should I know this

secret.

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.
Think you, I am no stronger than my sex,
Being so father'd, and so husbanded?

Tell me your counsels, I will not disclose them:
I have made strong proof of my constancy,
Giving myself a voluntary wound

Here, in the thigh: Can I bear that with patience,
And not my husband's secrets?

Bru.

O ye gods,

Render me worthy of this noble wife!

Hark, hark! one knocks: Portia, go in a while;
[Knocking within.
And by and by thy bosom shall partake
The secrets of my heart.

All my engagements I will construe to thee,
my sad brows:-

All the charactery3 of
Leave me with haste.

[Exit PORTIA.

Enter LUCIUS and LIGARIUS.
Lucius, who is that knocks?
Luc. Here is a sick man, that would speak with

you.

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

Lig. Vouchsafe good morrow from a feeble tongue.
Bru. O, what a time have you chose out, brave
Caius,

To wear a kerchief? 'Would, you were not sick!
Lig. I am not sick, if Brutus have in hand
Any exploit worthy the name of honour.4

treat by words or other fascinating means.
Cymbeline :--

'tis your graces

That from my mutest conscience to my tongue
Charms this report out.'

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

257

Lig. By all the gods that Romans bow before,
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,
Yea, get the better of them. What's to do?
And I will strive with things impossible;
Bru. A piece of work, that will make sick men
whole.

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

I shall unfold to thee, as we are going
Bru. That must we also. What it is, my Caius,
To whom it must be done.
Lig.
And, with a heart new-fir'd, I follow you,
Set on your foot;
To do I know not what: but it sufficeth,
That Brutus leads me on.

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You shall not stir out of your house to-day.
Cas. Cæsar shall forth: The things that threat-
en'd me,

Ne'er look'd but on my back; when they shall see
The face of Caesar, they are vanished.
Yet now they fright me.
Cal. Cæsar, I never stood on ceremonies,
Besides the things that we have heard and seen,
There is one within,
Recounts most horrid sights seen by the watch.
A lioness hath whelped in the streets;

And

Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds,
graves have yawn'd, and yielded up their dead:"
In ranks, and squadrons, and right form of war,
Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol:
The noise of battle hurtled in the air,

him by the right hande, sayed unto him, Brutus, if thou
hast any great enterprise in hande worthie of thy selfe,
Thus in I am whole. Lord Sterline has also introduced this
passage into his Julius Cæsar. Shakspeare has given
to Romans the manners of his own time.
mon practice in England for those who were sick to
It was a com-
the common people in many places. If (says Fuller)
wear a kerchief on their heads, and still continues among
this county [Cheshire] hath bred no writers in that
faculty [physic], the wonder is the less, if it be true
what I read, that 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.'-Worthies,
Cheshire, p. 180.

1 The general idea of this part of Portia's speech is taken from the old translation of Plutarch. Lord Sterline, in his Julius Cæsar, 1607, uses similar language:I was not, Brutus, match'd with thee, to be A partner only of thy board and bed: Each servile whore in those might equal me, That did herself to nought but pleasure wed. No-Portia spous'd thee with a mind t' abide Thy fellow in all fortunes, good or ill, With chains of mutual love together tied, As those that have two breasts, one heart, two souls, one will.'

2 These glowing words have been adopted by Gray in his celebrated Ode:

'Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart.' 3 Charactery is defined 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.' In The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act v. Sc. 1, it is said, 'Fairies use flowers for their charactery.

4 This is from Plutarch's Life of Brutus, as translated by North: Brutus went to see him being sicke in his bedde, and sayed unto him, O Ligarius, in what a time art thou sicke? Ligarius, rising up in his bed and taking 2 H

5 Here and in all other places Shakspeare uses erorcist for one who raises spirits, not one who lays them. this use of the word. But it has been erroneously said that he is singular in

adjective is used in the same sense in The Devil's Char-
6 Never paid a regard to prodigies or omens. The
ter, 1607 :-

The devil hath provided in his covenant
I should not cross myself at any time,

I never was so ceremonious.'

7 Shakspeare has adverted to this again in Hamlet:-
'A little ere the mighty Julius fell,

The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the streets of Rome.'
et subito nubium igne collucere,' &c.-Tacitus, Hist. b. v.
8 Visa per cœlum concurrere acies, rutilantia arma,
noise.
9 To hurtle is to clash, or move with violence and

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princes.1

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cause,

Ces. Cowards die many times before their Lest I be laugh'd at, when I tell them so.

deaths;2

The valiant never taste of death but once.

Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,

Cas. The cause is in my will, I will not come; That is enough to satisfy the senate.

But, for your private satisfaction,

It seems to me most strange that men should fear; Because I love you, I will let you know;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come, when it will come.

Re-enter a Servant.

What say the augurers? Serv. They would not have you to sur forth to-day.

Plucking the entrails of an offering forth,
They could not find a heart within the beast.

Calphurnia here, my wife, stays me at home:
She dreamt to-night she saw my statua,
Which, like a fountain, with a hundred spouts,
Did run pure blood; and many lusty Romans
Came smiling, and did bathe their hands in it.
And these doth she apply for warnings and portents,
And evils imminent; and on her knee
Hath begg'd, that I will stay at home to-day.
Dec. This dream is all amiss interpreted;

Caes. The gods do this in shame of cowardice :3 It was a vision, fair and fortunate:

Cæsar should be a beast without a heart,
If he should stay at home to-day for fear.
No, Cæsar shall not: Danger knows full well,
That Cæsar is more dangerous than he.
We were two lions litter'd in one day,
And I the elder and more terrible;
And Cesar shall go forth.

Cal.

Alas, my lord,
Your wisdom is consum'd in confidence.
Do not go forth to-day: Call it my fear,
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.

Cas. Mark Antony shall say, I am not well;
And, for thy humour, I will stay at home.
Enter DECIUS.

Here's Decius Brutus, he shall tell them so.
Dec, Cæsar, all hail! Good morrow, worthy

Cæsar:

I come to fetch you to the senate-house.

Your statue spouting blood in many pipes,
In which so many smiling Romans bath'd,
Signifies that from you great Rome shall suck
Reviving blood: and that great men shall
For tinctures, stains, relics, and cognizance.*
This by Calphurnia's dream is signified.

press

Cas. And this way have you well expounded it.
Dec. 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 Cæsar.
If you shall send them word, you will not come,
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 Casar's wife shall meet with better dreams.
If Cæsar hide himself, shall they not whisper,
Lo, Cæsar is afraid?

Pardon me, Cæsar; for my dear, dear love
To your proceeding bids me tell you this;

And reason to my love is liable.

Cas. How foolish do your fears seem now, Calphurnia?

4 The old copy reads, We heare,' &c. The emendation was made by Theobald. Upton proposed to read. We are,' &c.

5 Steevens observes, that any speech of Cæsar, throughout this scene, will appear to disadvantage, if compared with the following, put into his mouth by May in the seventh book of his Supplement to Lucan:

Plus me Calphurnia luctus,

1 This may have been suggested by Suetonius, who forgotten his classics strangely, as he has shown by relates that a blazing star appeared for seven days to-several extracts from Virgil and Ovid. gether during the celebration of games, instituted by Augustus, in honour of Julius. The common people believed that this indicated his reception among the gods, his statues were accordingly ornamented with its figure, and medals struck on which it was represented; one of them is engraved in Mr. Douce's Illustrations, vol. ii. p. 82; from whence this note is taken. Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton, in his Defensative against the Poison of supposed Prophesies, 1583, says, Next to the shadows and pretences of experience (which have been met with all at large,) they seem to brag most of the strange events which follow (for the most part) after blazing starres; as if they were the summonses of God to call princes to the seat of judg ment. The surest way to shake their painted bulwarkes of experience is, by making plaine that neither princes always dye when comets blaze, nor comets ever (i. e. always) when princes dye.' In this work is a curious anecdote of Queen Elizabeth, then lying at Richmond, being dissuaded from looking on a comet; with a courage equal to the greatness of her state she caused the windowe to be sette open, and said, jacta est alea-the dice are thrown.'

2When some of his friends did counsel him to have a guard for the safety of his person, he would never consent to it; but said, it was better to die once than always to be afraid of death.'-North's Plutarch.

Lord Essex in a letter to Lord Rutland, observes, That as he which dieth nobly doth live for ever, so he that doth live in fear doth die continually.-Aud Marston, in bis Insatiate Countess, 1613:

Fear is my vassal; when I frown he flies: A hundred times in life a coward dies.'

3 Johnson remarks, That the ancients did not place! courage in the heart.' Mr. Douce observes, that he had

Et lachrymæ movere tuæ, quam tristia vatum
Responsa, infaustæ volucres, aut ulla dierum
Vana superstitio poterant. Ostenta timere
Si nunc inciperem, quæ non mihi tempora posthac
Anxia transirent? quæ lux jucunda maneret?
Aut quæ libertas? frustra servire timori
(Dum nec luce frui, nec mortem arcere licebit)
Cogar, et huic capiti quod Roma veretur, aruspex
Jus dabit, et vanus semper dominabitur augur.

6 The old copy reads statue; but it has been showa by Mr. Reed beyond controversy that statua was pre nounced as a trisyllable by our ancestors, and hence ge nerally written statua. Thus in Lord Bacon's Advancement of Learning, ed. 1633, p. 88:- It is not possible to have the true pictures or statuaes of Cyrus, Álexander, Cæsar, no, nor of the kings or great personages of much later years.' Again: without which the history of the world seeras to be as the statua of Polyphemus, with his eye out.'

7 At the execution of several of our ancient nobility, martyrs, &c, we are told that handkerchiefs were tinetured with their blood, and preserved as affectionate or salutary memorials of the deceased.

8And reason, or propriety of conduct and language, is subordinate to my love.'

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