THE
ENGLISH OF SHAKESPEARE
ILLUSTRATED
51 |p0I0gital (
JULIUS CUSAR.
BY
OS
GEORGE Rv CEA1K,
PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AND OF ENGLISH LITERATUR QUEEN'S COLLEGE, BELFAST.
FOURTH EDITION, REVISED AND CORRECTED.
LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.
1869.
C7
JOHN CHILUS AND SON, PRINTERS.
CONTENTS.
Page PROLEGOMENA.
Shakespeare's Personal History .... 1
Shakespeare's Works . . . . . . ' 3
The Sources for the Text of Shakespeare's Plays . 9 The Shakespearian Editors and Commentators . 25 The Modern Shakespearian Texts . . .27 The Mechanism of English Verse, and the Prosody of the Plays of Shakespeare . . . .30
Shakespeare's Julius Casar . . . .44
PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY, WITH TEXT OF THE
PLAT 61
PREFACE.
IN this attempt to illustrate the ENGLISH OF SHAKE SPEARE, I would be understood to have had a twofold purpose, in conformity with the title of the volume, which would naturally be taken to promise something of exposition in regard both to the language or style of Shakespeare and to the English Language generally.
My first business I have considered to be the cor rect exhibition and explanation of the noble work of our great dramatist with which the volume professes to be specially occupied. I will begin, therefore, by stating what I have done, or endeavoured to do, for the Play of JTJLITJS CJBSAB.
I have given what I believe to be a more nearly au thentic Text than has yet appeared. Julius Caesar is, probably, of all Shakespeare's Plays, the one of which the text has come down to us in the least unsatisfactory state. Prom whatever cause it has happened, the pas sages in this Play as to the true reading of which there can be much reasonable doubt are, comparatively, very few. Even when anything is wrong in the original edition, the manner in which it is to be set to rights is for the most part both pretty obvious and nearly certain. There are perhaps scarcely so many as half-a-dozen lines of any importance which must be given up as hopelessly incurable or even doubtful. It is, I should think, of all
vi PREFACE.
the Plays, by much the easiest to edit ; both the settle ment of the text and its explanation are, I conceive, simpler than would be the case in any other ; and it is for that reason partly that I have selected it for the pre sent attempt.
The alterations which I have found it necessary to make upon the commonly received text do not amount to very many; and the considerations by which I have been guided are in every instance fully stated in the Commentary. The only conjectural innovations which I have ventured upon of my own are, the change of "What night is this?" into "What a night is this!" in the speech numbered 117 ; the insertion of " not" after " Has he," in that numbered 402 ; and the transposition of the two names Lucilius and Lucius in that numbered 521. The first and second of these three corrections are of little moment, though both, I think, clearly required; the third I hold to be both of absolute certainty and necessity, and also of considerable importance, affecting as it does the whole course of the Fourth Act of the Play, restoring propriety and consistency to the conduct of the action and the parts sustained by the various personages, and vindicating a reading of the First Folio in a subse quent speech (571) which, curiously enough, had never been previously noticed by anybody, but has been silently ignored and departed from even by those of the modern editors who have professed to adhere the most scru pulously to that original text.
For the rest, the present text differs in nothing ma terial from that which is found in all the modern editions, unless it be that I have restored from the First Folio one or two antiquated forms, — such as 'em for them, and moe in several places for more, — which have been usually suppressed, although 'em remains familiar enough in our
PREEACE. Vll
colloquial speech, or at any rate is still perfectly intelli gible and unambiguous, and moe is sometimes the only form that will suit the exigencies of the verse.
A merely mechanical innovation in the typographical exhibition of the text will at once catch the eye. The present is, I suppose, the first edition of a Play, in any language, with the speeches numbered. Possibly it may be the first time that any one has thought of counting the speeches in a Play.* In that case, the re sult arrived at, that there are about eight hundred separ ate utterances, or divisions of the dialogue, long and short, in the drama here examined, may be received as one of some little curiosity and interest. At any rate, such a method as I have adopted seems to afford the only available means for distinct and expeditious reference. It has a double advantage over the mere pagination ; first, inasmuch as a speech is usually much shorter than a page, and, secondly, inasmuch as the division into speeches is the same for all editions. The only other plan that has been, or that, apparently, can be taken, is to make shift with the ordinary division into Acts and Scenes. This is what has been commonly done in the various verbal indexes to Shakespeare. But to be told simply
* Since the first publication of the present work, however, Mr J. A. Ellis has obligingly forwarded to me copies of editions of Shake speare's Tempest and Macbeth, in what is called the Phonetic spell ing, brought out under his care at London in 1849, in which the speeches in each Scene are separately numbered for the purpose of re ference in the notes, mostly explanatory, but sometimes critical or conjectural, appended at the foot of the page. But, besides that there is no general summation, the text of Shakespeare is not fully given in these editions, so that even the process of adding up the speeches in the several scenes would not give us the entire number in the Play. The plan of one continuous enumeration throughout would seem to be simpler and more convenient for all purposes.
yiii PEEFACE.
that a word or phrase which we are in search of occurs in a certain Scene of one of Shakespeare's Plays is in most cases only a degree better- than being told that it may be found somewhere within the compass of the Play. We may be often half an hour in finding it. The Scenes in Shakespeare (the notation of which, by the bye, is for the most part the work of his modern editors) continually run out to dimensions which make this kind of reference a mere tantalizing and tormenting mockery. In any liberally printed library edition, such as those of Mr Knight or Mr Collier, with a very small proportion of the space taken up by foot-notes, it is not unusual to find that the Scene to which we have been directed extends over twenty or thirty pages. Even in the present edition of Julius Cfssar, compactly printed as it is, several of the Scenes cover seven or eight pages. In the entire Play, filling about sixty pages, there are only eighteen Scenes, so that the average throughout is considerably above three pages for each. Even Jennens's more scientific division gives us only twenty-six Scenes for this Play, making an average of above two of our pages for each ; and that of Hanmer, which "Warburton follows, and which is the most minute that has been proposed, gives us only thirty-seven, each therefore extending over a space of not much less than two of our pages on an average. This is the utmost amount of definiteness attainable by the system of reference to Scenes. The enumeration of the speeches reduces the average space which a reference in cludes to about the thirteenth part of a page. As there are about eight hundred speeches in the Play, and only eighteen Scenes (according to * the common division), it follows that the one method of reference must be on the whole between forty and fifty times more precise, and consequently more serviceable, than the other.
PEEFACE. IX
Mrs Cowden Clarke's Concordance to Khakspere is a noble monument of the fair compiler's loving patience and carefulness ; its correctness, especially when we take into account the multitude of mere figures and symbols which there was nothing in the sense or the context to protect from perversion, is wonderful ; it would be hard to name a printed volume either of more difficult or of more faultless execution ; it is rare to find a single figure or letter wrong; it may be questioned if any equally elaborate work, literary or of any other kind, so remark able for exactness and freedom from error, ever before proceeded from the female head or hand; even as it stands, it is invaluable, and in a manner indispensable, for critical purposes. But it is much to be wished that before it was undertaken there had existed an edition of the Plays with the speeches numbered throughout, as in the present edition of the Julius Ccesar, to which it might have been accommodated. We should in that case have found whatever we might seek by its assistance in about a fiftieth part of the average time that it now takes us.*
* "What is stated in the above paragraph will explain my prefer ence for the plan of enumeration I have adopted over that subsequently employed by Herr Karl Elze in his edition of Hamlet (in the original English), with notes in German, published at Leipzig, in 1857. He has simply divided each page of the Play into so many paragraphs of equal, or nearly equal, length (he makes 241 of them in all) ; and, in a complimentary reference to my book, which had reached him while his own was passing through the press, he observes that I had made an attempt to furnish a similar indispensable requisite for the philo logical study of Shakespeare : — "einen Versuch hierzu hat allerdings ganz kiirzlich Professor Craik in Belfast gemacht." It will be seen that Herr Elze's method would not serve the more general purpose which I had in view. I have not seen Meyer's edition of the Julius Caesar which he notices as having been published at Hamburg in the same year 1857, and the numbering in which he says is quite useless, inasmuch as it does not admit of being transferred to other editions.
X PHEFACE.
As for the present Commentary on the Play of Julius C&sar, it will be perceived that it does not at all aspire to what is commonly distinguished as the higher criticism. It does not seek to examine or to expound this Shake spearian drama aesthetically, but only philologically, or with respect to the language. The only kind of criticism which it professes is what is called verbal criticism. Its whole aim, in so far as it relates to the particular work to which it is attached, is, as far as may be done, first to ascertain or determine the text, secondly to explain it ; to inquire, in other words, what Shakespeare really wrote, and how what he has written is to be read and construed.
"Wherever either the earliest text or that which is com monly received has been deviated from to the extent of a word or a syllable, the alteration has been distinctly in dicated. In this way a complete representation is given, in so far at least as regards the language, both of the text of the editio princeps and of the textus receptus. I have not sought to register with the same exactness the various readings of the other texts, ancient and modern ; but I believe, nevertheless, that all will be found to be noted that are of any interest either in the Second Polio or among the conjectures of the long array of editors and commentators extending from Eowe to our own day.
Then, with regard to the explanation of the text : — I confess that here my fear is rather that I shall be thought to have done too much than too little. But I have been desirous to omit nothing that any reader might require for the full understanding of the Play, in so far as I was able to supply it. I have even re tained the common schoolboy explanations of the few points of Roman antiquities to which allusions occur,
PEEFACE. XI
such as the arrangements of the Calendar, the usages of the Lupercalia, etc. The expression, however, is what I have chiefly dwelt upon. The labours of scores of expositors, embodied in hundreds of volumes, attest the existence in the writings of Shakespeare of numerous words, phraseologies, and passages the import of which is, to say the least, not obvious to ordinary readers of the present day. This comes partly from certain cha racteristics of his style, which would probably have made him occasionally a difficult author in any circumstances ; but much more from the two facts, of the corrupted or at least doubtful state of the text in many places, and the changes that our national speech has undergone since his age. The English of the sixteenth century is in various respects a different language from that of the nineteenth. The words and constructions are not throughout the same, and when they are they have not always the same meaning. Much of Shakespeare's vo cabulary has ceased to fall from either our lips or our pens ; much of the meaning which he attached to so much of it as still survives has dropt out of our minds. What is most misleading of all, many words and forms have ac quired senses for us which they had not for him. All such cases that the Play presents I have made it my object to notice. Wherever there seemed to be any risk of the true meaning being mistaken, I have, in as few words as possible, stated what I conceived it to be. Where it was not clear to myself, I have frankly confessed my inability to explain it satisfactorily.
In so far as the Commentary relates to the particular Play which it goes over, and professes to elucidate, it is intended to be as complete as I could make it, in the sense of not leaving any passage unremarked upon which seemed to be difficult or obscure. But, of course,
Xll PREFACE.
it puts forward no pretensions to a similar completeness, or thoroughness, in respect of any further purpose. It is far from embracing the whole subject of the English of Shakespeare, or making any attempt to do so. It is merely an introduction to that subject. In the Pro legomena, nevertheless, I have sought to lay a foundation for the full and systematic treatment of an important de partment of it in the exposition which is given of some principles of our prosody, and some peculiarities of Shakespeare's versification, which his editors have not in general sufficiently attended to. Such investigations are, I conceive, full of promise of new light in regard to the history both of the Plays and of the mind of their author.
Still less can the Commentary pretend to any com pleteness in what it may contain in reference to the history and constitution of the language generally, or of particular classes of words and constructions. Among the fragments, or specimens, however — for they can be nothing more — which occur in it of this kind of specula tion are a few which will be found, perhaps, to carry out the examination of a principle, or the survey of a group of connected facts, farther than had before been done ; such as those in the notes on Merely (45), on Its (54), on Shrew and Shrewd (186), on Statue (246), on Deliver (348), on the prefix Be (390), on The in combination with a comparative (675), etc.*
* I may add a remark on the word business, noticed in 496. Whether our busy be or be not the same with the German base, signi fying wicked (even as both wicked and weak have been supposed to be identical with quick,— Vid. 267), and whatever may be the origin of the French besogne and besoin, and the Italian bisogna and bisogno, there can, I conceive, be no doubt that our business, which never (at least in modern English) means the condition or quality of being busy, is really nothing more than the French besoins or besognes, formerly
PREFACE. Xlll
This new edition has been revised throughout with the greatest care ; and it will be found to present a consider able number of alterations, additions, and improvements as compared with the former. A difference between the two conspicuous at first sight is that the Text of the Play is now much more conveniently placed for all the purposes of such a book by being incorporated with the Commentary.*
busoignes, — as, for example, in the Stat. of the 25th of Edward I. (Confirmatio Chartarum] : — "les aides e les mises les queles il nous unt fait avaunt ces houres pur nos guerres e autres busoignes ;" or in an answer of Edward III. to Archbishop Stratford in 1341 : — "Q,ueu chose le Eoi ottreia. Mes il dit, q'il voleit que les busoignes touchantes 1'estat du Eoialme et commune profit fussent primes mys en exploit, et puis il ferroit exploiter les autres" (Rot. Par. II. 127). The ness, therefore, is here not the substantival affix, but merely a misrepresenta tion of the final letters of the word in its plural form. " Go about your business " is go about your (own) needs, occasions, affairs. We speak of the busy bee, and of a busy man, or a man who is busy, but we do not (now at least) call the condition or the natural quality the busi ness of either the man or of the bee. "What we understand by a man's business is (grammatically or logically) something of the same kind, not with his goodness, but rather with his goods. The irregular or ex ceptional pronunciation of the word business would alone indicate some peculiarity of origin or formation. Business, pronounced in two syl lables, is evidently not a word of the same kind with heaviness, for in stance, pronounced in three.
* I have retained, it will be observed, in speech 363 the emendation of Mr Collier's MS. annotator — " A curse shall light upon the loins of men." But since this part of the volume has been printed off I con fess that I have, although at first very much opposed to it, been more and more impressed, the more I consider it, in favour of a new reading for which a strong case has been made out, and urged upon my attention, by a distinguished literary friend, — "A curse shall fall upon these impious men." In the first place, ~on looking at the passage, every reader will, I think, be struck with something incon gruous and improbable in the denunciation here of a curse upon men generally,— upon the whole human race, — let it be regarded with reference whether to the occasion, and to the circumstances on which Antony founds it, or to the calamities about to fall merely upon Italy
XIV PREFACE.
Although very much disinclined to depart from estab lished usage in such a matter as mere expression, I have
to which the prophecy immediately narrows itself. It is an exordium followed up by no adequate amplification or specification, but rather the contrary. These men — the murderers of his friend Caesar — and not either the limbs or the loins of mankind universally — must, one would say, have been uppermost at such a moment in his mind and in his im passioned words. "Without something more, however, such general considerations as this would hardly entitle us to touch the passage. There would be no end of conjectural emendation if it were permitted us, in the text of Shakespeare or of any other writer, to disturb an au thorized or accepted reading on no other ground than that it might, as we may think, be improved. This is the sort of wild disor ganizing work with which so many would be reformers and restorers, male and female, busy themselves, without so much as a suspicion, in many cases, of the nature of a single canon, or principle of critical science, or that such a science exists. But here, secondly, we have, almost universally admitted, what is the almost indispensable preliminary to any attempt at emendation, -^a manifest flaw in the ordinary reading. " Limbs of men " pleases nobody, or hardly any body. Thirdly and lastly, then — for, if that can be made out, nothing more in the way of mere conjecture is possible, — can it be shown to be at all probable that the supposed words " these impious men," if written by Shakespeare, would or might have been mistaken by the printer of the First Folio for what he has given us — "the limbs of men?" It is not necessary to assume that he has adhered to the exact spelling of what he believed himself to have before him in his c.opy or manuscript. "What he set up as "the limbs of" may have seemed to him to be written "the Limbes of." Only, now, suppose farther that the writing was somewhat close or crowded, or rather that it appeared to him to be so, and it would not be very unlikely that what he took for a " the " followed by a capital L, with its final curve running possibly below the line, was really a " these," written, of course, with a long/; and then it would not be difficult for him, thus misled, to convert the " impious " into " imbs of," or " imbes of." It may be thought that some confirma tion is lent to this conjecture by the fact that Zachary Jackson, the printer, who published in 1818 a work entitled " A Few Concise Examples of Seven Hundred Errors in Shakespeare's Plays, now corrected and elucidated" (reprinted the following year under the title of " Shake speare's Genius Justified,"), proposes to read "these imps of men." I am not blind to the bearing which this ingenious emendation, if
PREFACE. XV
in the new editions both of the present and of another ele mentary philological work felt it indispensable to abandon the ordinary fashion of designating our national speech as Saxon or Anglo-Saxon before, and as English only since, the Norman Conquest. I cannot call to mind another cus tomary form of words which involves so much at once of un founded or questionable assumption and of positive mis- statement as this. The common name for the language among the people themselves always has been, not Saxon, but English. It was so before the Conquest, as it is so still. Modern philologists, who call the earlier form of it Saxon or Anglo-Saxon, do so on the assumption that the portion of the population distinguished as the Saxons had a lan guage of their own, known by their own name, before they left the continent for Britain, and that the common language of England before the Norman Conquest was identical with that. But nothing of all this is either proved or probable. There is much more reason for be lieving that the language was called English than that it was called Saxon on the continent as well as afterwards in Britain. In fact, there is no reason at all for sup posing that it was ever at any time commonly or properly known as Saxon. There is, indeed, a Germanic dialect which philologists have baptised Old Saxon, or Continental Saxon, and of which their system supposes what it calls
it were held to be established, might be alleged to have upon the hy pothesis that has been proposed in the Prolegomena in regard to the authority belonging to the corrections of Mr Collier's manuscript an- notator. Can he, it may be argued, have had the author's or any other authentic copy of the Plays before him, if he has passed over so important a restoration as ought to have been made here ? Of this particular passage, at least, he could not be supposed to have had any such copy. On the other hand, however, this necessary consequence would obviously tell as much against the proposed reading as that docs against the hypothesis.
XVI PEEFACE.
Anglo-Saxon, or the Saxon of England, to be a modifica tion ; but the one name is as much a modern invention as the other; we have no remains of this so-called Old Saxon of so early a date by several centuries as the first settlement of the Angles arid Saxons in Britain ; and, al though it and what is called the Saxon of England were no doubt nearly related, we have no evidence whatever either that the former was the mother and the latter the daughter, or even that their relationship was that of parent and child at all. So far, however, we have gra tuitous assumption only, or little more. In what comes next we have downright contradiction and absurdity. If the language was Saxon before the Norman Conquest, how did it or could it come to be English after that catastrophe ? How is it that it is English now ? The only effect that the Conquest had, or possibly could have, upon it was to make it, not more, but less purely, less exclusively, English than it was before.
G. L. C.
Queen's College Belfast ; March, 1859.
P.S. Leaving the preceding note on pp. xiii and xiv as it stood, I take the opportunity of a revised impres sion to say here that I do not now feel the incongruity of the curse in the passage under consideration being made to extend to the whole human race, nor do I think that Antony's prophecy can be fairly affirmed to narrow itself in what immediately follows to the calamities about to fall merely upon Italy. I revert, therefore, to my original preference for the reading of the Collier Folio > — " A curse shall light upon the loins of men."
November, 1863.
THE
ENGLISH OF SHAKESPEARE,
ETC.
PBOLEGOMENA.
I. SHAKESPEARE'S PERSONAL HISTORY.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE was born at Stratford-upon- Avon, in the county of Warwick, in April 1564. His baptism is recorded in the parish register as having taken place on Wednesday the 26th, and the inscription on his tomb makes him to have been in his fifty-third year when he died on the 23rd, of April 1616 ; his birth-day, therefore, cannot have been later than the 23rd. It was more pro bably some days earlier. It is commonly assumed, never theless, to have been the 23rd, which, besides being also the day of his death, is the day dedicated to St Greorge the Martyr, the patron saint of England.
His father was John Shakespeare ; his mother, Mary Arderne, or Arden. The Ardens were among the oldest of the county gentry ; man}'- of the Shakespeares also, who were numerous in Warwickshire, were of good con dition. The name in provincial speech was probably sounded Sliaclcspeare or SJiacJcsper ; but even in the poet's own day its more refined or literary pronunciation seems to have been the same that now prevails. It was certainly recognised as a combination of the two words
2 PBOLEGOMENA.
Shake and Spear. His own spelling of it, however, in a few instances in which that, our only known fragment of his handwriting, has come down to us, is Shakspere.
John Shakespeare appears to have followed the busi ness of a glover, including no doubt the making of gloves as well as the selling of them. He seems to have fallen latterly into decayed circumstances; but in his better days it is evident that he ranked with the first class of the burgesses of his town. He was for many years an alderman, and twice filled the office of High Bailiff, or chief magistrate. He was also, though perhaps never very wealthy, but rather always a struggling man, pos sessed of some houses in Stratford, as well as of a small freehold estate acquired by his marriage ; and his con nexion with the Arden family would itself bring him con sideration. His marriage probably took place in 1557. He lived till 1602, and his wife till 1608. Of eight children, four sons and four daughters, William was the third, but the eldest son.
Shakespeare's father, like the generality of persons of his station in life of that day, appears to have been un able to write his name ; all his signature in the books of the corporation is his cross, or mark ; but there can be no doubt that the son had a grammar-school education. He was in all probability sent to the free-school of his native town. After he left school it has been thought that he may have spent some time in an attorney's office. But in 1582, when he was only eighteen, he married ; his wife, Anne Hathaway, of Shottery, in the neighbourhood of Stratford, was about eight years older than himself; children soon followed, — first a daughter, then twins, a son and daughter ; and this involvement may be conjec tured to have been what drove him to London, in the necessity of finding some way of supporting his family which required no apprenticeship. He became first an .actor, then a writer for the stage. Already by the year
WOEKS. 3
1589 he had worked his way up to be one of the proprie tors of the Blackfriars Theatre. But he seems to have always continued to look upon Stratford as his home ; there he left his wife and children ; he is said to have made a point of revisiting his native town once a year ; and thither, after he had, by the unceasing activity of many years, secured a competency, he returned to spend the evening of his days in quiet. So that we may say he resorted to London, after all, only as the sailor goes to sea, always intending to come back. He appears to have finally retired to Stratford, and settled there on a pro perty which he had purchased, about the year 1612 ; his wife still lived, and also his two daughters, of whom the elder, Susanna, was married to Dr John Hall, a physician, in 1607 ; the younger, Judith, to Mr Thomas Quiney, in February 1616. But he had lost his only son, who was named Hamnet, in 1596, when the boy was in his twelfth year. Shakespeare died at Stratford, as already mentioned, on the 23rd of April 1616 ; and he lies in terred in the parish church there.
His wife survived till August 1623. Both his daugh ters had families ; — Susanna, a daughter, who was twice married ; Judith, three sons ; but no descendant of the great poet now exists. The last was probably Elizabeth, daughter of Dr Hall, who became the wife first of Thomas Nash, Esq., secondly of Sir John Barnard, and died without issue by either husband in February 1670. JSTor is it known that there are any descendants even of his father remaining, although one of his brothers and also one of his sisters are ascertained to have been married, and to have had issue.
II. SHAKESPEAEE'S WORKS.
The first work of Shakespeare's which was printed with his name was his poem entitled Venus and Adonis, in stanzas consisting each of an alternately rhyming quatrain B 2
4 PBOLEGOMENA.
followed by a couplet. It appeared in 1593, with a Dedication to the Earl of Southampton, in which the au thor styles it the first heir of his invention. This was followed in 1594 by The Eape of Lucrece, in stanzas of seven lines, one rhyming to the fourth being here inserted before the closing couplet ; it is also dedicated to Lord Southampton, to whom the author expresses the most unlimited obligation: — "What I have done," he says, "is yours ; what I have to do is yours ; being part in all I have, devoted yours." The Venus and Adonis was thrice reprinted in Shakespeare's lifetime ; the Lucrece, five or six times.
His other works, besides his Plays, are Tlie Passionate Pilgrim, a small collection of poems, first printed in 1599 ; and his Sonnets, 154 in number, with the poem entitled A Lover's Complaint (in the same stanza as the Lucrece), which appeared together in 1609. But the Sonnets, or some of them at least, were well known long before this. " As the soul of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras," says a wrijter named Prancis Meres in his Palladis Tamia, published in 1598, " so the sweet witty soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare : witness his Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, his sugared Sonnets among his private friends." It was still a common practice for works to be circulated to a limited extent in manuscript while they were withheld from the press.
The first edition of Shakespeare's collected Dramatic "Works appeared in 1623, or not till seven years after his death, in a folio volume. A second edition, with numerous verbal alterations, but no additional Plays, was brought out in the same form in 1632. In 1664 appeared a third edition, also in folio, containing seven additional Plays. And a fourth and last folio reprint followed in 1685.
The Plays that are now commonly received as Shake speare's are all those that are contained in the First Polio,
WORKS. 5
being thirty-six in number, together with Pericles, Prince of Tyre, one of the seven added in the Third Folio. Be sides the other six in that edition, — entitled The Tragedy ofLocrine, The First Part of the Life of Sir John Old- castle, The Chronicle History of Thomas Lord Cromwell, The London Prodigal, The Puritan, and A Yorkshire Tragedy, — there have been ascribed to Shakespeare in more recent times the old Plays of The Reign of King Edward the Third and The Tragedy of Arden of Fevers- ham ; and by certain German critics those of The Comedy of George-a- Green (generally held to be the work of E/obert Greene), The Comedy of Mucedorus, The Birth of Merlin, and The Merry Devil of Edmonton. Some of these are among the humblest productions of the human intel lect ; that the notion of their being Shakespeare's should have been taken up by such men as Schlegel and Tieck is an illustrious instance of how far the blinding and ex travagant spirit of system may go. Finally, the Play of TJie Two Nolle Kinsmen, commonly included among those of Beaumont and Fletcher, has been attributed in part to Shakespeare ; it is described on the title-page of the first edition, published in 1634, as written by Fletcher and Shakespeare, and the opinion that Shakespeare had a share in it has been revived in our own day.
Of the thirty-seven Plays generally held to be genuine, eighteen are known to have been separately printed, some of them oftener than once, in Shakespeare's lifetime : — Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, Love's Labour's Lost, Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado about Nothing, Merchant of Venice, Lear, Troilus and Cressida, Pericles, Richard the Second, First Part of Henry the Fourth, Second Part of Henry the Fourth, Eichard the Third (all substantially as we now have them) ; Hamlet, in three editions, two of them greatly differing the one from the other; and, in forms more or less unlike our present copies, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Henry the Fifth,
6 PROLEGOMENA.
and the Second and Third Parts of Henry the Sixth, under the titles of " The First Part of the Contention betwixt the Houses of York and Lancaster," and " The True Tra gedy of Biehard Duke of York" (often referred to as " The Second Part of the Contention"). Nor is it improb able that there may have been early impressions of some others of the Plays, although no copies are now known. The Tragedy of Othello was also printed separately in 1622. All these separately published Plays are in quarto, and are familiarly known as the old or early Quartos.
The following eighteen Plays appeared for the first time, as far as is known, in the Polio of 1623 : — The Tempest, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Measure for Measure, The Comedy of Errors, As You Like It, The Taming of the Shrew, All's Well that Ends Well, Twelfth Night, A Winter's Tale, King John, The First Part of Henry the Sixth, Henry the Eighth, Coriolanus, Timon of Athens, Julius Casar, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, and Cynibeline.
There is reason to believe that the first edition of Titus Andronicus was printed in 1594, although the earliest of .which any copy is now known is dated 1600. The earliest existing editions of Romeo and Juliet, Richard the Second, and Richard the Third, bear the date of 1597. The dates of the other Quartos (except Othello) all range between 1598 and 1609. It appears, however, from Francis Meres's book, mentioned above, that by the year 1598, when it was published, Shakespeare had already produced at least the following Plays, several of which, as we have seen, are not known to have been printed till they were included a quarter of a century afterwards in the First Folio : — The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Comedy of Errors, Love's Labour's Lost, Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Richard the Second, Richard the Third, Henry the Fourth, King John, Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, and another called Love's Labour's Won, which
WOEKS. 7
has been commonly supposed to be that now entitled All's Well that Ends Well* And Meres cannot be
* But the play of All's Well that Ends Well seems to have its pre sent title built or wrought into it, and as it were incorporated with it. It is Helena's habitual icord, and the thought that is never absent from her mind. "All's well that ends well," she exclaims, in the fourth Scene of the Fourth Act;
" Still the fine's the crown : "Whate'er the course, the end is the renown."
And again in the first Scene of the Fifth Act : —
"All's well that ends well yet."
So also the King, in the concluding lines of the Play : — " All yet seems well ; and, if it end so meet
The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet ; " and then to the audience : —
" The king's a beggar, now the play is done ; All is well ended, if this suit be won, That you express content."
There would be no nature or meaning in the dialogue circling around the phrase in question, or continually returning upon it, in this way, unless it formed the name of the Play. On the other hand, there is not an expression throughout the piece that can be fairly considered as allusive to such a title as Love's Labour's Won.
Another notion that has been taken up is that the Play now known as The Tempest is that designated Love's Labour's Won by Meres. This is the theory of the Reverend Joseph Hunter, first brought for ward in a " Disquisition on the Tempest," published in 1841, and re produced in the Second Part of his " New Illustrations of the Life, Studies, and Writings of Shakespeare," 1844. But, notwithstanding all the learning and ingenuity by which it has been set forth and de fended, it has probably not met with much acceptance. One would as soon believe with Ulrici that The Tempest is the very latest of all Shakespeare's Plays, as with Mr Hunter that it is one of his earliest, — " nearly the first in time," he calls it, " as the first in place [meaning as it stands in the original collective edition], of the dramas which are wholly his."
May not the true Love's Labour's Won be what we now call The Taming of the Shrew ? That Play is founded upon an older one called The Taming of A Shrew ; it is therefore in the highest degree improb able that it was originally produced under its present name. The de-
8 PROLEGOMENA.
held to profess to do more than to instance some of the works by which Shakespeare had by this time in his opin ion proved himself the greatest English writer that had yet arisen both in tragedy and in comedy.
Six years before this, or in 1592, Robert Greene, ac counted by himself and others one of the chief lights of that early morning of our drama, but destined to be soon completely outshone and extinguished, had, perhaps with some presentiment of his coming fate, in a pamphlet which he entitled " Greene's Groatsworth of "Wit," thus vented his anger against the new luminary; "There is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that, with his tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide, supposes he
signation by which it is now known, in all likelihood, was only given to it after its predecessor had been driven from the stage, and had come to be generally forgotten. Have we not that which it previously bore indicated in one of the restorations of Mr Collier's MS. annotator, who directs us, in the last line but one of the Second Act, instead of " in this case of wooing" to read "in this case of winning," thus giving us what may stand, in want of a better, for a rhyme to the " if I fail not of my cunning" of the line following? The lines are pretty evi dently intended to rhyme, however rudely. The Play is, besides, full of other repetitions of the same key-note. Thus, in the second Scene of Act I., when Hortensio informs Gremio that he had promised Peti|u- cio, if he would become suitor to Katharine, that they " would be con tributors, And bear his charge of wooing, whatsoe'er," Gremio answers, " And so we will, provided that he win her." In the fifth Scene of Act IV., when the resolute Veronese has brought the shrew to a complete submission, Hortensio's congratulation is, " Petrucio, go thy ways ; the field is won." So in the concluding scene the lady's father exclaims, " Now fair befall thee, good Petrucio ! The wager thou hast won ; " to which the latter replies, " Nay, I will win my wager better yet." And his last words in passing from the stage, as if in pointed allusion to our supposed title of the piece, are —
" 'Twas I won the wager, though you \JLiicentio~\ hit the white ; And, being a winner, God give you good night !"
The title of Love's Labour's Won, it may be added, might also com prehend the underplot of Lucentio and Bianca, and even that of Hor tensio and the Widow, though in the case of the latter it might rather be supposed to be the lady who should be deemed the winning party.
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is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you ; and, being an absolute Johannes Factotum, is, in his own conceit, the only Shake-scene in a country." This would seem to imply, what is otherwise probable enough, that up to this time Shakespeare had chiefly made himself known as a dramatic writer by remodelling and improving the works of his predecessors. He may, however, have also even already produced some Plays wholly of his own composition. If Titus Andronicus and the Three Parts of Henry the Sixth are to be accounted his in any sense, they probably belong to this earliest stage of his career.
Of the thirty-seven Plays there are seven the authen ticity of which has been more or less questioned. The Three Parts of King Henry the Sixth (especially the First) and Titus Andronicus, if they are by Shakespeare, have very little of his characteristic marfher ; Pericles has come down to us in so corrupted a state that the evidence of manner and style is somewhat unsatisfactory, though it is probably his ; Tiinon of Athens is generally admitted to be only partly his; and much of King Henry the Eighth, which has only recently come to be suspected, is also evidently by another hand.*
III. THE SOUBCES FOB, THE TEXT OF SHAKE SPEARE'S PLAYS.
Erom what has been stated it appears that, of the en tire number of thirty-seven Plays which are usually re garded as Shakespeare's, there are only fourteen (including Hamlef) of which, in what may be called their completed state or ultimate form, we possess impressions published in his lifetime; together with/bw others (reckoning the Second and Third Parts of Henry the Sixth to be the same with the Two Parts of the Contention) of which in
* See a paper by Mr Spedding, in the Gentleman's Magazine for August 1850, and various subsequent communications by Mr Hicksou and others in the Notes and Queries,
10 PROLEGOMENA.
an immature and imperfect state we have such impres sions. Of one other, Othello, we have also an edition, printed indeed after the author's death, but apparently from another manuscript than that used for the First Folio. For the remaining eighteen Plays our oldest authority is that edition. And the only other sources for which any authority has been claimed are; 1. The Second, Third, and Fourth Folios ; 2. A manuscript of the First Part and some portions of the Second Part of Henry the Fourth, which is believed to be nearly of Shakespeare's age, and of which an impression has been edited by Mr Halliwell for the Shakespeare Society ; 3. The manuscript emendations, extending over all the Plays, with the exception only of Pericles, made in a handwriting apparently of about the middle of the seven teenth century, in" a copy of the Second Folio belonging to Mr Collier.
None of these copies can claim to be regarded as of absolute authority. Even the least carelessly printed of the Quartos which appeared in Shakespeare's lifetime are one and all deformed by too many evident and uni versally admitted errors to make it possible for us to believe that the proofs underwent either his own revision or that of any attentive editor or reader; it may be doubted if in any case the Play was even set up from the author's manuscript. In many, or in most, cases we may affirm with confidence that it certainly was not. Some of these Quartos are evidently unauthorized publications, hurriedly brought out, and founded probably in the main on portions of the dialogue fraudulently furnished by the actors, with the Iacuna3 filled up perhaps from notes taken by reporters in the theatre.
The First Folio (1623) is declared on the title-page to be printed " according to the true original copies ; " and it is probable that for most of the Plays either the author's autograph, or, at any rate, some copy belonging
THE OLD TEXTS. 11
to the theatre, was made use of. The volume was put forth in the names of two of Shakespeare's friends and fellow-actors, John Heminge and Henrie Condell, who introduce what they style " these trifles," the " remains " of their deceased associate, by a Dedication to the Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery, — who, they observe, had been pleased to think the said trifles something, — and by a Preface, in which, after confessing that it would have been a thing to be wished " that the author himself had lived to have set forth and overseen his own writings," they desire that they his surviving friends may not be envied the office of their care and pains in collecting and publishing them, and so publishing them as that, whereas formerly, they continue, addressing the Reader, "you were abused with divers stolen and surreptitious copies, maimed and deformed by the frauds and stealths of in jurious impostors that exposed them [that is, exposed them for sale, or published them], even those are now offered to your view cured and perfect of their limbs, and all the rest absolute in their numbers,* as he conceived them. "Who, as he was a happy imitator of nature, was a most gentle expresser of it : his mind and hand went together ; and what he thought he uttered with that easiness, that we have scarce received from him a blot in his papers."
Here we have certainly, along with an emphatic and undiscriminating condemnation of all the preceding im pressions, a distinct declaration by the publishers of the present volume that they had the use of the author's manuscripts. It is the only mention to be found any where of any of the Plays being in existence in his own
* This Latinism has no special reference, as has sometimes been sup posed, to the verse ; it means merely perfect in all their parts, or in all respects. So Sir Roger Twysden, in the Preface to his " Historiae Anglicanse Scriptores Decem" (1652), speaking of the pains that had been taken to ensure the accuracy of the text, says : — " Nihil unquam apud nos, tanti saltern conaminis, . . . adeo omnibus numeris absolu- tum prodiisse memini."
12 PROLEGOMENA.
handwriting. No doubt can reasonably be entertained that such of his papers as were in possession of the Black- friars Theatre, to which Heminge and Condell, like him self, belonged, were placed at their disposal. And we may assume that from these the edition of 1623 was set up, so far as they went and could be made available.
But it would be a great straining of such premises to conclude that the First Polio is to be accepted through out as anything like an infallible authority in all cases for what Shakespeare actually wrote. That would, for one thing, be to suppose an accuracy and correctness of print ing and editing of which there is no example in the pub lished popular literature of that age, least of all in the drama, which was hardly looked upon as belonging to literature, and in regard to which the Press, when it was resorted to, was always felt to be at best but an imper fect and unnatural substitute for the proper mode of publication by means of the Stage. The writer, it would seem to have been thought, could not well claim as a work what called itself only a play. Nor do the publish ers in the present instance make profession of having bestowed any special care upon the editing of their vol ume ; what they say (or more probably what some regular author of the day, Ben Jonson, as it has been conjectur ed, or another, had been got to write in their names) is nothing more than the sort of recommendation with which it was customary for enlarged and improved edi tions to be introduced to the world, and the only positive assertion which it can be held to involve is, that the new impression of the Plays had been set up, at least in part, from the author's own manuscript. They lay claim, and we may therefore be sure could lay claim, to nothing further. They even admit, as we have seen, that it would have been better if the author himself had superintended the publication. Of correction of the press there is not one word. That, we may be pretty certain, was left
THE OLD TEXTS. 13
merely to the printer. It is not likely that the two play ers, who, with the exception of this Dedication and Pre face, to which their names are attached, are quite unknown in connexion with literature, were at all qualified for such a function, which is not one to be satisfactorily discharged even by persons accustomed to writing for the press with out some practice.
But this is not all. The materials which Heminge and Condell, or whoever may have taken charge of the print ing of the First Folio, had at their command were very possibly insufficient to enable them to produce a perfect text, although both their care and their competency had been greater than they probably were. In the first place, there is nothing in what they say to entitle us to assume that they had the author's own manuscript for more than some of the Plays. But, further, we do not know what may have been the state of such of his papers as were in their hands. We are told, indeed, that they were with out a blot, and the fact is an interesting one in reference to Shakespeare's habits of composition; but it has no bearing upon the claims of the text of this First Folio to be accounted a correct representation of what he had written. He had been in his grave for seven years ; the latest of the original copies of the Plays were of that antiquity at the least; most of them must have been much older. If, as is probable, they had been ever since they were written in use at the theatres, it can hardly have been that such of them as were not quite worn out should not have suffered more or less of injury, and have become illegible, or legible only with great difficulty, in various passages. JN"or may the handwriting, even when not partially obliterated, have been very easy to decipher. The very rapidity with which the poet's " thick-coming fancies" had been committed to the paper may have made the record of them, free from blots as it was, still
14 PROLEGOMENA.
one not to be read running, or unlikely to trip a reader to whom it was not familiar.
When we take up and examine the volume itself, we find it to present the very characteristics which these considerations would lead us to expect. As a typogra phical production it is better executed than the common run of the English popular printing of that date. It is rather superior, for instance, in point of appearance, and very decidedly in correctness, to the Second Folio, pro duced nine years later. Nevertheless it is obviously, to the most cursory inspection, very far from what would now be called even a tolerably well printed book. There is probably not a page in it which is not disfigured by many minute inaccuracies and irregularities, such as never appear in modern printing. The punctuation is throughout rude and negligent, even where it is not pal pably blundering. The most elementary proprieties of the metrical arrangement are violated in innumerable passages. In some places the verse is printed as plain prose ; elsewhere, prose is ignorantly and ludicrously ex hibited in the guise of verse. Indisputable and undis puted errors are of frequent occurrence, so gross that it is impossible they could have been passed over, at any rate in such numbers, if the proof-sheets had undergone any systematic revision by a qualified person, however rapid. They were probably read in the printing-office, with more or less attention, when there was time, and often, when there was any hurry or pressure, sent to press with little or no examination. Everything betokens that editor or editing of the volume, in any proper or distinctive sense, there could have been none. The only editor was mani festly the head workman in the printing-office.
On closer inspection we detect other indications. In one instance at least we have actually the names of the actors by whom the Play was performed prefixed to their
THE OLD TEXTS. 15
portions of the dialogue instead of those of the dramatis persons. Mr Knight, in noticing this circumstance, ob serves that it shows very clearly the text of the Play in which it occurs (Much Ado About Nothing) to have been taken from the play-house copy, or what is called the prompter's book.* But the fact is that the scene in question is given in the same way in the previous Quarto edition of the Play, published in 1600 ; so that here the printers of the Folio had evidently no manuscript of any kind in their hands, any more than they had any one over them to prevent them from blindly following their printed copy into the most transparent absurdities. The Quarto, to the guidance of which they were left, had evi dently been set up from the prompter's book, and the proof-sheets could not have been read either by the au thor or by any other competent person. In the case of how many more of the Plays the Eolio in like manner may have been printed only from the previously published separate editions we cannot be sure. But other errors with which the volume abounds are evidence of some thing more than this. In addition to a large number of doubtful or disputed passages, there are many readings in it which are either absolutely unintelligible, and there fore certainly corrupt, or, although not purely nonsensical, yet clearly wrong, and at the same time such as are hardly to be sufficiently accounted for as the natural mistakes of the compositor. Sometimes what is evidently the true word or expression has given place to another having possibly more or less resemblance to it in form, but none in signification ; in other cases, what is indispens able to the sense, or to the continuity and completeness of the dramatic narrative, is altogether omitted. Such errors and deficiencies can only be explained on the sup position that the compositor had been left to depend upon a manuscript which was imperfect, or which could
* Library Shakspere, II. 366,
16 PROLEGOMENA.
not be read. It is remarkable that deformities of this kind are apt to be found accumulated at one place ; there are as it were nests or eruptions of them ; they run into constellations ; showing that the manuscript had there got torn or soiled, and that the printer had been obliged to supply what was wanting in the best way that he could by his own invention or conjectural ingenuity.*
Of the other Folio Editions, the Second, dated 1632, is the only one the new readings introduced in which have ever been regarded as of any authority. But nothing is known of the source from which they may have been de rived. The prevailing opinion has been that they are nothing more than the conjectural emendations of the unknown editor. Some of them, nevertheless, have been adopted in every subsequent reprint.
The manuscript of Henry the Fourth (belonging to Sir Edward Bering, Bart., of Surrenden in Kent) is cu rious and interesting, as being certainly either of Shake speare's own age or close upon it, and as the only known manuscript copy of any of the Plays of nearly that anti quity. But it appears to have been for the greater part merely transcribed from some printed text, with such omissions and modifications as were deemed expedient in reducing the two Plays to one.f The First Part of
* I have discussed the question of the reliance to be placed on the g First Folio at greater length in an article on The Text of Shakespeare, I in the 40th No. of the North British Review (for February 1854). It is there shown, from an examination of the First Act of Macbeth, that the number of readings in the First Folio (including arrangements of the verse and punctuations affecting the sense) which must be admitted to be either clearly wrong or in the highest degree suspicious probably amounts to not less than twenty on an average per page, or about twenty thousand in the whole volume. Most of them have been given tip and abandoned even by those of the modern editors who profess the most absolute deference to the general authority of the text in which they are found.
f I am informed by a friend, upon whose accuracy I can rely, that a collation of a considerable portion of the MS. with the Quarto of
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Henry tlie Fourth had been printed no fewer tlian five times, and the Second Part also once, in the lifetime of the author. The Bering MS., however, exhibits a few peculiar readings. One of them is remarkable.
For the lines, in the speech by the King with which the First Part opens, commonly given as —
" No more the thirsty entrance of this soil Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood " —
we have in the MS. —
" No more y= thirsty bosome of this land Shall wash her selfe in her owne childrens bloud,"
Here are in the compass of two lines no fewer than five variations; — bosom for entrance, land for soil, wash for daub, self for lips, in for ivith, — the last being, moreover, a correction deliberately interlined over an erasure of the other reading.
The substitution of wash for daub is not without im portance, the more especially as daub is commonly assumed to be the old reading, whereas it is really, I believe, nothing more than a modern conjectural emendation of the damb (or damp ?) of the early copies.
But the most important variation is that of bosom for entrance. Now, in the first place, although entrance is the reading of the Mrst and Second, and, I believe, also of the Third Folio, another reading, entrails, is not, as has been sometimes supposed, the conjecture of Mr Douce, but is found in the Fourth Folio. I confess, however, that I can make nothing of entrance, and, if possible, still less of entrails. "We are told that the " entrance of this soil" means the mouth of this soil. If a single instance can be produced from any writer, not confessedly insane, in which the mouth either of a real person, or of something represented as a living person, is
1613 leaves no doubt of that being the printed edition on which it was formed.
18 PROLEGOMENA.
styled his, her, or its entrance, I shall be satisfied. Such a mode of expression, it appears to me, would at once destroy the personification. We speak, indeed, of the entrance of a cavern, for the mouth of a cavern ; but here we are not calling a mouth an entrance, but an entrance a mouth : the proper prosaic name of the aperture by which we enter the cave is its entrance, which, when we animate the cave, we change into its mouth ; but the op posite process is, I apprehend, unknown either in prose or in verse, in written eloquence or in the loosest colloquial speech. Any one who should talk of the entrance of a man, or of a lion, or of a dog, meaning the mouth, would not be understood. So in Latin we have the entrance to a river very often called its os, but nowhere the mouth of any living creature, or of any poetical personification, ever spoken of as its ostium*
Nothing, also, can be more indisputable than that the two hers — " her lips" (or herself) and " her own children's blood" — must have the same reference. This is what syntax and common sense alike imperatively demand. Steevens's notion, therefore, that by "her lips" may be meant the lips of peace, mentioned four lines before, would be untenable, were there no other objection to it than that it would, apparently, give the her of " her lips" one reference and the her of " her own children" another.
The lips and the children must plainly be understood to be either those of the soil, or those of that, whatever it may have been, the designation of which has given rise to the various readings, entrance, entrails, entrants, as proposed by Steevens, bosom, &c. One's first inclination is to suppose some personage animating or presiding over
* The only interpretation of entrance having the least plausibility appears to me to be that thrown out by Theobald : — " I presume the sense is, ' blood-thirsty invasion of this country shall no more stain it with its own children's gore.' But is this idea conveyed by thirsty entrance ?" Letter to "Wai-burton, dated 13 January 1730, in Nichols's Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century, II. 402.
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the soil ; and hence such conjectures as that of Monk Mason, — "the thirsty Erinnys of this soil," — which has been adopted in many editions, and which might mean that the Spirit of Discord should no more daub either her own lips with the blood of her own children, or the lips of the soil with the blood of the children of the soil. The circumstance of the word Erinnys being a Shake spearian a.7ra£ Xeyopevov, or not elsewhere found, would make it more likely to have been mistaken by the printer. So also might be interpreted " the thirsty Genius of this soil," as proposed in the First Edition of the present work.
But to both these readings there is this objection, which I apprehend must be held to be fatal. On the one hand, the epithet thirsty, standing where it does, seems clearly to bind us to understand that the lips described as to be no more daubed, or moistened, were those, not of the soil, but of the imaginary personage (the Erinnys or the Genius} to whom the performance of the act of daubing is attributed ; on the other, the people could not be called the children of either the one of these person ages or the other. And I do not think it would be pos sible to find any other mythological personage who could, more than either of these two, be represented as at once the owner of the lips and the parent of the children. It may be added that against " the thirsty Genius" this ob jection is of double force; inasmuch as, Genius being always conceived to be a male, the "her lips" (as well as " her own children") would in that case have of necessity to be understood as signifying the lips (and children) oi the soil, — which would leave the epithet "thirsty" with out meaning.
I do not think, therefore, that there is any other known reading which can compete with that of the Dering MS. The bosom of the soil, or ground, or earth, is one of the commonest and most natural forms of figurative expression, and is particularly natural and appropriate
20 PEOLEQOMENA.
when the soil or ground is represented, as here, under the personification of a mother with her children. So Friar Lawrence says, in Romeo and Juliet, when setting out from his cell, basket in hand, at the dawn of day, to gather his " baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers" —
" The earth, that's nature's mother, is her tomh ; What is her burying grave, that is her womb; And from her womb children of divers kind "We, sucking on her natural bosom, find."
Then for the authority on which this reading rests, the probability surely .is that the deviation from the common printed text was not made on mere conjecture; great pains appear to have been taken with the MS.; it is carefully corrected throughout in the handwriting of Sir Edward Dering, who died in 1644 ; and he may very well be supposed to have had access to other sources of in formation, both documentary and oral, in addition to the printed books. A strong case might be made out for such a MS. as being entitled to quite as much deference as any of the early printed copies, quarto or folio.
The first or outside page of the manuscript from which this Play had been originally set up may very probably have been in a somewhat dilapidated state when it was put into the hands of the printer. In addition to the five variations in the two lines that have been quoted, it is doubtful whether in the first line of the speech we ought to read " wan with care" or " worn with care ;" the latter is the correction of Mr Collier's MS. annotator, and certainly it would seem to be more natural for the King to speak of his anxieties as wearing him down and wasting him away than as merely blanching his com plexion.
It is only upon this supposition of the old text of the Plays having been printed from a partially obliterated or otherwise imperfectly legible manuscript, which, as we see, meets and accounts for other facts and peculiar ap
THE OLD TEXTS. 21
pearances, while it is also so probable in itself, that the remarkable collection of emendations in Mr Collier's copy of the Second Polio can, apparently, be satisfactorily ex plained. The volume came into Mr Collier's hands in 1849, and was some time afterwards discovered by him to contain a vast number of alterations of the printed text inserted by the pen, in a handwriting certainly of the seventeenth century, and possibly of not much later date than the volume. They extend over all the thirty- six Plays, and are calculated to amount in all to at least 20,000. Here is, then, a most elaborate revision — an expenditure of time and painstaking which surely could only have been prompted and sustained by a strong feel ing in the annotator of admiration for his author, and the most anxious and scrupulous regard for the integrity of his text. Such motives would be very inconsistent with the substitution generally for the old words of anything that might merely strike him as being possibly a prefer able reading. The much more probable presumption is that he followed some guide. Such a labour is only to be naturally accounted for by regarding it as that of the possessor of a valued but very inaccurately printed book who had obtained the means of collating it with and cor recting it by a trustworthy manuscript. And, when we come to examine the new readings, we find everything in sufficient correspondence with this hypothesis ; some things almost, we may say, demonstrating it. Some of the alterations are of a kind altogether transcending the compass of conjectural emendation, unless it had taken the character of pure invention and fabrication. Such in particular are the entire lines inserted in various pas sages of which we have not a trace in the printed text. The number, too, of the new readings which cannot but be allowed to be either indisputable, or, at the least, in the highest degree ingenious and plausible, is of itself almost conclusive against our attributing them to nothing better than conjecture. Upon this supposition this un-
22 PBOLEGOMENA.
known annotator would have outdone all that has been accomplished in the way of brilliant and felicitous con jecture by all other labourers upon the Shakespearian text taken together. On the other hand, some of his alterations are in all probability mistaken, some of his new readings apparently inadmissible;* and many pas-
* Among such must be reckoned undoubtedly tbe alteration, in Lady Macbeth's passionate rejoinder (Macbeth, i. 7), —
" What beast was't, then, That made you break this enterprise to me ?" —
of beast into boast. This is to convert the forcible and characteristic not merely into tameness but into no-meaning ; for there is no possi ble sense of the word boast which will answer here. But in this case the corrector was probably left to mere conjecture in making his se lection between the two words ; for in the handwriting of the earlier part of the seventeenth century the e and o are frequently absolutely undistinguishable. In the specimen of the annotator's own hand writing which Mr Collier gives, the two e's of the word brief ely are as like o's as e's, and what Mr Collier reads bleeding might be equally read blooding, if that were a word. Would Mr Collier thus correct Tennyson's
" Were not his words delicious, I a beast To take them as I did ? "
Edwin Morris.
There cannot, I conceive, be a question that a celebrated passage in another Play has been seriously injured by the same mistake which the annotator has made in the instance under consideration. Is it not self-evident that the speech of Polixenes in the Third Scene of the Fourth Act of the Winter's Tale should run as follows ?—
" Nature is made better by no mean But nature makes that mean. So ever that art, Which you say adds to nature, is an art
That nature makes
The art itself is nature."
The " o'er that art" of the modern editions is " over that art" in the old copies. — In other cases, again, the ever and the even have evidently been confounded; as in The Merry Wives of Windsor, iv. 6, where Fen ton describes Mrs Page as " even strong against " the marriage of her daughter with Slender, " and firm for Doctor Caius." The error here, if it be one, however, has apparently been left uncorrected by Mr Collier's MS. annotator.
THE OLD TEXTS. 23
sages which there can hardly be a doubt are corrupt are passed over by him without correction. All this becomes intelligible upon our hypothesis. "Working possibly upon the same manuscripts (whether those of the author or no) from which the printed text had been set up, he would with more deliberation, or by greater attention and skill, succeed in deciphering correctly much of the difficult or faded writing which had baffled or been mis read by the printer. In other places, again, he was able to make nothing of it, or it deceived him. In some cases he may have ventured upon a conjecture, and when he does that he may be as often wrong as right. The manu scripts of which he had the use — whether the author's original papers or only transcripts from them — probably belonged to the theatre ; and they might now be in a much worse condition in some parts than when they were in the hands of Heminge and Condell in 1623. The an- notator would seem to have been connected with the stage. The numerous and minute stage directions which he has inserted look as if it might have been for the use of some theatrical Company, and mainly with a view to the proper representation of the Plays, that his laborious task was undertaken.*
* I do not remember having seen it noticed that the theatres claimed a property in the Plays of Shakespeare, and aifected to he in possession of the authentic copies, down to a comparatively recent date. The following Advertisement stands prefixed to an edition of Pericles, in 12mo, published in 1734, and professing to be " printed for J. Tonson, and the rest of the Proprietors : " — " Whereas E. Walker, and his ac complices, have printed and published several of Shakespeare's Plays, and, to screen their innumerable errors, advertise that they are printed as they are acted ; and industriously report that the said Plays are printed from copies made use of at the Theatres ; I therefore declare, in justice to the Proprietors, whose right is basely invaded, as well as in defence of myself, that no person ever had, directly or indirectly, from me any such copy or copies ; neither would I be accessary, on any account, to the imposing on the public such useless, pirated, and maimed editions, as are published by the said R. Walker. W. CHET-
24 PROLEGOMENA.
Mr Collier has given an account of his annotated Folio in a volume which he published in 1852, entitled " JSTotes and Emendations to the text of Shakespeare's Plays, from Early Manuscript Corrections in a Copy of the Folio, 1632." A second edition of this volume appeared in 1853 ; and meanwhile he had also given to the world the same year an edition, in one volume, of " The Plays of Shakespeare : The Text regulated by the Old Copies, and by the recently discovered Folio of 1G32, containing early Manuscript Emendations." But the most distinct statement that he has made upon the subject is that con tained in a subsequent volume entitled " Seven Lectures on Shakespeare and Milton, by the late S. T. Coleridge ; A List of all the MS. Emendations in Mr Collier's Folio, 1632; and an Introductory Preface;" 8vo, Lon. 1856. Of this volume the account of the annotations, headed " A List of Every Manuscript Note and Emendation in Mr Collier's Copy of Shakespeare's Works, Folio, 1632," is spread over about 120 pages. Instead of 20,000, how-
WOOD, Prompter to His Majesty's Company of Comedians at the Theatre Royal in Dniry-Lane" On the subject of this Chetwood see Malone's Inquiry into the Shakespeare Papers, pp. 350 — 352. In Tonson's similar editions of The History of Sir John Oldcastle and The Tragedy of Locrine (both declared on the title-page to be " By Mr "William Shakespear"), he speaks in like manner of himself " and the other Proprietors of the Copies of Shakespear' s Plays," and com plains that " one Walker has proposed to pirate all Shakespear's Plays, but, through ignorance of what Plays were Shakespear's, did in several Advertisements propose to print (Edipus King of Thebes as one of Shakespear's Plays, and has since printed Tate's King Lear instead of Shakespear's, and in that and Hamlet has omitted almost one half of the genuine editions printed by J. Tonson and the Proprietors." It would appear from Nichols's Illustrations, II. 199, that Theobald in the Preface to the Second Edition of his Play of The Double Falsehood, which he pretended was written by Shakespeare, spoke of private pro perty perhaps standing so far in his way as to prevent him from putting out a complete edition of Shakespeare's Works. The passage, which does not occur in the first edition (1728), is retained in the third (1767).
EDITORS AtfD COMMENTATOKS. 25
ever, as originally stated (see Notes and Emendations, Introduction, p. iv.), the alterations here enumerated can not much exceed 3000. Those omitted are probably (though nothing to that effect is said) only corrections of what are called literal errors, or such misprints as ra ther disfigure than injure the sense. Among them, however, are such as 'the alteration of danibe into daub in the passage quoted above from the beginning of the First Part of Henry the Fourth, which is mentioned in the Notes and Emendations, though passed over in the List. It would be more satisfactory if everything were given.*
IV. THE SHAKESPEARIAN EDITOES AND COMMENTATORS.
The four Polios were the only editions of the Plays of Shakespeare brought out in the seventeenth century ; and, except that the First, as we have seen, has a Dedication and Preface signed by Heminge and Condell, two actors belonging to the Blackfriars Theatre, nothing is known, and scarcely anything has been conjectured, as to what superintendence any of them may have had in passing through the press. The eighteenth century produced a long succession of editors : — Rowe, 1709 and 1714 ; Pope, 1725 and 1728 ; Theobald, 1733 and 1740 ; Hanmer, 1744; Warburton, 1747; Johnson, 1765 ; Steevens, 1766 ; Capell, 1768; Eeed, 1785; Malone, 1790; Eann, 1786—1794. The editions of Hanmer, Johnson, Steevens, Malone, and Heed were also all reprinted once or oftener, for the most
* Nearly the same views in most respects which I had announced in the North British Review in 1854, both on the Shakespearian text and on the new readings supplied by Mr Collier's MS. annotator, are ably advocated in an article in the Edinburgh Review, No. 210, for April 1856. The writer refers to a paper, which I have not seen, in a number of the North American Review for the preceding year, as containing " by far the best and most thoroughly reasoned discussion " of the subject with which he had met.
26 PROLEGOMENA.
part with enlargements ; and all the notes of the preceding editions were at last incorporated in what is called Reed's Second Edition of Johnson and Steevens, which appeared, in 21 volumes 8vo, in 1803. This was followed in 1821 by what is now the standard Variorum edition, also in 21 vol umes, which had been mostly prepared by Malone, and was completed and carried through the press by his friend Mr James Boswell. "We have since had the various editions of Mr Knight and Mr Collier, from both of whom, in addi tion to other original research and speculation, both biblio graphical and critical, we have received the results of an examination of the old texts more careful and extended than they had previously been subjected to. New critical editions by the late Mr Singer and by Mr Staunton have also appeared within the last few years ; and there are in course of publication the Cambridge edition by Mr Clark and Mr Wright, and another since commenced by Mr Dyce, besides the magnificent edition by Mr Halli- well, which is to extend to 20 volumes folio.
The list of commentators, however, includes several other names besides those of the editors of the entire collection of Plays ; in particular, Upton, in " Critical Observations," 1746 ; Dr Zachary Grey, in " Critical, His torical, and Explanatory Notes," 1755; Heath, in "A Eevisal of Shakespeare's Text," 1765 ; KenricJc, in a " Eeview of Johnson's Edition," 1765, and " Defence of Review," 1766 ; Tyrwhitt, in " Observations and Conjec tures," 1766; Dr Richard Farmer, in "Essay on the Learning of Shakespeare," 1767 ; Charles Jennens, in an notated editions of" King Lear," 1770,—" Othello," 1773, —"Hamlet," 1773,— " Macbeth," 1773,— and "Julius Caesar," 1774 ; John MoncTc Mason, in " Comments on the Last Edition of Shakespeare's Plays," 1785, and " Fur ther Observations," 1708 ; A. Beckett, in " A Concord ance to Shakespeare, to which are added three hundred Notes and Illustrations," 1787; Ritson, in "The Quip
THE HODERX TEXTS. 27
Modest," 1781, and " Cursory Criticisms," 1792 ; Whiter, in " A Specimen of a Commentary," 1794 ; George Chal mers, in " Apology for the Believers in the Shakespearian Papers," 1797, and "Supplemental Apology," 1799; Douce, in " Illustrations of Shakespeare and of Ancient Manners," 1807 ; Reverend Joseph Hunter •, in " Illustra tions of the Life, Studies, and Writings of Shakespeare," 1844 ; and Reverend Alexander Dyce, in " Remarks on Mr Collier's and Mr Knight's Editions," 1844, and "A Few Notes on Shakespeare," 1853. To these names and titles may be added the Reverend Samuel AyscougJCs "Index to the Eemarkable Passages and "Words made use of by Shakespeare," 1790; "A Complete Verbal Index to the Plays of Shakespeare," in 2 vols., by T?rancis Twiss, Esq., 1805 ; and Mrs Cowden Clarice's " Complete Con cordance to Shakspere," 1847. Finally, there may be mentioned Archdeacon Nares's " Glossary of Words, etc., thought to require Illustration in Shakespeare and his Contemporaries," 1822.*
V. THE MODERN SHAKESPEARIAN TEXTS.
No modern editor has reprinted the Plays of Shake speare exactly as they stand in any of the old Folios or Quartos. Neither the spelling, nor the punctuation, nor the words of any ancient copy have been retained un altered, even with the correction of obvious errors of the Press. It has been universally admitted by the course that has been followed that a genuine text is not to be obtained without more or less of conjectural emendation : the only difference has been as to the extent to which it should be carried. The most recent texts, however, beginning with that of Malone, and more especially those of Mr Knight and of Mr Collier (in his eight volume edition), have been formed upon the principle of adhering
* Of this important work a new edition, with large additions, has lately heen announced as in preparation.
28 PROLEGOMENA.
to the original copies as closely as possible; and they have given ns back many old readings which had been rejected by preceding editors. There has been some dif ference of opinion among editors of the modern school in regard to whether the preference should be given in certain cases to the First Folio or to some previous Quarto impression of the Play produced in the lifetime of the author; and Steevens latterly, in opposition to Malone, who had originally been his coadjutor, set up the doctrine that the Second Folio was a safer guide than the First. This heresy, however, has probably now been abandoned by everybody.
But, besides the correction of what are believed to be errors of the Press in the old copies, the text of Shake speare has been subjected to certain modifications in all the modern reprints : —
1. The spelling has been reduced to the modern stand ard. The original spelling is certainly no part of the composition. There is no reason to believe that it is even Shakespeare's own spelling. In all probability it is merely that of the person who set up the types. Spenser may be suspected to have had some peculiar notions upon the subject of orthography ; but, apparently, it was not a matter about which Shakespeare troubled himself. In departing from the original editions here, therefore, we lose nothing that is really his.
2. The actual form of the word in certain cases has been modernized. This deviation is not so clearly defens ible upon principle, but the change is so slight, and the convenience and advantage so considerable, that it may fairly be held to be justifiable nevertheless on the ground of expediency. The case of most frequent occurrence is that of the word than, which with Shakespeare, as gener ally with his contemporaries and predecessors, is always then. " Greater then a king " would be intolerable to the modern ear. Then standing in this position is there-
THE MODERN TEXTS. 29
fore quietly converted by all the modern editors into our modern than. Another form which was unquestionably part of the regular phraseology and grammar of his day is what is sometimes described as the conjunction of a plural nominative with a singular verb, but is really only a peculiar mode of inflecting the verb, by which the plural is left undistinguished from the singular. Shakespeare and his contemporaries, although they more usually said, as we do, " words sometimes give offence," held them selves entitled to say also, if they chose, " words some times gives offence." But here again so much offence would be given by the antiquated phraseology to the modern ear, accustomed to such an apparent violation of concord only from the most illiterate lips, that the detri mental s has been always suppressed in the modern edi tions, except only in a few instances in which it happens to occur as an indispensable element of the rhyme— as when Macbeth, in his soliloquy before going in to murdei the sleeping King (ii. 1) says, —
" Whiles I threat he lives : "Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives ; "
or, as when Romeo says to Friar Lawrence (ii. 3),
" Both our remedies "Within thy help and holy physic lies."
A few contractions also, such as upon't, orfs head, etc., which have now become too vulgarized for composition of any elevation, are usually neglected in constructing the modern text, and without any appreciable injury to its integrity.
3. In some few cases the editors have gone the length of changing even the word which Shakespeare may very possibly have written, or which may probably have stood in the manuscript put into the hands of the original printers, when it has been held to be palpably or incontro- vertibly wrong. In Julius Ccesar, for instance (ii. 1), they have upon this principle changed "the first of
30 PROLEGOMENA.
March" into "the ides of March" (149), and afterwards "fifteen days" into "fourteen days" (154). It is evi dent, however, that alterations of this kind ought to be very cautiously made.
VL THE MECHANISM OF ENGLISH VERSE, AND THE PROSODY OF THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE.
The mechanism of verse is a thing altogether distinct from the music of verse. The one is matter of rule, the other of taste and feeling. No rules can be given for the production of music, or of the musical, any more than for the production of poetry, or the poetical.
The law of the mechanical construction of verse is com mon to verse of every degree of musical quality, — to the roughest or harshest (provided it be verse at all), as well as to the smoothest and sweetest. Music is not an abso lute necessity of verse. There are cases in which it is not even an excellence or desirable ingredient. Yerse is sometimes the more effective for being unmusical. The mechanical law or form is universally indispensable. It is that which constitutes the verse. It may be regarded as the substance ; musical character, as the accident or ornament.
In every language the principle of the law of verse undoubtedly lies deep in the nature of the language. In all modern European languages, at least, it is dependent upon the system of accentuation established in the lan guage, and would probably be found to be modified in each case according to the peculiarities of the accentual system. In so far as regards these languages, verse may be denned to consist in a certain arrangement of accented and un accented syllables.
The Plays of Shakespeare are all, with the exception only of occasional couplets, in unrhymed or what is called Blank verse. This form of verse was first exemplified in
THE TERSE. 31
English in a translation of the Fourth Book of the JEneid by the unfortunate Lord Surrey, who was executed in 1547 ; it was first employed in dramatic writing by Thomas Sackville (afterwards Lord Buckhurst and Earl of Dorset) in his Gorloduc (or Ferrex and Porrex), produced in 1561; and, although not much used in poetical com positions of any other kind, either translated or original, till Milton brought it into reputation by his Paradise Lost in the latter part of the following century, it had come to be the established or customary verse for both tragedy and comedy before Shakespeare began to write for the stage. Our only legitimate English Blank verse is that commonly called the Heroic, consisting normally in a succession of five feet of two syllables each, with the pressure of the voice, or accent, on the latter of the two, or, in other words, on the second, fourth, sixth, eighth, and tenth syllables of each line. After the tenth syllable, an unaccented syllable, or even two, may be added without any prosodical effect. The rhythm is completed with the tenth syllable, and what follows is only as it were a slight reverberation or echo.
But this general statement is subject to certain import ant modifications : —
1. In any of the feet an accent on the first syllable may be substituted for one on the second, providing it be not done in two adjoining feet. This transference of the accent is more unusual in certain of the feet than in others — most of all in the fifth, next to that in the second ; — but is not in any foot a violation of the law of the verse, or what is properly to be called a licence.
2. It is a universal law of English verse, that any syllable whatever, falling in the place of the accent either immediately before or immediately after a foot of which one of the syllables is truly accented, will be accounted to be accented for the purposes of the verse. The -my of enemy, for instance, or the in- of intercept, is always so
32 PROLEGOMENA.
accounted in heroic verse, in virtue of the true accent upon en- and upon -cept ; but in dactylic or anapaestic verse, these syllables, although pronounced precisely in the same manner, are always held to be unaccented, the law of those kinds of verse not requiring another accent within the distance at which the -my stands removed from the en-, or the in- from the -cept. This, in so far as re gards the heroic line, is equivalent to saying that every alternate foot may be without a really accented syllable in it at all. Or the line might be defined as consisting, not of five feet of two syllables each, with one of them accented, but of two and a half feet, each of four syllables, with at least one of the four accented; the half foot, which need not have an accent, occurring sometimes at the beginning of the line, sometimes in the middle, some times at the end. Practically, the effect is, that anywhere in the line we may have a sequence of three syllables (none of them being superfluous) without any accent; and that there is no word in the language (such as Horace was plagued with in Latin) quod versu dicere non est, — none, whether proper name or whatever else, which the verse does not readily admit.
3. It is by no means necessary (though it is commonly stated or assumed to be so) that the syllables alternating with the accented ones should be unaccented. Any or all of them may be accented also.
4. Further, in any of the places which may be occupied by an unaccented syllable it is scarcely an irregularity to introduce two or even more such unaccented syllables. The effect may be compared to the prolongation or dis persion of a note in music by what is called a shake. Of course, such a construction of verse is to be resorted to sparingly and only upoA special grounds or occasions ; employed habitually, or very frequently, it crowds and cumbers the rhythm, and gives it a quivering and feeble character. But it can nowhere be said to be illegitimate,
THE YEKSE. 33
— although, in ordinary circumstances, it may have a less agreeable effect in some places of the line than in others.
These four modifications of its normal structure are what, along with the artistic distribution of the pauses and cadences, principally give its variety, freedom, and life to our Heroic verse. They are what the intermixture of dactyls and spondees is to the Greek or Latin Hex ameter. They are none of them of the nature of what is properly denominated a poetic licence, which is not a modification but a violation of the rule, permissible only upon rare occasions, and altogether anarchical and de structive when too frequently committed. The first three of our four modifications are taken advantage of habitu ally and incessantly by every writer of verse in the lan guage ; and the fourth, to a greater or less extent, at least by nearly all our blank verse poets.
So much cannot be said for another form of verse (if it is to be so called) which has also been supposed to be found in Shakespeare; that, namely, in which a line, evidently perfect both at the beginning and the end, wants a syllable in the middle. Such, for instance, is the well-known line in Measure for Measure, ii. 2, as it stands in the First Folio, —
" Than the soft myrtle. But man, proud man."
Here, it will be observed, we have not a hemistich (by which we mean any portion of a verse perfect so far as it extends, whether it be the commencing or concluding portion), but something which professes to be a complete verse. The present is not merely a truncated line of nine syllables, or one where the defect consists in the want of either the first or the last syllable ; the defect here would not be cured by any addition to either the beginning or the end of the line ; the syllable that is wanting is in the middle.
The existing text of the Plays presents us with a con-
34 PROLEGOMENA.
siderable number of verses of this description. In many of these, in all probability, the text is corrupt ; the want ing syllable, not being absolutely indispensable to the sense, has been dropt out in the copying or setting up by some one (a common case) not much alive to the demands of the prosody. The only other solution of the difficulty that has been offered is, that we have a substitute for the omitted syllable in a pause by which the reading of the line is to be broken. This notion appears to have received the sanction of Coleridge. But I cannot think that he had fully considered the matter. It is certain that in no verse of Coleridge's own does any mere pause ever per form the function which would thus be assigned to it. Nor is any such principle recognized in any other English verse, modern or ancient, of which we have a text that can be absolutely relied upon. It is needless to observe that both in Shakespeare and in all our other writers of verse we have abundance of lines broken by pauses of all lengths without any such effect being thereby produced as is here assumed. If the pause be really equivalent to a syllable, how happens it that it is not so in every case ? But that it should be so in any case is a doctrine to which I should have the greatest difficulty in reconciling myself. How is it possible by any length of pause to bring any thing like rhythm out of the above quoted words, —
" Than the soft myrtle. But man, proud man " ?
If this be verse, there is nothing that may not be so de signated.
I should be inclined to say, that, wherever there seems to be no reason for suspecting the loss of a syllable, we • ought in a case of this sort to regard the words as making not one line, but two hemistichs, or truncated lines. Thus, the passage in Measure for Measure would stand —
" Merciful heaven ! Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt,
THE YEESE. 35
Splitt'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak
Than the soft myrtle.
But man, proud man,
Dress 'd in a little brief authority : " &c.
This is nothing more than what has been done with the words "Merciful heaven!" which all the modern editors print as a hemistich, but which both in the Eirst Polio and in all the others is made to form a line with the words that immediately precede ; thus ; —
" Nothing but thunder : Mercifull heauen."
"What mainly gives its character to the English Heroic line is its being poised upon the tenth syllable. It is by this, as well as by the number of feet, that its rhythm or musical flow is distinguished, for instance, from that of what is called the Alexandrine, or line of twelve syllables, the characteristic of which is that the pressure is upon the sixth and the twelfth. Without this twelve syllables will no more make an Alexandrine than they will a com mon Heroic line. There are in fact many Heroic lines consisting of twelve syllables, but still, nevertheless, resting upon the tenth.
It follows that generally in this kind of verse the tenth syllable will be strongly accented. That is the normal form of the line. When there is rhyme, the consonance is always in the tenth syllable. As, however, in dancing (which is a kind of visible verse, — the poetry of motion, as it has been called), or in architecture (which is another kind, and may be styled the visible poetry of repose), the pressure upon that which really sustains is sometimes sought to be concealed, or converted into the semblance of its opposite, and the limb or the pillar made to appear to be rather drawn towards the ground than resting upon it, so in word-poetry too we have occasionally the exhi bition of a similar feat. Instead of a strongly accented syllable, one taking only a very slight accent, or none at D 2
3G PROLEGOMENA.
all, is made to fill the tenth place. One form, indeed, of this peculiarity of structure is extremely common, and is resorted to by all our poets as often for mere convenience as for any higher purpose, that, namely, in which the weak tenth syllable is the termination of a word of which the syllable having the accent has already done duty in its proper place in the preceding foot. It is in this way that, both in our blank and in our rhymed verse, the large classes of words ending in -ing, -ness, -ment, -y, etc., and accented on the antepenultimate, are made available in concluding so many lines. The same thing happens when we have at the end of the line a short or unaccented monosyllable which either coalesces like an enclitic with the preceding word or at least belongs to the same clause of the expression ; as in Beaumont and Metchej's
"By my dead father's soul, you stir not, Sir ! "
(Humorous Lieutenant, ii. 2);
or,
" And yields all thanks to me for that dear care Which I was bound to have in training you."
(King and No King, ii.}.
But another case is more remarkable.
This is when the weak or unaccented tenth syllable is neither the final syllable of a word the accented syllable of which has already done service in the preceding foot, nor in any way a part of the same clause of the expression to which that foot belongs, but a separate monosyllabic word, frequently one, such as an d, lut, if, or, of, even the, or a, or an, among the slightest and most rapidly uttered in the language, and belonging syntactically and in natural utterance to the succeeding line. We may be said to have the strongest or most illustrious exemplifications of this mode of versifying in the
" Labitur ripa, Jove non probante, u —
— xorius amnis,"
and other similar exhibitions of "linked sweetness" in
THE YERSE. 37
Horace, Pindar, and the Greek dramatists in their choral passages (if we may accept the common arrangement), — to say nothing of sundry modern imitations in the same bold style, even in our own vernacular, which need not be quoted. Such a construction of verse, however, when it does not go the length of actually cutting a word in two, is in perfect accordance with the principles of our English prosodical system ; for, besides that the and, or, of, or if is not really a slighter syllable than the termina tion -ty or -ly, for instance, Avhich is so frequently found in the same position, these and other similar monosylla bles are constantly recognized, under the second of the above laws of modification, as virtually accented for the purposes of the verse in other places of the line. Still when a syllable so slight meets us in the place where the normal, natural, and customary rhythm demands the greatest pressure, the effect is always somewhat startling. This unexpectedness of effect, indeed, may be regarded as in many cases the end aimed at, and that which prompts or recommends the construction in question. And it does undoubtedly produce a certain variety and liveliness. It is fittest, therefore, for the lighter kinds of poetry. It is only there that it can without impropriety be made a characteristic of the verse. It partakes too much of the nature of a trick or a deception to be em ployed except sparingly in poetry of the manliest or most massive order. Yet there too it may be introduced now and then with the happiest effect, more especially in the drama, where variety and vivacity of style are so much more requisite than rhythmical fulness or roundness, and the form of dialogue, always demanding a natural ease and freedom, will justify even irregularities and audacities of expression which might be rejected by the more stately march of epic composition. It has something of the same bounding life which Ulysses describes Diomed as showing in "the manner of his gait": —
dS PROLEGOMENA.
" He rises on the toe : that spirit of his In aspiration lifts him from the earth."
Two things are observable with regard to Shakespeare's employment of this peculiar construction of verse : —
1. It will be found upon an examination of his Plays that there are some of them in which it occurs very rarely, or perhaps scarcely at all, and others in which it is abun dant. It was certainly a habit of writing which grew upon him after he once gave in to it. Among the Plays in which there is little or none of it are some of those known to be amongst his earliest ; and some that were undoubtedly the product of the latest period of his life are among those that have the most of it. It is probable that the different stages in the frequency with which it is indulged in correspond generally to the order of suc cession in which the Plays were written. A certain pro gress of style may be traced more or less distinctly in every writer ; and there is no point of style which more marks a poetic writer than the character of his versifica tion. It is this, for instance, which furnishes us with the most conclusive or at least the clearest evidence that the play of King Henry the Eighth cannot have been writ ten throughout by Shakespeare. It is a point of style which admits of precise appreciation to a degree much beyond most others ; and there is no other single indica tion which can be compared with it as an element in de termining the chronology of the Plays. It is therefore extremely difficult to believe that the three Eoman plays, Julius Casar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus, can all belong to the same period (Malone assigns them severally to the years 1607, 1608, and 1610), seeing that the second and third are among the plays in which verses having in the tenth place an unemphatic monosyllable of the kind in question are of most frequent occurrence, while the only instances of anything of the sort in the first are, 1 believe, the following : —
THE YEESE. 39
54. " I had as lief not be as live to be
In awe of such a thing as I myself."
54. " And Cassius is
A wretched creature, and must bend his body."
54. " A man of such a feeble temper should
So get the start of the majestic world."
55. " I do believe that these applauses are
For some new honours that are heaped on Caesar.
155. " All the interim is
Like a phantasma." 307. " Desiring thee that Publius Cimber may
Have an immediate freedom of repeal."
355. " And am moreover suitor, that I may Produce his body to the market-place."
358. "And that we are contented Caesar shall
Have all true rites and awful ceremonies."
406. " But yesterday the word of Caesar might Have stood against the world."
494. " Or here, or at
The Capitol."
Not only does so comparatively rare an indulgence in it show that the habit of this kind of versification was as yet not fully formed, but in one only of these ten in stances have we it carried nearly so far as it repeatedly is in some other Plays : be, and is, and should, and may, and shall, and might, and are, all verbs, though certainly not emphatic, will yet any of them allow the voice to rest upon it with a considerably stronger pressure than such lightest and slightest of " winged words " as and, or, but, if, that (the relative or conjunction), who, which, than, as, of, to, with, for, etc. The only decided or true and perfect instance of the peculiarity is the last in the list.
2. In some of the Plays at least the prosody of many of the verses constructed upon the principle under con sideration has been misconceived by every editor, includ ing the most recent. Let us take, for example, the play of
40 PBOLEGOMEtfA.
Coriolanus, in which, as has just been observed, such verses are very numerous. Here, in the first place, we have a good many instances in which the versification is correctly exhibited in the First Folio, and, of course, as might be expected, in all subsequent editions ; such as —
" Only in strokes, but with thy grim looks and The thunder-like percussion of thy sounds."— i. 4.
" I got them in my country's service, when Some certain of your brethren roared and ran." — ii. 3.
"The thwartings of your dispositions, if You had not showed them how you were disposed." — iii. 2.
" Come, my sweet wife, my dearest mother, and My friends of noble touch, when I am forth." — iv. 2^.
" Permitted by our dastard nobles, who Have all forsook me." — iv. 5.
" Mistake me not, to save my life ; for if I had feared death, of all the men i' the world." — iv. 5.
" Had we no quarrel else * to Rome, but that Thou art thence banished, we would muster all." — iv. 5.
* The reading of all the copies is "No other quarrel else ; " but it is evident that other is merely the author's first word, which he must be supposed to have intended to strike out, if he did not actually do so, when he resolved to substitute else. The prosody and the sense agree in admonishing us that both words cannot stand. So in Antony and Cleopatra, iv. 10, in the line " To the young Roman boy she hath sold me, and I fall ; " young is evidently only the word first intended to be used, and never could be meant to be retained after the expression Roman boy was adopted. Another case of the same kind is unquestion ably that of the word old in the line (As You Like It, iv. 3),—
" Under an (old) oak, whose boughs were mossed with age."
Nor can I have any doubt that another text, equally familiar to the modern ear, has suffered a similar corruption, — Bassanio's —
" In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft, I shot his fellow of the self-same flight The self-same way with more advised watch, To find the other forth ; and by adventuring both I oft found both."
THE YEHSE. 41
" You have holp to ravish your own daughters, and To melt the city leads upon your pates." — iv. 6.
" Your temples burned in their cement ; and Your franchises, whereon you stood, confined." — iv. 6.
" Upon the voice of occupation, and The breath of garlic-eaters." — iv. 6.
" I do not know what witchcraft's in him ; but Your soldiers use him as the grace 'fore meat." — iv. 7.
" Mine ears against your suits are stronger than Your gates against my force." — v. 3.
" As if Olympus to a molehill should In supplication nod." — v. 3.
" Hath an aspect of intercession, which, Great Nature cries, Deny not." — v. 3.
" Aufidius, and you Volsces, mark ; for we'll Hear nought from Rome in private." — v. 3.
" That thou restrain'st from me the duty which To a mother's part belongs." — v. 3.
" And hale him up and down ; all swearing, if The Roman ladies bring not comfort home." — v. 4.
" The city posts by this hath entered, and Intends to appear before the people, hoping." — v. 5.
" I seemed his follower, not partner ; and He waged me with his countenance, as if I had been mercenary." — v. 5.
" At a few drops of women's rheum, which are As cheap as lies." — v. 5.
" With our own charge ; making a treaty where There was a yielding." — v. 5.
" That prosperously I have attempted, and With bloody passage led your wars, even to The gates of Rome." — v. 5.
To find forth may, I apprehend, be safely pronounced to be neither English nor sense. The forth has apparently been transferred from the preceding line, which was either originally written " The same way forth," or, more probably, was so corrected after having been origin ally written " The self-same way."
42 PROLEGOMENA.
"Breaking his oath and resolution, like A twist of rotten silk." — v. 5.
" Though in this city he Hath widowed and unchilded many a one." — v. 5.
These instances are abundantly sufficient to prove the prevalence in the Play of the peculiarity under con sideration, and also its recognition, whether consciously and deliberately or otherwise does not matter, by the editors. But further, we have also some instances in which the editors most attached to the original printed text have ventured to go the length of rearranging the verse upon this principle where it stands otherwise in the First Folio. Such are the following :
" Commit the war of white and damask in Their nicely gauded cheeks."— ii. 1.
Here the Folio includes their in the first line.
" A kinder value of the people than He hath hereto prized them at." — ii. 2.
The Folio gives this as prose.
" To allay my rages and revenges with Your colder reasons." — v. 3.
The Folio gives from " My rages " inclusive as a line.
After this it is surely very strange to find in our modern editions such manifest and gross misconceptions of the versification as the following arrangements ex hibit :—
" My gentle Marcius, worthy Caius, And— By deed-achieving honour duly named."— ii. 1.
" I have seen the dumb men throng to see him, And — The blind to hear him speak." — ii. 1.
" Have made them mutes, silenced their pleaders, And — Dispropertied their freedoms. " — ii. 1.
" Having determined of the Volsces, And— To send for Titus Lartius."— ii. 2.
" To gratify his noble service, that hath Thus— Stood for his country."— ii. 2.
THE VEBSE. 43
" That valour is the chiefest virtue, And — Most dignifies the haver." — ii. 2.
" Pray you, go fit you to the custom ; And — Take to you, as your predecessors have." — ii. 2.
" I have seen and heard of; for your voices
Have — Done many things, some less, some more ; your voice.*'
— ii. 3, " Endue you with the people's voice :
Remains — That, in the oflicial marks invested,
You — Anon do meet the senate." — ii. 3.
" Would think upon you for your voices, And — Translate his malice towards you into love." — ii. 3.
" The apprehension of his present portance, "Which — Most gibingly, ungravely, he did fashion." — ii. 3.
" For the mutable, rank-scented many, Let them — Regard me as I do not flatter, And — Therein behold themselves." — iii. 1.
" That would depopulate the city, And — Be every man himself." — iii. 1.
In all these instances the words which I have separated from those that follow them by a dash belong to the pre ceding line ; and, nearly every time that the first of the two lines is thus put out of joint, the rhythm of both is ruined.
The modern editor who has shown the most disposition to tamper with the old text in the matter of the versifi cation is Steevens. The metrical arrangement of the First Polio is undoubtedly wrong in thousands of in stances, and it is very evident that the conception which the persons by whom the printing was superintended had of verse was extremely imperfect and confused. They would be just as likely to go wrong as right whenever any intricacy or indistinctness in the manuscript threw them upon their own resources of knowledge and critical sagacity. But Steevens set about the work of correction on false principles. Nothing less would satisfy him than to reduce the prosody of the natural dramatic blank verse
44 PBOLEGOMENA.
of Shakespeare, the characteristic product of the sixteenth century, to the standard of the trim rhyming couplets into which Pope shaped his polished epigrams in the eighteenth. It is a mistake, however, to speak of Stee- vens as having no ear for verse. His ear was a practised and correct enough one, only that it had been trained ir a narrow school. Malone, on the other hand, had no notion whatever of verse beyond what he could obtain by counting the syllables on his fingers. Everything else but the mere number of the syllables went with him for nothing. This is demonstrated by all that he has written on the subject. And, curiously enough, Mr James Bos- well, the associate of his labours, appears to have been endowed with nearly an equal share of the same singular insensibility.
VII. SHAKESPEARE'S JULIUS CAESAR.
Shakespeare's Julius Ccesar was first printed, as far as is known, in the First Folio collection of his Plays, pub lished in 1623 ; it stands there between Timon of Athens and Macbeth, filling, in the division of the volume which begins with Coriolanus and extends to the end, being that occupied with the Tragedies, — which is preceded by those containing the Comedies and the Histories, — the double- columned pages from 109 to 130 inclusive.* Here, at the beginning and over each page, it is entitled "The Tragedie of Julius Caesar ; " but in the Catalogue at the beginning of the volume it is entered as " The Life and Death of Julius Caesar;" other entries in the list being, among the Histories, "The Life and Death of King John," "The Life and Death of Bichard the Third," " The Life of King Henry the Eighth," and, among the Tragedies, " The Tragedy of Coriolanus," " The Tragedy of Macbeth," "The Tragedy of Hamlet," "King Lear," " Othello, the Moore of Venice." In the Second Folio
* There is a break in the pagination from 101 to 108 inclusive.
THE JULIUS CJSSAB. 45
(1632), where this series of pages includes Troilus and Cressida, "The Tragedy of Julius Cassai," as it is entered both in the running title and in the Catalogue, extends from page 129 to 150 inclusive. In both editions the Play is divided into Acts, but not into Scenes ; although the First Act is headed in both " Actus Primus. Scoena Prima." There is no list in either edition of the Drama tis Persona, as there is with several others of the Plays.
Malone, in his "Attempt to ascertain the Order in which the Plays of Shakespeare were written," assigning Hamlet to the year 1600, Othello to 1604, Lear to 1605, Macbeth to 1606, Antony and Cleopatra to 1608, and Corio- lanus to 1610, fixes upon the year 1607 as the date of the composition of Julius Caesar. But nothing can be more inconclusive than the grounds upon which he comes to this conclusion. His reasoning is principally, or, indeed, we may say almost wholly, founded upon the fact of a rhyming play on the same subject by William Alexander, afterwards Earl of Sterline, or Stirling, having been first printed at London in that year (it had been originally printed in Scotland three years before), which he thinks may be presumed to have preceded Shakespeare's. " Shakespeare, we know," he observes, in his disquisition on the Chronological Order (Variorum edition, II. 445- 451), "formed at least twelve plays on fables that had been unsuccessfully managed by other poets ; but no contemporary writer was daring enough to enter the lists with him in his lifetime, or to model into a drama a subject which had already employed his pen ; and it is not likely that Lord Sterline, who was then a very young man, and had scarcely unlearned the Scotch idiom, should have been more hardy than any other poet of that age." Elsewhere (XII. 2) he says: "In the two Plays many parallel passages are found, which might per haps have proceeded only from the two authors drawing from the same source. However, there are some reasons
40 PROLEGOMENA.
for thinking the coincidence more than accidental." The only additional reason he gives is that "a pas sage in The Tempest (" The cloud-capped towers, etc.") seems to have been copied from one in Darius, another Play of Lord Sterline's, printed at Edinburgh in 1603." Upon the subject of these alleged imitations by Shake speare of one of the most uninspired of his contemporaries, see Mr Knight's article on this William Alexander in the " Biographical Dictionary of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge," Vol. II. pp. 4-7. They may safely be pronounced to be one and all purely imaginary. The passage in Darius (which Play is also in rhyme), it may be noted, was removed by Lord Stirling from Bis Play when he reprinted it in a revised form in 1637. This would have been a singularly self-denying course for the noble versifier to have taken if the notion that it had been either plagiarized or imitated by the great English drama tist had ever crossed his mind. The resemblance, in fact, is no greater than would be almost sure to occur in the case of any two writers in verse, however widely re mote in point of genius, taking up the same thought, which, like the one we have here, is in itself almost one of the commonplaces of poetical or rhetorical declamation, however pre-eminently it has been arrayed by Shake speare in all the "pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious words"
A Latin Play upon the subject of the death of Caesar — " Epilogus Caesaris Interfecti" — the production of a Dr Richard Eedes, whom Meres, in his Wit's Common wealth, published in 1598, mentions as one of the best tragic writers of the time, appears to have been brought out at Christ's Church, Oxford, in 1582. And there is also an anonymous English Play of Shakespeare's age, entitled " The Tragedy of Caesar and Pompey, or Caesar's Revenge," of which two editions have come down to us, one bearing the date of 1607 (the same year in which
THE JULIUS C^ISAB. 47
Alexander's Julius Ccesar was printed at London), the other without date, but apparently earlier. This Play is often confounded with another of the same title by G-eorge Chapman, which, however, was not printed till 1631. The anonymous Play appears to have been first produced in 1594. See Henslowe's Diary, by Collier, p. 44. Ma- lone observes that " in the running title it is called The Tragedy of Julius Caesar ; perhaps the better to impose it on the public for the performance of Shakespeare." It is not pretended, however, that it and Shakespeare's Play have anything in common.*
Shakespeare's Julius Ccesar is alluded to as one of the most popular of his Plays by Leonard Digges (a younger brother of Sir Dudley, the popular parliament man in the time of Charles I., and afterwards Master of the Rolls), in a copy of verses prefixed to the First Folio : —
" Nor shall I e'er believe or think thee dead, . . . . . . till I hear a scene more nobly take Than when thy half-sword parlying Romans spake."
In the Prologue, also, to Beaumont and Fletcher's tragedy entitled The False One,\ the subject of which is the loves of Caesar and Cleopatra in Egypt, the authors vindicate themselves from the charge of having taken up the same ground with Shakespeare in the present Play: —
* From a comedy called Every Woman in her Humour, printed in 1609, Malone quotes a passage from which he infers that there was an ancient droll or puppet-shew on the subject of Julius Csesar : — " I have seen the City of Nineveh and Julius Cse'sar acted by mammets." " I formerly supposed," Malone adds, " that this droll was formed on the play before us ; but have lately observed that it is mentioned with other motions (Jonas, Ninevie, and the Destruction of Jerusalem) in Marston's Dutch Courtesan, printed in 1605, and was probably of a much older date." (Chronological Order, 449.) But it is not so clear that the mention of the motion, or puppet-shew, in 1605 would make it impossible that it should have been posterior to Shakespeare's Play.
f It has been disputed whether by The False One we are to under stand Csesar or another character in the Play, the villain Septimius. A friend suggests that it may be Cleopatra that is intended to be so
48 PEOLEGOMENA.
"Sure to tell
Of Caesar's amorous heats, and how he fell I' the Capitol, can never be the same To the judicious."
But in what year The False One was brought out is not known. It certainly was not before 1608 or 1609.
Finally, it has been remarked that the quarrel scene between Brutus and Cassius in Shakespeare's Play has evidently formed the model for a similar one between the two friends Melantius and Amintor in the Third Act of Beaumont and Fletcher's Maid's Tragedy. All that is known, however, of the date of that Play is, that it was probably brought out before 1611, in which year another Play entitled The Second Maiden's Tragedy was licensed. But even this is doubtful ; for there is no resemblance, or connexion of any kind, except that of the names, between the two Plays.*
On the whole, it may be inferred from these slight evi dences that the present Play can hardly be assigned to a later date than the year 1607 ; but there is nothing to prove that it may not be of considerably earlier date.
It is evident that the character and history of Julius Caesar had taken a strong hold of Shakespeare's imagina-
* " This tragedy," says Malone, " (as I learn from a MS. of Mr Oldys) was formerly in the possession of John Warburton, Esq., Som erset Herald, and since in the library of the Marquis of Lansdown." (Chronological Order, 450.) It is one of the three Plays which escaped destruction by Mr "Warburton's cook. It has now been printed "from the original MS., 1611, in the Lausdown Collection" (British Museum), in the First No. of The Old English Drama, Lon. 1824, -25, the eight Nos. of which, making two vols., are commonly regarded as making a supplement to the last, or 12 volume, edition of Dodsley. The title of The Second Maiden's Tragedy appears to have been given to the present Play by Sir George Buc, the master of the Revels. The MS., he states, had no name inscribed on it. On the back of the MS. the Play is attributed to William Goughe. Afterwards William has been altered to Thomas. Then this name has been obliterated, and George Chapman substituted. Finally, this too has been scored through, and the authorship assigned to William Skakspear.
THE JULIUS CJ3SAE. 49
tion. There is perhaps no other historical character who is so repeatedly alluded to throughout his Plays.
" There was never anything so sudden," says the dis guised Rosalind in As You Like It (v. 2) to Orlando, speaking of the manner in which his brother Oliver and her cousin (or sister, as she calls her) Celia had fallen in love with one another, " but the fight of two rams, and Caesar's thrasonical brag of I came, saw, and overcame : for your brother and my sister no sooner met, but they looked ; no sooner looked, but they loved ; no sooner loved, but they sighed;" etc.
" 0 ! such a day," exclaims Lord Bardolph in the Se cond Part of King Henry the Fourth (i. 1) to old North umberland in his misannouncement of the issue of the field of Shrewsbury,
" So fought, so honoured, and so fairly won, Came not till now to dignify the times Since Caesar's fortunes."
And afterwards (in iv. 3) we have EalstafFs magnificent gasconade : — " I have speeded hither with the very ex- tremest inch [?] of possibility : I have foundered nine- score and odd posts ; and here, travel-tainted as I am, have, in my pure and immaculate valour, taken Sir John Coleville of the Dale, a most furious [famous ?] knight, and valorous enemy. But what of that ? He saw me, and yielded ; that I may justly say, with the hook-nosed fellow of Rome, I came, saw, and overcame."
" But now behold," says the Chorus in the Fifth Act of King Henry the Fifth, describing the triumphant re turn of the English monarch from the conquest of Erance, " In the quick forge and working-house of thought, How London doth pour out her citizens. The mayor, and all his brethren, in best sort, Like to the senators of the antique Rome, "With the plebeians swarming at their heels, Go forth, and fetch their conquering Ccesar in."
In the three Parts of King Henry the Sixth, which are
50 PROLEGOMENA.
eo thickly sprinkled with classical allusions of all kinds, there are several to the great Roman Dictator. " Henry the Fifth! thy ghost I invocate ;" the Duke of Bedford apostrophizes his deceased brother in the First Part
<<•!);
" Prosper this realm, keep it from civil broils ! Combat with adverse planets in the heavens ! A far more glorious star thy soul will make Than Julius Caesar, or bright Cassiope."*
In the next Scene the Maid, setting out to raise the siege of Orleans, and deliver her king and country, compares herself to
* That proud insulting ship Which Caesar and his fortunes bare at once."
In the Second Part (iv. 1) we have Suffolk, when hurried away to execution by the seamen who had captured him, consoling himself with —
" Great men oft die by vile bezonians : A Roman sworder and banditto slave Murdered sweet Tully ; Brutus' bastard hand Stabbed Julius Caesar ; savage islanders Pompey the great ; and Suffolk dies by pirates."
* The Cassiope is supplied by Mr Collier's MS. annotator. But Theobald had proposed Cassiopeia, and not without supporting his conjecture by some ingenious and plausible reasoning. See his letter to Warburton, dated 29th January 1730, in Nichols's Illustrations, II. 451 — 453. This, then, is one of those remarkable instances in which the recently discovered MS. is found to concur with a previously pub lished conjectural emendation, — like two independent witnesses testify ing separately to the same fact, and so at once adding confirmation to the fact and corroborating each other's testimony, sagacity, or judgment. It is proper to add, however, that Theobald was afterwards induced to give up this reading. Writing again to Warburton on the 12th of February, he says : — " I have received the pleasure of yours dated February 3, with a kind^and judicious refutation of Cassiopeia; and, with a just deference to your most convincing reasons, I shall with great cheerfulness banish it as a bad and unsupported conjecture." (Illustrations, II. 478).
THE JULIUS CJESAE. 51
And afterwards (iv. 7) we have Lord Say, in somewhat similar circumstances, thus appealing to Cade and his mob of men of Kent : —
" Hear me but speak, and bear me where you will. Kent, in the Commentaries Caesar writ, Is termed the civilest place of all this isle ; Sweet is the country, because full of riches ; The people liberal, valiant, active, worthy ; Which makes me hope you are not void of pity."
" 0 traitors ! murderers ! " Queen Margaret in the Third Part (v. 5) shrieks out in her agony and rage when the Prince her son is butchered before her eyes ; —
"They that stabbed Csesar shed no blood at all, Did not offend, nor were not worthy blame, If this foul deed were by to sequel it : He was a man ; this, in respect, a child ; And men ne'er spend their fury on a child."
In King Richard the Third (Hi. 1) is a passage of great pregnancy. "Did Julius Caesar build that place, my lord ? " the young Prince asks Buckingham when it is proposed that he shall retire for a day or two to the Tower before his coronation. And, when informed in reply that the mighty Eoman at least began the building, " Is it," he further inquires,
" upon record, or else reported Successively from age to age, he built it ? "
" It is upon record, my gracious lord," answers Bucking ham. On which the wise royal boy rejoins, —
" But say, my lord, it were not registered, Methinks the truth should live from age to age, As 'twere retailed to all posterity, Even to the general all-ending day."
And then, after a " What say you, uncle ? ", he explains the great thought that was working in his mind in these striking words : —
E 2
52 PBOLEGOMEtfA.
" That Julius Caesar was a famous man : "With what his valour did enrich his wit His wit set down to make his valour live. Death makes no conquest of this conqueror,* For now he lives'in fame, though not in life."
Par away from anything Roman as the fable and locality of Samlet are, various passages testify how much Caesar was in the mind of Shakespeare while writing that Play. First, we have the famous passage (i. 1) so closely re sembling one in the Second Scene of the Second Act of Julius Caesar: —
" In the most high and palmy state of Eome, A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets ; As f stars with trains of fire, and dews of blood, Disasters in the sun ; and the moist star, Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands, "Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse." J
Then there is (iii. 2) the conversation between Hamlet and Polonius, touching the histrionic exploits of the latter in his university days: — "I did enact Julius Caesar: I was killed i' the Capitol ; Brutus killed me." " It was a, brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there " (surely, by the bye, to be spoken aside, though not so marked). — Lastly, there is the Prince's rhyming moralization (y. 1) : —
" Imperial Caesar, dead and turned to clay, Might stop a hole to keep the wind away. 0, that that earth which kept the world in awe Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw ! "
* " His conqueror " is the reading of all the Folios. " This " was restored by Theobald from the Quarto of 1597, and has been adopted by Malone and most modern editors.
f Something is evidently wrong here ; but even Mr Collier's anno- tator gives us no help.
J This passage, however, is found only in the Quartos, and is omitted in all the Folios. Nor, although retained by Mr Collier in his " re gulated" text, is it stated to be restored by his MS. annotator.
THE JTJLITJS C.ESAB. 53
Many notices of Caesar occur, as might be expected, in Cymbeline. Such are the boast of Posthumus to his friend Philario (ii. 4) of the valour of the Britons : —
" Our countrymen
Are men more ordered than when Julius Ctesar Smiled at their lack of skill, but found their courage "Worthy his frowning at ; "
Various passages in the First Scene of the Third Act : —
"When Julius Csesar (whose remembrance yet Lives in men's eyes, and will to ears and tongues Be theme and hearing ever) was in this Britain, And conquered it, Cassibelan, thine uncle (Famous in Caesar's praises no whit less Than in his feats deserving it)," etc. ;
" There be many Caesars, Ere such another Julius ; "
" A kind of conquest
Csesar made here ; but made not here his brag Of came, and saio, and overcame : with shame (The first that ever touched him) he was carried From off our coast twice beaten ; and his shipping (Poor ignorant baubles !) on our terrible seas, Like egg-shells moved upon their surges, cracked As easily 'gainst our rocks. For joy whereof The famed Cassibelan, who was once at point (0 giglot Fortune !) to master Caesar's sword, Made Lud's town with rejoicing fires bright, And Britons strut with courage ; "
" Our kingdom is stronger than it was at that time; and, as I said, there is no more such Caesars ; other of them may have crooked noses ; but to owe such straight arms, none ; "
" Caesar's ambition
(Which swelled so much that it did almost stretch The sides o' the world) against all colour, here, Did put the yoke upon us ; which to shake off Becomes a warlike people, whom we reckon Ourselves to be."
Lastly, we have a few references in Antony and Cleo patra ; such as : —
54 PEOLEGOMENA.
" Broad-fronted Caesar, When thou -wast here above the ground, I was A morsel for a monarch " (i. 4) ;
" Julius Caesar, Who at Philippi the good Brutus ghosted " (»». 6) ;
" What was it
That moved pale Cassius to conspire ? And what Made the all-honoured, honest, Roman Brutus, With the armed rest, courtiers of beauteous freedom, To drench the Capitol, but that they would Have one man but a man ? " (i». 6) ;
" Your fine Egyptian cookery
Shall have the fame. I have heard that Julius Csesar Grew fat with feasting there " (»». 6) ;
" When Antony found Julius Caesar dead, He cried almost to roaring ; and he wept When at Philippi he found Brutus slain " (m. 2) ;
Thyreus. — " Give me grace to lay My duty on your hand.
Cleopatra. — " Your Caesar's father oft, When he hath mused of taking kingdoms in, Bestowed his lips on that unworthy place As it rained kisses " (in. 11).
These passages taken all together, and some of them more particularly, will probably be thought to afford a considerably more comprehensive representation of " the mighty Julius" than the Play which bears his name. We cannot be sure that that Play was so entitled by Shakespeare. " The Tragedy of Julius C«sar," or " The Life and Death of Julius Caesar," would describe no more than the half of it. Caesar's part in it terminates with the opening of the Third Act ; after that, on to the end, we have nothing more of him but his dead body, his ghost, and his memory. The Play might more fitly be called after Brutus than after Caesar. And still more remark able is the partial delineation that we have of the man.
THE JULIUS C^ESAE. 55
"We have a distinct exhibition of little else beyond his vanity and arrogance, relieved and set off by his good nature or affability. He is brought before us only as " the spoilt child of victory." All the grandeur and pre dominance of his character is kept in the background or in the shade — to be inferred, at most, from what is said by the other dramatis personce — by Cassius on the one hand and by Antony on the other in the expression of their own diametrically opposite natures and aims, and in a very few words by the calmer, milder, and juster Brutus — nowhere manifested by himself. It might almost 'be suspected that the complete and full-length Caesar had been carefully reserved for another drama. Even Antony is only half delineated here, to be brought for ward again on another scene : Caesar needed such repro duction much more, and was as well entitled to a stage which he should tread without an equal. He is only a subordinate 'character in the present Play ; his death is but an incident in the progress of the .plot. The first figures, standing conspicuously out from all the rest, are Brutus and Cassius.
Some of the passages that have been collected are fur ther curious and interesting as being other renderings of conceptions that are also found in the present Play, and as consequently furnishing data both for the problem of the chronological arrangement of the Plays and for the general history of the mind and artistic genius of the writer. After all the commentatorship and criticism of which the works of Shakespeare have been the subject, they still remain to be studied in their totality with a special reference to himself. The man Shakespeare as read in his works — Shakespeare as there revealed, not only in his genius and intellectual powers, but in his character, disposition, temper, opinions, tastes, prejudices, — is a book yet to be written.
56 PBOLEGOMENA.
It is remarkable that not only in the present Play, but also in Hamlet, and in Antony and Cleopatra, the assassin ation of Caesar should be represented as having taken place in the Capitol. From the Prologue, quoted above, to Beaumont and Fletcher's tragedy of The False One, too, it would appear as if this had become the established popular belief; but the notion may very probably be older than Shakespeare.
Another deviation from the literalities of history which we find in the Play, is the making the Triumvirs in the opening scene of the Fourth Act hold their meeting in Borne. But this may have been done deliberately, and neither from ignorance nor forgetfulness.
I have had no hesitation in discarding, with all the modern editors, such absurd perversions as Antonio, Fla- vio, Lucio, which never can have proceeded from Shake speare, wherever they occur in the old copies; and in adopting Theobald's rectification of Murellus (for Marul- lus), which also cannot be supposed to be anything else than a mistake made in the printing or transcription. But it seems hardly worth while to change our familiar Portia into Porcia (although Johnson, without being followed, has adopted that perhaps more correct spelling in his edition).
The peculiarity of the form given to the name of Caesar's wife in this Play does not seem to have been no ticed. The only form of the name known to antiquity is Calpurnia. And that is also the name even in North's English translation of Plutarch, Shakespeare's great au thority.* The Calphurnia of all the old copies of the Play, adopted by all the modern editors, may be nothing better than an invention of the printers. I have not, how-
* Mr Senior, in his late reprint of Bacon's Essays, at p. 99, gives the name Calfumia; but that form is not to be found, I apprehend, in any of the old copies.
THE JULIUS CLESAK. 57
ever, ventured to rectify it, in the possibility that, al though a corrupt form, it may be one which Shakespeare found established in the language and in possession of the public ear. In that case, it will be to be classed with Anthony, Protheus, and Bosphorus, the common modern corruption of the classic Bosporus, which even Gibbon does not hesitate to use.
The name of the person called Decius Brutus through out the play was Decimus Brutus. Decius is not, like Decimus, a praenomen, but a gentilitial name. The error, however, is as old as the edition of Plutarch's Greek text produced by Henry Stephens in 1572 ; * and it occurs likewise in the accompanying Latin translation, and both in Amyot's and Dacier's French, as well as in North's Eng lish. It is also found in Philemon Holland's translation of Suetonius, published in 1606. Lord Stirling in his Julius Ccesar, probably misled in like manner by North, has fallen into the same mistake with Shakespeare. That Decius is no error of the press is shown by its occurrence sometimes in the verse in places where Decimus could not stand.
Finally, it may be noticed that it was really this Deci mus Brutus who had been the special friend and favourite of Caesar, not Marcus Junius Brutus the conspirator, as represented in the Play. In his misconception upon this point our English dramatist has been followed by Voltaire in his tragedy of La Mort de Cesar, which is written avowedly in imitation of the Julius Caesar of Shakespeare.
The wholly new readings in the Play of Julius Caesar which Mr Collier appears to have obtained from his manuscript annotator are the following, twenty-three in number : —
* 'Ev St roury Amoe ~Bpovro£ tTT(K\t]mv 'A\f3lvog. Vit. Cces. p. 1354.
58
PBOLEGOMENA.
ACT I.
102. He was quick mettled when he went to school. But this, although given in the Regulated Text of the Plays, is not noticed either in the Notes and Emendations or in the List.
109. These are their seasons, — they are natural. ACT II.
187. And after seem to chide 'em. This shall mark. 202. Enjoy the heavy honey-dew of slumber.
ACT III.
285. That touches usf Ourself shall be last served. 303. Casca. Are we all ready? — Cces. What is now amiss, &c
But this is not noticed in the List .
305. These crouchings, and these lowly courtesies. — r- Low-crouched courtesies, and base spaniel fawning. 346. Our arms in strength of welcome, and our hearts. 363. A curse shall light upon the loins of men. 461. And things unlikely charge my fantasy.
ACT IV. 496. And graze on commons.
541. I shall be glad to learn of abler men.
542. I said, an older soldier, not a better.
But this is only given in the Regulated Text.
559. A flatterer's would not, though they did appear. 620. Come on refreshed, new-hearted, and encouraged.
ACT V.
687. The posture of your blows is yet unknown. 690. While damned Casca, like a cur, behind.
But this is only given in the Regulated Text.
692. Have added slaughter to the word of traitor.
704. Coming from Sardis, on ourforicard ensign.
709. To stay the providence of those high powers.
711. Must end that work the ides of March began.
But this is only given in the Regulated Text.
794. He only, in a generous honest thought
Of common good to all, made one of them.
THE JULIUS C^ESAE. 59
And the emendations in the MS. also include the fol lowing eleven readings which had been conjecturally pro posed before its discovery : —
ACT I.
56. That her wide walls encompassed but one man.
57. Tinder such hard conditions as this time. 130. In favour's like the work we have in hand.
ACT II.
238. We are two lions, littered in one day. 246. Of evils imminent ; and on her knee.
ACT III.
305. Into the law of children. Be not fond. 349. Signed in thy spoil, and crimsoned in thy death. 358. Have all due rites, and lawful ceremonies. 459. I heard them say, Brutus and Cassius.
ACT IV.
530. Brutus, bay not me.
ACT V. 709. The term of life ; arming myself with patience.
Finally, the reading of the First Folio, which had been altered in the Second, is restored by the -MS. annotator in the following ten instances : —
ACT I.
50. That I profess myself in banqueting. 54. But for my single self. 89. But there's no heed to be taken of them
ACT II.
160. Buried in their cloaks. 199. Caius Ligarius doth bear Csesar hard. 233. The noise of battle hurtled in the air.
ACT IV.
529. I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon. 634. Poor knave, I blame thee not.
ACT V.
758. And bring us word unto Octavius' tent. 779. My heart doth joy, that yet, in all my life*
60 PEOLEaOMENA.
Of these forty four corrections, thirty two* are adopted in the present text ; and, of the remaining twelve, only one or two can be regarded, I think, as clearly wrong.
I have not thought it necessary to distinguish the cases in which the verbal affix -ed is to be united in the pro nunciation with the preceding syllable by the usual sub stitution of the apostrophe in place of the silent vowel. Why should the word loved, for example, so sounded be represented differently in verse from what it always is in prose ? It is true that the cases in which the -ed makes a separate syllable are more numerous in Shakespeare than in the poetry of the present day; but the reader who cannot detect such a case on the instant is disqualified by some natural deficiency for the reading of verse. If any distinction were necessary, the better plan would be to represent the one form by " loved," the other by " lov-ed."
I have not thought it necessary in the present revision to make the numerous typographical rectifications which would have been required in the margin of every page, and also in many of the references, to remove the traces of an unimportant error of one in the numbering of the speeches from 249 (on p. 180), which ought to be 248, onwards to the end of the play.— 1863.
PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY
SHAKESPEARE'S JULIUS C^SAR.
PERSONS REPRESENTED.
JULIUS CJESAR.
OCTAVIUS C^SAR, \ Triumvirs, after MARCUS ANTONIUS, > the death of Julius M. 2EMIL. LEPIDUS, ) Ceesar. CICERO, PUBLIUS, POPILIUS LENA ;
Senators.
MARCUS BRUTUS, CASSIUS, CASCA, TREBONIUS, LIGARIUS, DECIUS BRUTUS, METELLUS CIMBER, CINNA,
FLAVIUS and MARULLUS, Tribunes. ARTEMIDORUS, a Sophist of Cnidos.
Conspirators against Julius Ccesar.
A SOOTHSAYER.
CINNA, a Poet.— Another POET.
LUCILIUS, TITINIUS, MESS ALA, Young
CATO, and VOLUMNIUS ; Friends to
Brutus and Cassius. VARRO, CLITUS, CLAUDIUS, STRATO.
LUCIUS, DARDANIUS; Servants to
Brutus. PINDARUS, Servant to Casiius.
CALPHURNIA, Wife to Ccesar. PORTIA, Wife to Brutus.
SENATORS, CITIZENS, GUARDS, ATTEND ANTS, ETC.
SCENE, during a great part of the Play, at Rome ; afterwards at Sardis ; and near Philippi.
ACT I.
SCENE I.— Rome. A Street. Enter FLAVIUS, MARULLUS, and a Rabble of CITIZENS.
1. Flav. Hence ; home, you idle creatures, get you home; Is this a holiday ? What ! know you not, Being mechanical, you ought not walk, Upon a labouring day, without the sign Of your profession ? — Speak, what trade art thou ?
02 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTAET. [ACT I.
1 Cit. Why, Sir, a carpenter. , Mar. Where is thy leather apron, and thy rule ?
What dost thou with thy best apparel on ? — You, Sir ; what trade are you ?
2 Cit. Truly, Sir, in respect of a fine workman, I am but, as you would say, a cobbler.
Mar. But what trade art thou ? Answer me directly.
6. 2 Cit. A trade, Sir, that, I hope, I may use with a safe con science ; which is, indeed, Sir, a mender of bad soles.
7. Mar. What trade, thou knave ? thou naughty knave, what trade ?
8. 2 Cit. Nay, I beseech you, Sir, be not out with me : yet if you be out, Sir, I can mend you.
9. Mar. What mean'st thou by that ? Mend me, thou saucy fellow ? 2 Cit. Why, Sir, cobble you.
Flav. Thou art a cobbler, art thou ?
12. 2 Cit. Truly, Sir, all that I live by is, with the awl : I meddle with no tradesman's matters, nor women's matters, but with awl. I am, indeed, Sir, a surgeon to old shoes ; when they are in great danger, I recover them. As proper men as ever trod upon neat's leather have gone upon my handiwork.
Flav. But wherefore art not in thy shop to-day ? Why dost thou lead these men about the streets ?
2 Cit. Truly, Sir, to wear out their shoes, to get myself into more work. But, indeed, Sir, we make holiday to see Caesar, and to re joice in his triumph.
15. Mar. Wherefore rejoice ? What conquest brings he home ? What tributaries follow him to Rome, To grace in captive bonds his chariot wheels ? You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things ! 0, you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome, Knew you not Pompey ? Many a time and oft Have you climbed up to walls and battlements, To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops, Your infants in your arms, and there have sat The live-long day, with patient expectation, To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome : And, when you saw his chariot but appear, Have you not made an universal shout, That Tiber trembled underneath her banks, To hear the replication of your sounds Made in her concave shores ? And do you now put on your best attire ? And do you now cull out a holiday ?
SC. 1.] JTJLITJS C^ESAK. G3
And do you now strew flowers in his way, That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood? Be gone !
Eun to your houses, fall upon your knees, Pray to the gods to intermit the plague That needs must light on this ingratitude.
16. Flav. Go, go, good countrymen, and, for this fault, Assemble all the poor men of your sort ;
Draw them to Tiber banks, and weep your tears
Into the channel, till the lowest stream
Do kiss the most exalted shores of all. [Exeunt CITIZENS.
See, whe'r their basest metal be not moved !
They vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness.
Go you down that way towards the Capitol ;
This way will I : Disrobe the images,
If you do find them deckt with ceremonies.
17. Mar. May we do so ?
You know, it is the feast of Lupercal.
18. Flav. It is no matter ; let no images
Be hung with Caesar's trophies. I'll about,
And drive away the vulgar from the streets ;
So do you too, where you perceive them thick.
These growing feathers pluckt from Caesar's wing,
Will make him fly an ordinary pitch ;
Who else would soar above the view of men,
And keep us all in servile fearfulness. [Exeunt
Act I. Scene /., etc. — The heading here in the original text is: — " Actus Primus. Scoena Prima. Enter Ma- vius, JHurellus, and certaine Commoners over the Stage." Murellus stands throughout not only in all the Folios, but also in the editions of both Rowe and Pope. The right name was first inserted by Theobald.
This opening scene may be compared with the first part of that of Coriolanus, to which it bears a strong general resemblance.
1. You ought not walk. — The history and explanation of this now disused construction may be best collected from a valuable paper by Dr Guest " On English Verbs, Substantive and Auxiliary," read before the Philological Society, 13th March, 1846, and printed in their Proceed-
64 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTABY. [ACT I.
ings, II. 223. " Originally," says Dr Guest, " the to was prefixed to the gerund, but never to the present infinitive ; as, however, the custom gradually prevailed of using the latter in place of the former, the to was more and more frequently prefixed to the infinitive, till it came to be considered as an almost necessary appendage of it. Many idioms, however, had sunk too deeply into the language to admit of alteration ; and other phrases, to which the popular ear had been familiarized, long resisted the in trusive particle." The ancient syntax is still retained in all cases with the auxiliary verbs, as they are called, shall, will, can, may, do, and also with must and let, and oftener than not with bid, dare, hear, make, see, and perhaps some others. Vid. 634. Cause is frequently so used ; and so is help, sometimes, — as in Milton's Sonnet to his friend Lawrence : —
" Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire Help waste a sullen day r "
But, even since the language may be said to have en tered upon the stage of its existence in which it still is, several of the verbs just enumerated as not admitting the to are occasionally found following the common example and taking it ; and others, again, which at the present day have completely conformed to the ordinary construction, formerly used now and then to dispense with it. One of Dr Gruest's quotations exemplifies both these archaisms ; it is from the portion of The Mirror for Magistrates con tributed by John Higgins in 1574 (King Albanact, 16) : —
" And, though we owe the fall of Troy requite, Yet let revenge thereof from gods to light."
That is, " Though we ought to requite, ... yet let re venge light," as we should now say. Here we have let with the to, and owe (of which ought or owed is the pre terite), as in Shakespeare's expression before us, without it. Others of Dr Guest's citations from the same writer
SO. 1.] JULIUS OESAB. 65
exhibit the auxiliaries may, will, can with the to. And he also produces from Spenser (F. Q., iv. 7. 32), — "Whom when on ground she grovelling saw to roll ; " and from Shakespeare (Othello, iv. 2) —
" I durst, my Lord, to wager she is honest." Other verbs that are found in Shakespeare sometimes construed in the same manner are endure, forbid, intend^ vouchsafe; as,
" The treason that my haste forbids me show."
Rich. II., v. 3. " How long within this wood intend you stay ?"
Mid. N. Dr., ii. 1. "Your betters have endured me say my mind."
Tarn, of Shrew, iv. 3. " Most mighty Duke, vouchsafe me speak a word."
Com. of Er. v. 1 .
The verb to owe, it may further be observed, is etymo- logically the same with own. Shakespeare repeatedly has owe where own would be now employed ; as in lago's diabolical self-gratulation (in OfJiello, Hi. 3) : —
" Not poppy, nor mandragora, Nor all the drowsy syrops of the world, Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep "Which thou owed'st yesterday."
The original English word is dgan, — the ag, or radical part, of which is evidently the same with the *x °f tne Greek &\eiv, signifying to hold, to possess, to have for one's pro perty, or what we call one's own. If we suppose the a to have been pronounced broad, as in our modern all, and the g to have come to be softened as g final usually is in modern German, ag and owe, unlike as they are to the eye, will be only different ways of spelling, or represent ing by letters, almost the same vocal utterance. The sound which the vowel originally had is more nearly pre served in the Scotch form of the word, awe. The n which we have in the form own is either merely the common an-
66 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTABT. [ACT I.
nexation which the vowel sound is apt to seek as a sup port or rest for itself, or, probably, in this case it may be the en of the ancient past participle (dgen) or the an of the infinitive (agari). So we have both to awake and to awaken, to ope and to open. In so short a word as the one under consideration, and one in such active service, these affixes would be the more liable to get confounded with the root. It may sound odd to speak of a man as owning what he owes ; yet, if we will think of it, there are few things that can rightly be said to be more a man's own than his debts ; they are emphatically proper to him, or his property, clinging to him, as they do, like a part of himself. Again, that which a man owns in this sense, or owes, is that which it is proper for him, or which he has, to perform or to discharge (as the case may be) ; hence the secondary meaning of ought as applied to that which is one's duty, or which is fitting. For another explan ation of these forms, however, the reader is referred to the Second Edition of Dr Latham's Handbook of the English Language (1855), pp. 304 and 309. Dr Latham distinguishes the own in such expressions as " He owned his fault" by the name of the Own concedentis (of con cession or acknowledgment). But may not this sense be explained as equivalent to I make my own, I take as my own ?
1. Upon a labouring day. — Labouring is here a sub stantive, not a participle. It is as when we say that we love labouring, or that labouring is conducive to health of mind as well as of body. It is not meant that the day labours ; as when we speak of a labouring man, or a la bouring ship, or a labouring line —
("When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, The line too labours, and the words move slow").
A labouring day is an expression of the same kind with a walking stick, or a riding coat ; in which it is not as serted that the stick walks, or that the coat rides ; but,
SO. 1.] JULIUS CAESAR. 67
two substantives being conjoined, the one characterizes or qualifies the other, — performs, in fact, the part of an adjective, — -just as happens in the expressions a gold ring, a silver tankard, a leather apron, a morning draught, the evening bells.
An expression used by Cowper (in his verses composed in the name of Alexander Selkirk), "the sound of the church-going bell," has been passionately reprobated by "Wordsworth. "The epithet church-going applied to a bell," observes the critic (in an Appendix upon the sub ject of Poetic Diction, first attached, I believe, in 1820 to the Preface originally published with the Second Edition of the Lyrical Ballads, 1800), " and that by so chaste a writer as Cowper, is an instance of the strange abuses which poets have introduced into their language, till they and their readers take them as matters of course, if they do not single them out expressly as mat ters of admiration." A church-going bell is merely a bell for church-going ; and the expression is constructed on the same principle with a thousand others that are and always have been in familiar use ; — such as a marauding or a sight-seeing expedition, a banking or a house-build ing speculation, a fox-hunting country, a lending library, a writing desk, a looking glass, a dining room, a dancing school, a dwelling house, a lying-in hospital, etc., etc. "What would Wordsworth have said to such a daring and extreme employment of the same form as we have in Shakespeare, where he makes Cleopatra (in Antony and Cleopatra, Hi. 11) say, speaking of the victorious Caesar, — " From his all-obeying breath I hear
The doom of Egypt ? "
But these audacities of language are of the very soul of poetry.
The peculiar class of substantives under consideration cannot, properly speaking, be regarded as even present participles in disguise. Their true history has been given F 2
63 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT I.
for the first time by Mr Bichard Taylor in his Additional Notes to Tooke's Diversions of Purley, 1829 and 1840 ; vid. edition of 1840, pp. xxxix.-liv. The old termination of the present participle in English was and or end; and when that part of the verb was used substantively it de noted the agent, or performer of the verbal act. Thus, Haelend signified the Healer, or Saviour ; Scyppend, the Shaper, or Creator. Ing or ung, on the other hand, was the regular termination of that description of verbal sub stantive which denoted the act. Thus Brennung was what in Latin would be called Combustio, and what in our modern English is still called the Burning. In other tongues of the same Gothic stock to which our own in part belongs both forms are still preserved. In German, for instance, we have, as anciently in English, end for the termination universally of the present participle, and ung for that of a numerous class of verbal substantives all signifying the act or thing done. It never could have been supposed that in that language these verbal sub stantives in ung were present participles.
But in English the fact is, as Mr Taylor has observed, that it is not the verbal substantive denoting the act which has assumed the form of the present participle, but the latter which has thrown away its own proper termi nation and adopted that of the former. This change appears to have commenced as early as the twelfth cen tury, and to have been completely established by the fourteenth. Even after the middle of the sixteenth cen tury, however, we have the old distinction between the two terminations (the end or and for the present participle, or the agent, and the ing for the verbal act) still adhered to by the Scottish writers.
The consequence of the two forms having thus become confounded is, as Dr Latham has remarked {English Language, 3rd edit. pp. 349, 350), that we now construct our verbal substantives in ing upon a false analogy. It
SC. 1.] JULIUS CJESAR. G9
has long been understood, or assumed, at least, that the present participle of any English verb may be used sub- stantively to express the verbal act or state.
1. What trade art thou? — The rationale of this mode of expression may be seen from the answer to the ques tion: — "Why, Sir, a carpenter." The trade and the person practising it are used indifferently the one for the other : " "What trade art thou ?" is equivalent to " What tradesman art thou?" So in 6 we have — " A trade . . . which is, indeed, a mender of bad soles." The thou, as here and in 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, was still common in the English of Shakespeare's age ; it was the ordinary form in address ing an inferior ; only when he was treated, or affected to be treated, as a gentleman, the mechanic received the more honourable compellation of you ; — as in 3, " You, Sir, what trade are you?" Thou, Sir, would have been incongruous in the circumstances.
6. Soles. — Quasi souls ; — an immemorial quibble, doubtless. It is found also (as Malone notes) in Fletcher's Woman Pleased. Yet we might seem to have a distinction of pronunciation between soul and sole in dicated in The Merchant of Venice, iv. 1, " Not on thy sole, but on thy soul, harsh Jew."
7. This speech in the old copies is given to Flavins ; and it is restored to him by Mr Knight, who observes that the modern editors "assume that only one [of the tribunes] should take the lead; whereas it is clear that the dialogue is more natural, certainly more dramatic, according to the original arrangement, where Flavins and Marullus alternately rate the people, like two smiths smiting on the same anvil." Eut this will not explain or account for the "mend me" of Marullus in 9. That proves beyond controversy that the preceding speech (8) was addressed to Marullus ; and it is equally clear that the you of speech 8 is the person to whom speech 7 be longs. The rating, besides, is as much alternate, or in-
70 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTABY. [ACT T.
termingled, in the one way as in the other : Mr Knight gives six speeches to Flavius and five to Manillas ; the common arrangement gives five to Elavius and six to Marullus. Mr Collier, however, also gives the present speech to Flavins.
The other changes which Mr Knight charges the modern editors with proposing unnecessarily in the allot ment of the speeches in this scene were all proposed, I believe, before the substitution of Marullus for Flavins in 7, which was made by Capell.
8. JBe not out with me; yet, if you le out. — The two senses of being out are obvious : " They are out with one another," or, simply, " They are out ;" and " He is out at the elbows," or in any other part of his dress. For another play upon the various senses of the word out see the dialogue between Rosalind and Orlando in As You Like It, iv. 1.
9. Mend me. — The answer shows that mend, not we, is the emphatic word.
12. But with awl. — Mr Knight and Mr Collier print " with all." This, apparently, would accord with Farmer's notion, who maintains that the true reading is " I meddle with no trade, man's matters," etc., understanding with awl, or with all, I suppose, to involve, as one of its mean ings, that of " with all trades." The original reading is, " but withal I am indeed, Sir, a surgeon," etc. And the Second Folio has "woman's matters."
12. As proper men. — A proper man is a man such as he should be. In The Tempest, ii. 2, we have the same expression that we have here distributed into two suc cessive speeches of the drunken Stephano : — " As proper a man as ever went on four legs ;" and " Any emperor that ever trod on neat's leather." But, in the prevailing tone of its inspiration at least, it is not with the present Play that one would compare The Tempest, but rather with The Winter's Tale.
SO. 1.] JULIUS OESAE. 71
15. Wherefore rejoice? etc. — This was in the begin ning of B. c. 44 (A. u. c. 709), when CsBsar, having re turned from Spain in the preceding October, after defeat ing the sons of Pompey at the Battle of Munda (fought 17th March, B. c. 45), had been appointed Consul for the next ten years and Dictator for life. The festival of the Lupercalia, at which he was offered and declined the crown, was celebrated 13th February, B. c. 44; and he was assassinated 15th March following, being then in his fifty-sixth year.
15. Many a time and oft. — This old phrase, which is still familiar, may be held to be equivalent to many and many a time, that is, many times and yet again many more times. The old pointing of this line is, " Knew you not Pompey many a time and oft?" It is like what all the Folios give us in Macbeth, i. 5 : —
"Your face, my thane, is as a book where men May read strange matters, to beguile the time."
"What follows, — "Have you climbed up," etc., — is, of course, made a second question.
15. To see great Pompey pass the streets of Some. — In modern English to pass a street, or a bridge, is to ab stain from walking along it. It would be satisfactory with respect to this line, if other instances could be produced of the usage of the language being different in Shakespeare's day.
15. That Tiler trembled underneath Tier lanks. — The proper antecedent of that (so, or in such wise) is left un expressed, as sufficiently obvious. — Some of the modern editors have taken the unwarrantable liberty of changing her into his in this line and the next but one, because Tiber is one of those names of rivers which are always masculine in Latin. This is to give us both language and a conception different from Shakespeare's.
15. Made in her concave shores. — An imperfect line (or
72 PHILOLOGICAL COililEXTAEY. [ACT I.
hemistich, as it is commonly called), but prosodically re gular so far as it goes, which is all we have a right to look for. The occasional use of such shortened lines would seem to be, at least in dramatic poetry, one of the proper and natural prerogatives of blank verse, according well, as it does, with the variety of pause and cadence which makes the distinctive charm of verse of that form. But, apparently, it need not be assumed, as is always done, that the fragment must necessarily be in all cases the beginning of a line. Why should not the poet be sup posed sometimes, when he begins a new sentence or paragraph in this manner, to intend that it should be connected, in the prosody as well as in the meaning, with what follows, not with what precedes ? A few lines lower down, for instance, the words " Be gone " might be either the first foot of the verse or the last.
16. Weep your tears. — We should scarcely now speak of weeping tears absolutely, though we might say "to weep tears of blood, or of agony, or of bitterness," or "to weep an ocean of tears, or our fill of tears." This sense of the verb weep is quite distinct from the sense it commonly has when used transitively, which is to weep for, or to lament; as when in Cynibeline (i. 5) lachimo speaks of " those that weep this lamentable divorce." It more resembles what we have in the phrases To sin the sin, To die the death, To sing a song ; — expressive forms, to which the genius of our tongue has never been very prone, and to which it is now decidedly averse. They owe their effect, in part, indeed, to a certain naturalness, or disregard of strict propriety, which a full-grown and edu cated language is apt to feel ashamed of as something rustic or childish. Perhaps, however, a distinction should be drawn between such an expression as To weep tears and such as To sin the sin, To sing a song, in which the verb is merely a synonyme for to act, to perform, to execute.
16. Till the lowest stream, etc. — The hot-tempered tri-
SC. 1.] JULIUS C2ESAE. 73
bune talks fast. It is evident that no augmentation of the water will ever make the lowest stream touch the highest shores. In the do kiss we have a common archaism, the retention of the auxiliary, now come to be regarded, when it is not emphatic, as a pleonasm enfeebling the ex pression, and consequently denied alike to the writer of prose and to the writer of verse. It is thus in even a worse predicament than the separate pronunciation of the final ed in the preterite indicative or past participle pas sive. It was only the first fervour of an acquaintance with and admiration of our old literature that could have led Keats to mar the fine poetry of many of his pieces by a recurrence to these extinct forms. But in the age of Shakespeare they were both, though begin ning to be abandoned, still part and parcel of the living language, and there is therefore no affectation in his fre quent use of them. Instances both of the unemphatic do and of the distinct syllabication of the final ed are numer ous in the present Play. The modern forms probably were as yet completely established only in the spoken language, which commonly goes before that which is written and read in such economical innovations. — For the modern stage direction 'JExeunt Citizens, the original text has here Exeunt all the Commoners.
16. See wJie'r their basest metal. — Whe'r is .whether. The contraction is common both in Shakespeare and in other writers of his age. Thus we have in his 59th Bonnet : —
" Whether we are mended, or whe'r better they, Or whether revolution be the same."
The er may be supposed to have been pronounced as the er is in Tier. In the old copies the word, when thus con tracted, is usually printed exactly as the adverb of place always is, where. But if it were to be here spelled whether at full length, and pronounced aa a dissyllable, we should
74 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT I.
have no more of prosodical irregularity than we have in many other lines. And it is occasionally in similar cir cumstances so presented in the old copies.
16. Deckt with ceremonies. — To deck (the same with the Latin teg-ere and the German deck-en) signifies pro perly no more than to cover. Hence the deck of a ship. Thatch (the G-erman Dach) is another formation from the same root. To deck, therefore, has no connexion with to decorate, which is of the same stock with decent (from the Latin decus, or decor, and decet). The supposition that there was a connexion, however, has probably helped to acquire for deck its common acceptation, which now always involves the notion of decoration or adornment. And that was also its established sense when Shakespeare wrote. By ceremonies must here be meant what are after wards in 18 called " Caesar's trophies," and are described in 95 as " scarfs " which were hung on Caesar's images. No other instance of this use of the word, however, is produced by the commentators ; nor is such a sense of it given either by Johnson (though himself an editor of Shakespeare) or by Webster. The Latin ceremonia is of unknown or disputed origin, but its only meaning is a religious rite. In our common English the meaning of ceremony has been extended so as to include also forms of civility and outward forms of state. "We have it in that sense in 27. And we shall find lower down that Shake speare uses it in still another sense, which is peculiar to himself, or which has now at least gone out. Vid. 194.
17. The feast of Lupercal.— The Eoman festival of the Lupercalia (-ium or -iorum), whatever may be the ety mology of the name, was in honour of the god Pan. It was celebrated annually on the Ides (or 13th) of Febru ary, in a place called the Lupercal, at the foot of Mount Aventine. A third company of Luperci, or priests of Pan, with Antony for its chief, was instituted in honour of Julius Caesar.
SC. 2.] JULIUS (LESAR. 75
18. It is no matter, etc. — The Second Folio goes, or stumbles, on —
" let on Images Be hung with the Ccesars Trophees."
Mr Collier does not state that this is corrected by his MS. annotator.
18. Will make Mm fly. — A modern sentence constructed in this fashion would constitute the him the antecedent to the who, and give it the meaning of the person gener ally who (in this instance) else would soar, etc., or who ever would. But it will be more accordant with the style of Shakespeare's day to leave the him unemphatic, and to regard Ccesar as being the antecedent to who. It was not then so unusual, or accounted so inelegant, as it would now be, in our more precise and straitened syntax, thus to separate the relative from its true antecedent by the interposition of another false or apparent one, or to tack on the relative clause to the completed statement as if it had been an afterthought. Thus, again in the present Play, we have, in 704, —
" Coming from Sardis, on our former ensign Two mighty eagles fell, and there they perched, Gorging and feeding from our soldiers' hands ; "Who to Philippi here consorted us ;
and in 716, —
" 0 Cassius, Brutus gave the word too early ; "Who, having some advantage on Octavius, Took it too eagerly."
SCENE II.— The same. A Public Place.
Enter, in Procession with Music, C^SAK ; ANTONY, for the course ; CALPHTJRNIA, PORTIA, DECIUS, CICERO, BRUTUS, CASSIUS, and CASCA, a great crowd following, among them a SOOTHSAYER.
Cces. Calphurnia,—
Casca. Peace, ho ! Csesar speaks. [Music ceases.
Cces. Calphurnia, — •
Cal. Here, my lord.
76 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENT ABF. [ACT I.
23. Cces. Stand you directly in Antonius' way, "When he doth run his course. — Antonius.
Ant. Caesar, my lord.
25. Cces. Forget not, in your speed, Antonius, To touch Calphurnia ; for our elders say, The barren, touched in this holy chase, Shake off their sterile curse.
Ant. I shall remember : When Coesar says, Do this, it is performed.
Cces. Set on ; and leave no ceremony out. [Music.
Sooth. Caesar. Co*. Ha ! who calls ?
Casca. Bid every noise be still : — Peace yet again. [Music ceases. Cces. Who is it in the press that calls on me ? I hear a tongue, shriller than all the music, Cry, Caesar. Speak ; Caesar is turned to hear. 32. Sooth. Beware the ides of March.
Cces. What man is that ?
34. Bru. A soothsayer, bids you beware the ides of March. Cces. Set him before me ; let me see his face. Cas. Fellow, come from the throng : Look upon Caesar. Cces. What say'st thou to me now ? Speak once again. Sooth. Beware the ides of March. 39. Cces. He is a dreamer : let us- leave him ; — pass.
[Sennet. Exeunt all but BRUTUS and CASSIUS. Cas. Will you go see the order of the course ? Bru. Not I. Cas. 1 pray you do.
Bru. I am not gamesome : I do lack some part Of that quick spirit that is in Antony. Let me not hinder, Cassius, your desires ; I'll leave you.
44. 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 Over your friend that loves you.
45. Bru. Cassius,
Be not deceived : if I have veiled my look, I turn the trouble of my countenance Merely upon myself. Vexed I am, Of late, with passions of some difference, Conceptions only proper to myself,
SO. 2.] JULIUS C^SAE. 77
"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, Than that poor Brutus, with himself at war, Forgets the shews of love to other men.
46. Cas. 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 ?
47. Bru. No, Cassius : for the eye sees not itself, But by reflection, by some other things.
48. Cas. 'Tisjust:
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 respect in Some (Except immortal Caesar), speaking of Brutus, And groaning underneath this age's yoke, Have wished 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 !
50. Cas. Therefore, good Brutus, be prepared to hear : And, since you know you cannot see yourself
So well as by reflection, T, your glass,
Will modestly discover to yourself
That of yourself which you yet know not of.
And be not jealous on me, gentle Brutus :
Were I a common laugher, 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,
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.
51. Bru. What means this shouting ? I do fear, the people Choose Caesar for their king.
Cas. Ay, do you fear it ? Then must I think you would not have it so. 53. Bru. I would not, Cassius ; yet I love him well. — But wherefore do you hold me here so long ?
78 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTABY. [ACT I.
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, And I will look on hoth indifferently : For, let the gods so speed me, as I love The name of Honour more than I fear Death. 54. Cas. I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus, As well as I do know your outward favour. 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 lief not be as live to be In awe of such a thing as I myself. I was born free as Ceesar ; 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, The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores, Caesar said to me, Dar'st thou, Cassius, now Leap in with me into this angry flood, A nd swim to yonder point f Upon the word, Accoutred as I was, I plunged in, And bade him follow : so, indeed, he did. The torrent roared ; and we did buffet it With lusty sinews ; throwing it aside, And stemming it with hearts of controversy. But ere we could arrive the point proposed, Caesar cried, Help me, Cassiiis, or I sink. I, as .35neas, our great ancestor, Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder The old Anchises bear, so, from the waves of Tiber Did I the tired Caesar : And this man Is now become a god ; and Cassius is A wretched creature, and must bend his body If Ceesar 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 ; And that same eye, whose bend doth awe the world. 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,
sc. 2.] JULIUS C^SAE. 79
Alas ! it cried, Give me some drink, Titinius,
As a sick girl. Ye gods, it doth amaze me,
A man of such a feeble temper should
So get the start of the majestic world,
And bear the palm alone. [Shout. Flourish.
55. Bru. Another general shout !
I do believe, that these applauses are
For some new honours that are heaped on Caesar.
56. Cas. Why, man, he doth bestride 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.
Brutus and Csesar : What should be in that Caesar ?
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 ;
Weigh them, it is as heavy ; conjure with 'em,
Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Csesar. [Shout.
Now, in the names of all the gods at once,
Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed,
That he is grown so great ? Age, thou art shamed :
Eome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods !
When went there by an age, since the great flood,
But it was famed with more than with one man ?
When could they say, till now, that talked of Eome,
That her wide walls encompassed but one man ?
Now is it Rome indeed, and room enough,
When there is in it but one only man.
0 ! you and I have heard our fathers say,
There was a Brutus once, that would have brooked
The eternal devil to keep his state in Eome
As easily as a king.
57. Bru. That you do love me, I am nothing jealous • What you would work me to, I have some aim ; 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 moved. What you have said, I will consider ; what you have to say, I will with patience hear : and find a time
80 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENT ABY. [ACT I.
Both meet to hear, and answer, such high things. Till then, my noble Mend, chew upon this : Brutus had rather be a villager, Than to repute himself a son of Rome Under these hard conditions as this time Is like to lay upon us. 58. Cas. I am glad, that my weak words Have struck but this much shew of fire from Brutus.
Re-enter C-SSAjt, and his Train. Bru. The games are done and Caesar is returning.
60. Cas. As they pass by, pluck Casca by the sleeve ; And he will, after his sour fashion, tell you What hath proceeded, worthy note, to-day.
61. Bru. I will do so: — But, look you, Cassius, The angry spot doth glow on Caesar's brow, And all the rest look like a chidden train : Calphurnia's cheek is pale ; and Cicero Looks with such ferret and such fiery eyes, As we have seen him in the Capitol,
Being crossed in conference by some senators.
62. Cas. Casca will tell us what the matter is. Cces. Antonius.
Ant. Caesar.
35. Cces. Let me have men about me that are fat ; Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights : Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look ; He thinks too much : such men are dangerous.
66. Ant. Fear him not, Caesar ; he's not dangerous. He is noble Roman, and well given.
67. Cces. Would he were fatter.— But I fear him not. Yet, if my name were liable to fear,
I do not know the man I should avoid So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much ; He is a great observer, and he looks Qiiite through the deeds of men : he loves no plays, As thou dost, Antony ; he hears no music : Seldom he smiles ; and smiles in such a sort, As if he mocked himself, and scorned his spirit That could be moved to smile at any thing. Such men as he be never at heart's ease, Whiles they behold a greater than themselves ; And therefore are they very dangerous. I rather tell thee what is to be feared
SC. 2.] ' JULIUS C^SAE. 81
Than what I fear ; for always I am Caesar. Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf, And tell me truly what thou think' st of him.
[Sennet. Exeunt CJSSAE, and his Train. CASCA stays behind.
Casca. You pulled me by the cloak ; "Would you speak with me ? 69. Bru. Ay, Casca ; tell us what hath chanced to-day, That Caesar looks so sad.
Casca. Why, you were with him, were you not ?
Bru. I should not then ask Casca what had chanced.
Casca. Why, there was a crown offered him : and, heing offered him, he put it by with the back of his hand, thus ; and then the people fell a-shouting.
Bru. What was the second noise for ?
Casca. Why, for that too.
Cas. They shouted thrice ; What was the last cry for ? - Casca. Why, for that too.
Bru. Was the crown offered him thrice ?
78. Casca. Ay, marry, was't, and he put it by thrice, every time gentler than other; and, at every putting by, mine honest neighbours shouted.
Cas. Who offered him the crown ?
Casca. Why, Antony.
Bru. Tell us the manner of it, gentle Casca.
82. Casca. I can as well be hanged, as tell the manner of it : it was mere foolery. I did not mark it. I saw Mark Antony offer him a crown; — yet 'twas not a crown neither, 'twas one of these coronets; — and, as I told you, he put it by once ; but, for all that, to my thinking, he would fain have had it. Then he offered it to him again ; then he put it by again ; but, to my thinking, he was very loath to lay his fingers off it. And then he offered it the third time ; he put it the third time by : and, still as he refused it, the rabblement shouted, and clapped their chopped hands, and threw up their sweaty night-caps, and uttered such a deal of stinking breath because Caesar refused the crown, that it had almost choked Caesar ; for he swooned, and fell down at it. And, for my own part, I durst not laugh, for fear of opening my lips, and receiving the bad air.
83. Cas. But, soft, I pray you : What ? did Caesar swoon ?
Casca. He fell down in the market-place, and foamed at mouth, and was speechless.
85. Bru. 'Tis very like : he hath the falling sickness.
86. Cas. No, Caesar hath it not ; but you and I, And honest Casca, we have the falling sickness.
87. Casca. I know not what you mean by that ; but I am sure Caesar
82 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT I.
fell down. If the tag-rag people did not clap him, and hiss him, according as he pleased and displeased them, as they use to do the players in the theatre, I am no true man.
Bru. "What said he, when he came unto himself? 89. Casca. Marry, before he fell down, when he perceived the com mon herd was glad he refused the crown, he plucked me ope his doublet, and offered them his throat to cut. — An I had been a man of any occupation, if I would not have taken him at a word, I would I might go to hell among the rogues. And so he fell. When he came to himself again, he said, If he had done, or said, anything amiss, he desired their worships to think it was his infirmity. Three or four wenches, where I stood, cried Alas, good soul ! — and forgave him with all their hearts : But there's no heed to be taken of them ; if Caesar had stabbed their mothers, they would have done no less.
Bru. And after that, he came, thus sad, away ?
Casca. Ay.
Cos. Did Cicero say anything ?
Casca. Ay, he spoke Greek.
Cas. To what effect ?
95. Casca. Nay, an I tell you that, I'll ne'er look you i' the face again : But those that understood him smiled at one another, and shook their heads ; but, for my own part, it was Greek to me. I could tell you more news too : Marullus and Flavius, for pulling scarfs off Caesar's images, are put to silence. Fare you well. There was more foolery yet, if I could remember it.
Cas. Will you sup with me to-night, Casca ? 97. Casca. No, I am promised forth.
Cas. Will you dine with me to-morrow ?
Casca. Ay, if I be alive, and your mind hold, and your dinner worth the eating.
Cas. Good : I will expect you.
Casca. Do so : Farewell, both. [Exit CASCA.
102. Bru. What a blunt fellow is this grown to be ! He was quick mettle when he went to school.
103. Cas. So is he now, in execution Of any bold or noble enterprise, However he puts on this tardy form. This rudeness is a sauce to his good wit, Which gives men stomach to digest his words With better appetite.
104. Bru. And so it is. For this time I will leave you : To-morrow if you please to speak with me,
I will come home to you ; or, if you will,
SC. 2.] JULIUS CJESAR. 83
Come home to me, and I will wait for you. 105. Cas. I will do so :— till then, think of the world.
[Exit BRUTUS.
Well, Brutus, thou art noble ; yet, I see, Thy honourable metal may be wrought From that it is disposed : Therefore it is meet That noble minds keep ever with their likes : For who so firm, that cannot be seduced ? Caesar doth bear me hard ; but he loves Brutus : If I were Brutus now, and he were Cassius, He should not humour me. I will this night, In several hands, in at his windows throw, As if they came from several citizens, "Writings all tending to the great opinion That Eome holds of his name ; wherein obscurely Caesar's ambition shall be glanced at : And, after this, let Caesar seat him sure ; For we will shake him, or worse days endure. [Exit.
Scene II. — The original heading here is : — " Enter Ccesar, Antony for the Course, Calphurnia, Portia, Decius, Cicero, Brutus, Cassius, CasJca, a Soothsayer : after them Murel- lus and Flavius" The three stage directions about the Music are all modern.
23. Stand you directly, etc. — The sacerdotal runners wore only a cincture of goat-skins, the same material of which their thongs were made. The passage in Plutarch's Life of Julius Caesar as translated by Sir Thomas North is as follows : —
" At that time the feast Lupercalia was celebrated, the which in old time, men say, was the feast of Shepherds or Herdsmen, and is much like unto the feast of Lyceians [Av*caa] in Arcadia. But, howsoever it is, that day there are divers noblemen's sons, 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 noble women and gentlewomen also go of purpose to stand in their way, and do put forth their hands to be stricken, persuading themselves that, being with child, they shall have good delivery, and also, being barren, that it will make them conceive with child. Ctesar sat to behold that sport upon the pulpit for ora- G 2
84 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT T.
tions, in a chair of gold, apparelled in triumphant manner. Antonius, who was Consul at that time, was one of them that roune this holy course "
Here, and in 25, as generally throughout the Play, Antonius is Antonio in the original text, and in all the editions down to that of Pope.
25. Their sterile curse. — Our English formations from Latin words terminating in -His are in an unsatisfactory state in respect both of spelling and pronunciation. Of the Latin words some have the il long, others short ; and the former ought naturally to give in English -He (sound ed as in mile), the latter -il. But, instead of this, the common usage is to spell them all indiscriminately with the e, and to pronounce them as if they were without it. Thus we have not only puerile, servile, subtile, juvenile, hostile (from puer'ilis, servilis, juvenllis, hosttlis), but also docile, sterile, versatile, agile, fragile (from docilis,steriHs, versatilis, agUis, fragilis') . And, as for the pronunciation, while Walker, holding the general rule to be that the i is short, makes Exile, Senile, Edile, and Infantile (together with Reconcile, Chamomile, and Estipile, — which last, however, is not in his Dictionary, or in any other that I have consulted), to be the only exceptions, Smart (1849) gives no rule upon the subject (that I can find), leaves Senile unmarked, and (omitting both Estipile and Cha momile) seems to add Mercantile, and distinctly adds Gentile, to Exile and Edile, as having the * long, and in Infantile seems to give it short in the Dictionary, but dis tinctly marks it as long in the section of his " Principles " to which a reference is made from the word. Further, as if the confusion were not bad enough without such mechanical carelessness and blundering, in the stereo typed 8vo edition of Walker, 1819 (called the 21st edi tion), in a list given at page 36 (the same page in which the strange word Estipile occurs) the * is printed with the long instead of the short mark in Gentile, Virile, Sub-
SC. 2.] JULIUS CJiSAE. 85
tile, Coctile, Quintile, Hostile, Servile, and Sextile, in direct contradiction both to the Dictionary and to the very statement with which the list is headed and intro duced. The present tendency of our pronunciation seems to be to extend the dominion of the long i both in these forms and even in the termination ite. In reading, at least, the — He is now perhaps more usually pronounced long than short in Hostile, Servile, and some other similar instances ; and we sometimes hear even infinite pronoun ced with the belong (as in finite), though such a pronun ciation is still only that of the uneducated populace in Opposite or Favourite.
32. The Ides of March.— In the Eoman Kalendar the Ides (Idus~) fell on the 15th of March, May, July, and October, and on the 13th of the eight remaining months.
34. A soothsayer, lids. — That is, It is a soothsayer, who bids. It would not otherwise be an answer to Caesar's question. The omission of the relative in such a con struction is still common.
39. The old stage direction here is ; — " Sennet. Exeunt. Manet Brut, et Cass." The word Sennet is also variously written Sennit, Senet, Synnet, Cynet, Signet, and Signate. Nares explains it as "a word chiefly occurring in the stage directions of the old plays, and seeming to indicate a particular set of notes on the trumpet, or cornet, differ ent from a flourish." In Shakespeare it occurs again in the present Play at 67, in the heading to Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 7, in King Henry VIII, ii. 4, and in Corio- lanus, i. 1 and 2, where in the first scene we have " A Sennet. Trumpets sound." In the heading of the second scene of the fifth act of Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of Malta we have " Synnet, i. e. Flourish of Trumpets?' But in Dekker's Satiromastix (1602) we have " Trumpets sound a flourish, and then a sennet." Steevens says ; — • " I have been informed that sennet is derived from sen- neste, an antiquated French tune formerly used in the
86 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT I.
army ; but the Dictionaries which I have consulted exhibit no such word."
44. That gentleness . . . as I was, etc. — We should now say " that gentleness that I was wont to have." But that and as are by origin words of the same signification ; that, or thaet, being the neuter form of the Original English article or demonstrative, and as being in all probability (as remarked by Home Tooke, Diversions of Purley, p. 147) identical with the German es (still in continual use in that language for our that or if). "The word as,'1 observes Dr Latham (English Language, p. 423), "pro perly a conjunction, is occasionally used as a relative — the man as rides to market. This expression is not to be imitated." Clearly not. Such syntax is no longer, if it ever was, a part of the language. But in many other expressions which everybody uses, and the propriety of which nobody has ever questioned, as is manifestly not a conjunction, but a relative pronoun. For example, in Pope's " All such reading as was never read," as is the nominative to the verb. It acts in the same capacity in the common phrases, " as is said," " as regards," " as ap pears," and others similarly constructed. It is not very long since the conjunction as was used at least in one case in which we now always employ that. "So — as," says Bishop Lowth (Introd. to Eng. Gram.), " was used by the writers of the last [17th] century to express a consequence, instead of so — that. Swift [who died 1745], I believe, is the last of our good writers who has fre quently used this manner of expression. It seems improper, and is deservedly grown obsolete." That it is obsolete cannot be disputed, and it would therefore be an impropriety in modern writing ; but Home Tooke is right in objecting to Lowth that there is nothing naturally or essentially wrong in it ; it is wrong, if at all, only con ventionally. Exactly corresponding to this formerly common use of the conjunctions so and as is Shakespeare's
SC. 2.] JULIUS CJESAK. 87
use in the present passage, and many others, of the pro nouns that and as. In " as I was wont to have," as is the accusative of the relative pronoun governed by have, " that gentleness, and show of love," being the antecedent. The practice, common in most or all languages, of em ploying the same word as demonstrative and relative, is familiarized to us in English by our habitual use of that in both capacities.
44. Over your friend that loves you. — It is friends in the Second Eolio.
45. Merely upon myself. — Merely (from the Latin merus and mere) means purely, only. It separates that which it designates or qualifies from everything else. But in so doing the chief or most emphatic reference may be made either to that which is included, or to that which is ex cluded. In modern English it is always to the latter ; by "merely upon myself" we should now mean upon nothing else except myself; the nothing else is that which the merely makes prominent. In Shakespeare's day the other reference was the more common, that namely to what was included; and "merely upon myself" meant upon myself altogether, or without regard to anything else. Myself was that which the merely made prominent. So when Hamlet, speaking of the world, says (i. 2) " Things rank and gross in nature possess it merely" he by the merely brings the possession before the mind, and characterizes it as complete and absolute ; but by the same term now the prominence would be given to something else from which the possession might be conceived to be separable : "possess it merely" would mean have nothing beyond simply the possession of it (have, it might be, no right to it, or no enjoyment of it). It is not necessary that that which is included, though thus emphasized, should there fore be more definitely conceived than that with which it is contrasted. So, again, when in Henry VIII., Hi. 2 (whoever may have written that Play, or this passage),
88 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT I.
the Earl of Surrey charges "Wolsey with having sent large supplies of substance to Rome " to the mere undoing of all the kingdom," he means to the complete undoing of all the kingdom, to nothing less than such undoing ; but in our modern English the words would sound as if the speaker's meaning were, to nothing more than the undoing of the kingdom. The mere would lead us to think of something else, some possible aggravation of the undoing (such, for instance, as the disgrace or infamy), from wliich that was to be conceived as separated.
The use of merely here is in exact accordance with that of mere in Othello, ii. 2, where the Herald proclaims the tidings of what he calls " the mere perdition of the Turk ish fleet " (that is, the entire perdition or destruction). In Helena's " Ay, surely, mere the truth," in All's Well that Ends Well, Hi. 5, mere would seem to have the sense of merely (that is, simply, exactly), if there be no misprint.
Attention to such changes of import or effect, slight as they may seem, which many words have undergone, is indispensable for the correct understanding of our old writers. Their ignorance of the old sense of this same word merely has obscured a passage in Bacon to his modern editors. In his 58th Essay, entitled " Of Vicis situdes of Things," he says ; " As for conflagrations and great droughts, they do not merely dispeople and destroy" — meaning, as the train of the reasoning clearly requires, that they do not altogether do so. Most of the editors (Mr Montague included) have changed "and destroy" into "but destroy;" others leave out the "not" before merely; either change being subversive of the meaning of the passage and inconsistent with the context. The reading of the old copies is confirmed by the Latin trans lation, done under Bacon's own superintendence : — " Illae populum penitus non absorbent aut destruunt."
So in the 3rd Essay, " Of Unity in Religion," when we are told that extremes would be avoided " if the points
SC. 2.] JULIUS C^ESAE. 89
fundamental and of substance in religion were truly dis cerned and distinguished from points not merely of faith, but of opinion, order, or good intention," the meaning is, from points not altogether of faith, — not, were distinguish ed not only from points of faith, as a modern reader would be apt to understand it.
45. Passions of some difference. — The meaning seems to be, of some discordance, somewhat conflicting passions. So we have a few lines after, " poor Brutus, with himself at war." •
(45. Conceptions only proper to myself. — Thoughts and feelings relating exclusively to myself.
45. To my behaviours. — We have lost this plural. But we still say, though with some difference of meaning, both " My manner " and " My manners."
45. Be you one. — There are various kinds of leing, or of existing. "What is here meant is, Be in your belief and assurance ; equivalent to Best assured that you are.
45. Nor construe any further my neglect. — Further is the word in the old copies ; but Mr Collier, I observe, in his one volume edition prints farther. Is this one of the corrections of his MS. annotator ? It is sometimes sup posed that, as farther answers to far, so further answers to forth. But far and forth, or fore, are really only dif ferent forms of the same word, different corruptions or modernizations of the old Original English feor o? forth.
46. / have much mistook your passion. — That is, the feeling under which you are suffering. Patience and pas sion (both from the Latin patior) equally mean suffering ; the notions of quiet and of agitation which they have severally acquired, and which have made the common signification of the one almost the opposite of that of the other, are merely accidental adjuncts. It may be seen, however, from the use of the word passion here and in the preceding speech, that its proper meaning was not so completely obscured and lost sight of in Shakespeare's
90 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT i.
day as it has come to be in ours, when it retains the no tion of suffering only in two or three antique expressions ; such as the iliac passion, and the passion of our Saviour (with Passion "Week). — Though it is no longer accounted correct to say I have mistook, or I have wrote, such forms were in common use even till far on in the last century. Nor has the analogy of the reformed manner of expres sion been yet completely carried out. In some cases we have even lost the more correct form after having once had it : we no longer, for instance* say I have stricken, as they did in Shakespeare's day, but only I have struck. 47. But ly reflection, etc.— The " other things," must, apparently, if we interpret the words with reference to their connexion, be the reflectors or mirrors spoken of by Cassius. Taken by itself, however, the expression might rather seem to mean that the eye discovers its own existence by its power of seeing other things. The verse in the present speech is thus ingeniously broken up in the original edition : —
"No, Cassius:
For the eye sees not itself but by reflection, By some other things."
It may still be suspected that all is not quite right, and possibly some words have dropped out. ' " By reflection, by some other things " is hardly Shakespeare's style. It is not customary with him to employ a word which he finds it necessary thus to attempt immediately to amend, or supplement or explain, by another. — It is remarkable that in the first line of this speech the three last Folios turn the itself into himself. Mr Collier, nevertheless, prints itself. Is this a restoration of his MS. annotator ? There is a remarkable coincidence, both of thought and of expression, between what we have here and the follow ing passage in Troilus and Cressida, Hi. 3 ; —
"Nor doth the eye itself, That most pure spirit of sense, behold itself."
SC. 2.] JULIUS C^SAR. 91
And it may be worth noting that these lines appear only in the two original Quarto editions of the Play (1609), and are not in any of the Polios.
48. Many of the lest respect. — A lost phrase, no longer permissible even in poetry, although our only modern equivalent is the utterly unpoetical "many persons of the highest respectability." So, again, in the present Play, we have in 780, " Thou art a fellow of a good respect."
50. Therefore, good Brutus, etc. — The eager, impatient temper of Cassius, absorbed in his own one idea, is vividly expressed by his thus continuing his argument as if with out appearing to have even heard Brutus's interrupting question ; for such is the only interpretation which his therefore would seem to admit of.
50. And le not jealous on me. — This is the reading of all the Folios ; and it has been restored to the text by Mr Knight, who does not, however, produce any other example of the same syntax. The other modern editors generally, with the exception of Mr Collier, have changed the on into of. And everywhere else, I believe, Shake speare writes jealous of. But there seems to be no na tural reason, independently of usage, why the adjective might not take the one preposition as well as the other. They used to say enamoured on formerly. In the same manner, although the common form is to eat of, yet in Macbeth, i. 3, we have, as the words stand in the first three Folios, " Have we eaten on the insane root." So, although we commonly say "seized of" we have in Hamlet, i. 1, " All those his lands Which he stood seized on" And there is the familiar use of on for of in the popular speech, of which we have also an example in Hamlet in the Clown's "You lie out on't, Sir " (v. 1).
50. Were I a common laugher. — Pope made this cor rection, in which he has been followed by all subsequent editors. In all the editions before his the reading is laughter ; and the necessity or propriety of the change ia
92 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTABr. [ACT I.
perhaps not so unquestionable as it has been generally thought. Neither word seems to be perfectly satisfactory. "Were I a common laughter" might seem to derive some support from the expression of the same speaker in 562 : " Hath Cassius lived to be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus?"
50. To stale with ordinary oaths my love. — Johnson, he only commentator who notices this expression, inter prets it as meaning, " to invite every new protester to my affection by the stale, or allurement, of customary oaths." But surely the more common sense of the word stale, both the verb and the noun, involving the notion of insipid or of little worth or estimation, is far more natural here. Who forgets Enobarbus's phrase in his enthusiastic description of Cleopatra (Antony and Cleo patra, it. 2) ; " Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety"? So in 498, " Staled by other men."
50. And after scandal -them. — We have lost the verb scandal altogether, and we scarcely use the other form to scandalize, except in the sense of the Hellenistic OKO.V- £a\*£fa;, to shock, to give offence. Both had formerly also the sense of to defame or traduce.
51. What means this shouting? etc. — Here is the manner in which this passage is given in the original
edition : —
t
" Bru. "What means this Showting ? I do feare, the People choose Caesar For their King.
Cam. I, do yon feare it ? '*
53. If it le aught toward. — All that the prosody de mands here is that the word toward be pronounced in two syllables ; the accent may be either on the first or the second. Toward when an adjective has, I believe, always the accent on the first syllable in Shakespeare; but its customary pronunciation may have been otherwise in his day when it was a preposition, as it is here. Milton,
SC. 2.] JULIUS C^SAE. 93
however, in the few cases in which he does not run the two syllables into one, always accents the first. And he uses both toward and towards.
53. Set Honour in one eye, etc. — This passage has oc casioned some discussion. Johnson's explanation is : — " When Brutus first names Honour and Death, he calmly declares them indifferent ; but, as the image kindles in his mind, he sets Honour above life." It does not seem to be necessary to suppose any such change or growth either of the image or the sentiment. What Brutus means by saying that he will look upon Honour and Death indifferently, if they present themselves together, is merely that, for the sake of the honour, he will not mind the death, or the risk of death, by which it may be accompanied ; he will look as fearlessly and steadily upon the one as upon the other. He will think the honour to be cheaply purchased even by the loss of life ; that price will never make him falter or hesitate in clutching at such a prize. He must be understood to set honour above life from the first ; that he should ever have felt otherwise for a moment would have been the height of the unheroic. — The convenient elisions V the and 0' the have been almost lost to our modern English verse, at least in composition of the ordinary regularity and dignity. Byron, however, has in a well-known passage ventured upon " Hived in our bosoms like the bag o' the bee."
54. Your outward favour . — A man's favour is his aspect or appearance. "In beauty," says Bacon, in his 43rd Essay, " that of favour is more than that 01 colour ; and that of decent and gracious motion more than that of favour." The word is now lost to us in that sense ; but we still use favoured with well, ill, and perhaps other qualify ing terms, for featured or looking ; as in Gen. xli. 4 : — "The ill-favoured and lean-fleshed kine did eat up the seven well-favoured and fat kine." Favour seems to be used for face from the same confusion or natural trans-
94 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT I.
ference of meaning between the expressions for the feel ing in the mind and the outward indication of it in the look that has led to the word countenance, which com monly denotes the latter, being sometimes employed, by a process the reverse of what we have in the case of favour, in the sense of at least one modification of the former ; as when we speak of any one giving something his countenance, or countenancing it. In this case, how ever, it ought to be observed that countenance has the meaning, not simply of favourable feeling or approbation, but of its expression or avowal. The French terms from which we have borrowed our favour and countenance do not appear to have either of them undergone the trans ference of meaning which has befallen the English forms. But contenance, which is still also used by the French in the sense of material capacity, has drifted far away from its original import in coming to signify one's aspect or physiognomy. It is really also the same word with the French and English continence and the Latin continentia.
54. For my single self. — Here is a case in which we are still obliged to adhere to the old way of writing and printing my self. Vid. 56.
54. / had as lief. — Lief (sometimes written leef, or leve), in the comparative liefer or lever, in the superlative liefest, is the Original English leof, of the same meaning with our modern dear. " No modern author, I believe," says Home Tooke (D. of P. 261), "would now venture any of these words in a serious passage ; and they seem to be cautiously shunned or ridiculed in common con versation, as a vulgarity. But they are good English words, and more frequently used by our old English writ ers than any other word of a corresponding' signification." The common modern substitute for lief is soon, and for liefer, sooner or rather, which last is properly the compa rative of rath, or rathe, signifying early, not found in Shakespeare, but used in one expression — " the rathe
SC. 2.] JULIUS CAESAR. 95
primrose" (Lycidas, 142) — by Milton, who altogether ignores lief. Lief, liefer, and liefest, are all common in Spenser. Shakespeare has lief pretty frequently, but never liefer ; and liefest occurs only in the Second Part of King Henry VI., where, in Hi. 1, we have " My liefest liege." In the same Play, too (i. 1), we have " Mine alderliefest sovereign," meaning dearest of all. " This beautiful word," says Mr Knight, " is a Saxon compound. Alder, of all, is thus frequently joined with an adjective of the superlative degree, — as alderfirst, alderlast." But it cannot be meant that such combinations are frequent in the English of Shakespeare's day. They do occur, in deed, in a preceding stage of the language. Alder is a corrupted or at least modified form of the Original Eng lish genitive plural oiler, or allre ; it is that strengthened by the interposition of a supporting d (a common expe dient). Aller, with the same signification, is still familiar in German compounds. — The effect and construction of liefm Middle English may be seen in the following ex amples from Chaucer : — " For him was lever han at his beddes head" (G. T. Pro. 295), that is, To him it was dearer to have (lever a monosyllable, beddes a dissyllable) ; " ISTe, though I say it, I n' am not lefe to gabbe" (G. T. 3510), that is, I am not given to prate ; " I hadde lever dien," that is, I should hold it preferable to die. And Chaucer has also " Al be him loth or lefe" (<7. T. 1839), that is, Whether it be to him agreeable or disagreeable ; and "For lefe ne loth" (a T. 13062), that is, For love nor loathing. — We may remark the evidently intended connexion in sound between the lief and the live, or rather the attraction by which the one word has naturally produced or evoked the other.
54. CfBsar said to me, etc. — In the Second Folio it is " Caesar saies to me." And three lines lower down it is there " Accounted as I was." Other errors of that copy
96 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT I.
in the same speech are " chasing with her shores," and " He had a Peaher when he was in Spaine."
54. Arrive the point proposed. — Arrive without the now indispensable at or in is found also in the Third Part of King Henry VI. (p. 3) :—
" Those powers that the queen Hath raised in Gallia have arrived our coast."
And Milton has the same construction (P. L. ii. 409) : —
" Ere he arrive The happy isle."
54. /, as ^Eneas, etc. — This commencement of the sen tence, although necessitating the not strictly grammatical repetition of the first personal pronoun, is in fine rhetori cal accordance with the character of the speaker, and vividly expresses his eagerness to give prominence to his own part in the adventure. Even the repetition (of which, by the by, we have another instance in this same speech) assists the effect. At the same time, it may just be noted that the / here is not printed differently in the original edition from the adverb of affirmation in " Ay, and that tongue of his," a few lines lower down. Nor are the two words anywhere distinguished. It may be doubted whether Macbeth's great exclamation (ii. 2) should not be printed (as it is by Steevens) " Wake Duncan with thy knocking : Ay, would thou could'st ! " (instead of " I would," as commonly given).
54. The old AncJiises, etc. — This is a line of six feet ; but it is quite different in its musical character from what is called an Alexandrine, such as rounds off the Spenser ian stanza, and also frequently makes the second line in a rhymed couplet or the third in a triplet. It might per haps be going too far to say that a proper Alexandrine is inadmissible in blank verse. There would seem to be nothing in the principle of blank verse opposed to the occasional employment of the Alexandrine ; but the
BC. 2.] JULIUS CJESAE. 97
custom of our modern poetry excludes such a variation even from dramatic blank verse ; and unquestionably by far the greater number of the lines in Shakespeare which have been assumed by some of his editors to be Alexan drines are only instances of the ordinary heroic line with the very common peculiarity of certain superfluous short syllables. That is all that we have here,— the ordinary heroic line overflowing its bounds, — which, besides that great excitement will excuse such irregularities, or even demand them, admirably pictures the emotion of Cassius, as it were acting his feat over again as he relates it, — with the shore the two were making for seeming, in their increasing efforts, to retire before them, — and panting with his re membered toil.
54. Sis coward, lips did from their colour jly. — There can, I think, be no question ihat "Warburton is right in holding that we have here a pointed allusion to a soldier flying from his colours. The lips would never otherwise be made to fly from their colour, instead of their colour from them. The figure is quite in Shakespeare's manner and spirit. But we may demur to calling it, with War- burton, merely " a poor quibble." It is a forcible expres sion of scorn and contempt. Such passions are, by their nature, not always lofty and decorous, but rather creative and reckless, and more given to the pungent than the elegant.
54. Did lose Ms lustre. — There is no personification here. His was formerly neuter as well as masculine, or the genitive of It as well as of He ; and his lustre, mean ing the lustre of the eye, is the same form of expression that we have in the texts : — " The fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself" (Gen.9i. 11) ; " It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel" (Gen. Hi. 15) ; "If the salt have lost his savour" (Matt, v. 13, and Luke x'w. 34) ; " If the salt have lost Us salt- ness " (Mark ix. 50) ; " "When they were past the first
H
98 PHILOLOGICAL COMMEXTABY. [ACT I.
and the second ward, they came unto the iron gate that leadeth unto the city, which opened to them of Ms own accord " {Acts xii. 10) ; " His throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire " (Dan. vii. 9) ; and others. The word Its does not occur in the authorized translation of the Bible; its place is always supplied either by His or by Thereof. So again, in the present Play, in 523, we have "That every nice offence should bear his comment ; " and in Antony and Cleopatra, v. 1, " The heart where mine his thoughts did kindle." One of the most curious and decisive examples of the neuter his occurs in Coriolanus, i. 1 : —
" it [the belly] tauntingly replied To the discontented members, the mutinous parts That envied his receipt."
Its, however, is found in Shakespeare. There is one in stance in Measure for Measure, i. 2, where Lucio's remark about coming to a composition with the King of Hungary draws the reply, " Heaven grant us its peace, but not the King of Hungary's." The its here, it may be observed, has the emphasis. It is printed without the apostrophe both in the First and in the Second Folio. But the most remarkable of the Plays in regard to this particular is probably The Winter's Tale. Here, in i. 2, we have so many as three instances in a single speech of Leontes : —
"How sometimes Nature will betray it's folly? It's tendernesse ? and make it selfe a Pastime To harder bosomes ? Looking on the Lynes Of my Boyes face, me thoughts I did rcquoyle Twentie'three yeeres, and saw my selfe vnbreech'd, In my greene Velvet Coat; my Dagger muzzel'd, Least^it should bite it's Master, and so prove (As Ornaments oft do's) too dangerous."
So stands the passage in the First Folio. Nor does the new pronoun here appear to be a peculiarity of expression
SC. 2.] JULIUS CAESAR. 99
characteristic of the excited Sicilian king ; a little while after in the same scene we have the same form from the mouth of Camillo : —
"Be plainer with me, let me know my Trespas By it's owne visage."
And again, in iii. 3, we have Antigonus, when about to lay down the child in Bohemia, observing that he believes it to be the wish of Apollo that
" it should heere be laide (Either for life, or death) vpon the earth Of it's right Father."
Nor is this all. There are two other passages of the same Play in which the modern editors also give us its ; but in these the original text has it. The first is in ii. 3, where Leontes, in directing Antigonus to carry away the " female bastard " to some foreign land, enjoins him that he there leave it
" (Without more mercy) to it owne protection."
The other is in iii. 2, where Hermione's words stand in both the First and Second Folio,
" The innocent milke in it most innocent mouth."
It is a mistake to assume, as the modern editors do, that it in these instances is a misprint for its : Dr Guest (Phil. Pro. i. 280) has observed that in the dialects of the North- Western Counties formerly it was sometimes used for its ; and that, accordingly, we have not only in Shakespeare's King John, ii. 1, " Goe to yt grandame, child .... and it grandame will give yt a plumb," but in Ben Jonson's Silent Woman, ii. 3, "It knighthood and it friends." So in Lear, i. 4, we have in a speech of the Fool, " For you know, Nunckle, the Hedge-Sparrow fed the Cuckoo so long, that it's had it head bit off by it young " (that is, that it has had its head, — not that it had its head, as the modern editors give the passage, after H 2
100 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTAEY. [ACT I.
the Second Folio, in which it stands, " that it had its head bit off by it young"). This use of it is still familiar in the popular speech of the West Biding of Yorkshire, and even in the English of some parts of Ireland. So, long before its was generally received, we have it self commonly printed in two words, evidently under the impression that it was a possessive, of the same syntactical force with the pronouns in my self, your self, her self. And even now we do not write itsself. Formerly, too, according to Dr Guest, they often said even " The King wife," etc., for "The King's wife." So he holds that in such modern phrases as " The idea of a thing being abstracted," or " of it being abstracted," thing and it are genitives, for thing's and its.
We have also either it or its in another passage of Lear, where Albany, in iv. 2, speaks of "that nature which condemns its origin." The passage is not in the Folios ; but, if we may trust to Jennens, the First Quarto has itk, the Second it, for the its of the modern text. Both those Quartos are of 1608; and there is also a third of the same year, but the reading in that is not noted by the commentators:
I am indebted to Dr Trench, the Dean of Westminster, for calling my attention to one passage in our English Bible, Levit. xxv. 5, in which, although the modern re prints give us " that which groweth of its own accord," the reading in the original edition is " of it own accord." In Luther's German version the phrase here is the same that is employed in Acts xii. 10, quoted above, where we have " of his own accord: " — von ihm seller in the one case, von ihr selbst in the other.
Dr Guest asserts that its was used generally by the dramatists of the age to which the authorized version of the Bible belongs, and also by iriany of their contempor aries. Dr Trench, in his English, Past and Present, doubts whether Milton has once admitted it into Paradise
SC. 2.] JULIUS CAESAR. 101
Lost, "although, when that was composed, others fre quently allowed it." The common authorities give us no help in such matters as this ; no notice is taken of the word. Its either in Todd's Verbal Index to Milton, or in Mrs Clarke's elaborate Concordance to Shakespeare. But Milton does use Its occasionally; as, e. g. (P. L. i. 254), " The mind is its own place, and in itself; " and (P. L. iv. 813), "No falsehood can endure Touch of celestial temper, but returns Of force to its own likeness." Gener ally, however, he avoids the word, and easily manages to do so by personifying most of his substantives ; it is only when this cannot be done, as in the above examples, that he reluctantly accepts the services of the little parvenu monosyllable.
Mr Singer, in a note to his edition of the Essays and Wisdom of tlie Ancients, p. 200, seems to intimate that its is nowhere used by Bacon. Like Shakespeare and other writers of the time, he has frequently liis in the neuter.
Dr Trench notices the fact of the occurrence of its in Roidey's Poems as decisive against their genuineness. He observes, also, that "Dryden, when, in one of his fault-finding moods with the great men of the preceding generation, he is taking Ben Jonson to task for general inaccuracy in his English diction, among other counts of his indictment, quotes this line of Catiline, 'Though heaven should speak with all his wrath at once ; ' and pro ceeds, ' Heaven is ill syntax with his.' " This is a curious evidence of how completely the former humble condition and recent rise of the now fully established vocable had come to be generally forgotten in a single generation.
The need of it, indeed, must have been much felt. If it was convenient to have the two forms He and It in the nominative, and Him and It in the other cases, a similar distinction between the Masculine and the Neuter of the genitive must have been equally required for perspicuous
102 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT I.
expression. Even the personifying power of his was im paired by its being applied to both genders. Milton, consequently, it may be noticed, prefers wherever it is possible the feminine to the masculine personification, as if he felt that the latter was always obscure from the risk of the his being taken for the neuter pronoun. Thus we have (P. L. i. 723) " The ascending pile Stood fixed her stately height ; " (ii. 4) " The gorgeous East with richest hand Showers on her kings ; " (ii. 175) " What if all Her stores were opened, and this firmament Of hell should spout her cataracts of fire ; " (ii. 271) " This desert soil "Wants not her hidden lustre;" (ii. 584) "Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls Her watery labyrinth ; " (ix. 1103) "The fig-tree . . . spreads her arms;" (Com. 396) " Beauty ... had need ... To save her blossoms and defend her fruit;" (Com. 468) "The soul grows clotted . . . till she quite lose The divine property of her first being ; " and so on, continually and habitually, or upon system. His masculine personifications are comparatively rare, and are only ventured upon either where he does not require to use the pronoun, or where its gender can not be mistaken.
Milton himself, however, nowhere, I believe, uses his in a neuter sense.* He felt too keenly the annoyance of such a sense of it always coming in the way to spoil or prevent any other use he might have made of it. The modern practice is the last of three distinct stages through which the language passed as to this matter in the course of less than a century. First, we have his serving for
* Unless the following were to be considered as an instance : — " It was a mountain, at whose verdant feet A spacious plain, outstretched in circuit wide, Lay pleasant ; from his side two rivers flowed."
Par. Reg. Hi. 255.
But the/ee<, instead of foot, would seem to intimate that we are to re gard the mountain as personified here.
SC. 2.] JULIUS CJESAB. 103
both masculine and neuter; secondly, we have his re stricted to the masculine, and the neuter left without or with hardly any recognized form ; thirdly, we have the defect of the second stage remedied by the frank adoption of the heretofore rejected its. And the most curious thing of all in the history of the word its is the extent to which, before its recognition as a word admissible in seri ous composition, even the occasion for its employment was avoided or eluded. This is very remarkable in Shake speare. The very conception which we express by its probably does not occur once in his works for ten times that it is to be found in any modern writer. So that we may say the invention, or adoption, of ;this form has changed not only our English style, but even our manner of thinking.
The Original English personal pronoun was, in the Nominative singular, He for the Masculine, Heo for the Feminine, and Hit for the Neuter. He we still retain ; for Heo we have substituted' She, apparently a modifica tion of Seo, the Feminine of the Demonstrative (Se, Seo, Tkaef) ; Hit we have converted into It (though the aspi rate is still often heard in the Scottish dialect). The Grenitive was Hire for the Feminine (whence our modern Her), and His both for the Masculine and the Neuter. So also the modern G-erman has ihr for the Feminine, and only one form, sein, for both the Masculine and the Neuter. But in the inflection of this single form the two genders in our ancient English were distinguished both in the Nominative and in the Accusative, whereas in German they are distinguished in the Accusative only. They are the same in the G-enitive and Dative in both languages.
It is to be understood, of course, that the its, however convenient, is quite an irregular formation : the t of it (originally hit) is merely the sign of the neuter gender, which does not enter into the inflection, leaving the
104 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT I.
natural genitive of that gender (hi, hi-s) substantially identical with that of the masculine (he, he-s, hi-s).
54, 55. — And bear the palm alone. — Another general shout ! — Two hemistichs or broken lines thus following one another are not necessarily to be regarded as pros- odically connected, any more than if they were several sentences asunder. The notion that two such consecutive fragments were always intended by Shakespeare to make a complete verse has led the modern editors, more especi ally Steevens, into a great deal of uncalled-for chopping and tinkering of the old text.
56. But in ourselves. — In the original edition divided " our selves," exactly as " our stars " in the preceding line. And so always with our self, your self, her self, my self, thy self, and also it self, but never with himself, or them selves. Vid. 54.
56. What should be in that Caesar ? — A form of speech now gone out. It was a less blunt and direct way of saying What is there ? or What may there be ? These more subtle and delicate modes of expression, by the use of the subjunctive for the indicative and of the past for the present, which characterize not only the Greek and Latin languages but even the German, have for the greater part perished in our modern English. The deep insight and creative force — the " great creating nature " — which gave birth to our tongue has dried up under the benumb ing touch of the logic by which it has been trained and cultivated.
56. More than yours. — Here and everywhere else, it may be noticed once for all, our modern than is then in the old text. Vid. Prolegomena, Sect. v.
56. Become the mouth as well. — Always aswell, as one word, in the First Folio.
56. The breed of noble bloods. — We scarcely now use this plural. Shakespeare has it several times ; as after wards in 645, " I know young bloods look for a time of
SO. 2.] JULIUS C^SAK. 105
rest ; " in Mitch Ado About Nothing, in. 3, where Boracio remarks how giddily fashion " turns about all the hot bloods between fourteen and five and thirty;" in The Winter's Tale, i. 1, where Leontes says, " To mingle friendship far is mingling bloods;" in King John, ii. I, where Philip of France, to the boast of John before the walls of Angiers that he brings as witnesses to his right and title " twice fifteen thousand hearts of English breed," replies (aside) that
" As many and as well-born Woods as those Stand in his face to contradict his claim."
56. That her wide walls encompassed lut one man. — The old reading is "wide walks." Despite the critical canon which warns us against easy or obvious amendments, it is impossible not to believe that we have a misprint here. "What Eome's wide walks may mean is not obvious ; still less, how she could be encompassed by her walks, how ever wide. The correction to walls has the authority of Mr Collier's MS. annotator, but had been conjecturally adopted down to the time of Malone by most of the modern editors, from Eowe inclusive.
56. Now is it Rome indeed, and room enough. — Shake speare' s pronunciation of Rome seems to have been Room. Besides the passage before us we have afterwards in the present Play (368) "No Eome of safety for Octavius yet;" and in King John, iii. 1, " That I have room with Home to curse a while." In the First Part of King Henry the Sixth, it is true, we have the other pronunci ation; there (iii. 2), the Bishop of "Winchester having exclaimed "Eome shall remedy this," "Warwick replies " Roam thither, then." This little fact is not without its significance in reference to the claim of that Play to be laid at Shakespeare's door.
56. But one only man. — In the original text " but one onely man," probably indicating that the pronunciation
100 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTABY. [ACT I.
of the numeral and of the first syllable of the adverb was the same.
56. There was a Brutus once, that would have brooked. — To brook (originally brucan), for to endure, to submit to, is one of those old words which every one still under stands but no one uses, unless it may be some studious imitator of the antique.
57. That you do love me, I am nothing jealous. — I am nowhat jealous, doubtful, suspicious, in regard to its being the fact that you love me. This seems to be the grammatical resolution of a construction which, like many similar ones familiar to the freer spirit of the language two centuries ago, would now scarcely be ren- tured upon.
57. / have some aim. — Aim, in old French eyme, esme, and estme, is the same word with esteem (from the Latin (sstimatio and astimare), and should therefore signify properly a judgment or conjecture of the mind, which is very nearly its meaning here. We might now say, in. the same sense, I have some notion. In modern English the word has acquired the additional meaning of an in tention to hit, or catch, or in some other way attain, that to which the view is directed. It does not seem impossi ble that the French name for the loadstone, aimant, may be from the same root, although it has usually been con sidered to be a corruption of adamant. A ship's reckon ings are called in French estimes, which is undoubtedly the same word with our aims. In the French of the early part of the sixteenth century we find esme and esme (or esmez, as it was commonly written) confounded with the totally different aimer, to love. Rabelais, for instance, writes lien aymez for lien esmez, well disposed. See Duchat's Note on liv. I., ch. 5.
57. For this present. — So, in the Absolution, "that those things may please him which we do at this present." This expression, formerly in universal use and good repute,
SC. 2.] JULIUS CJESAR. 107
now remains only a musty law phrase, never admitted into ordinary composition except for ludicrous effect.
57. So with love I might entreat you. — This form of ex pression is still preserved both in our own language and in German. Thus (John i. 25): — "Warum taufest du denn, so du nicht Christus bist ?" or, " So G-ott will" (If God please). The conjunction thus used is commonly said to be equivalent to if. But so, according to Home Tooke (D. of P., 147), is merely the Mceso- Gothic de monstrative pronoun, and signifies properly this or that. In German, though commonly, as with ourselves, only an adverb or conjunction, it may still be also used pronomin- ally; as Das Buch, so ihr mir gegeben habt (the book which you gave me). Something of the same kind, as we have already seen (44), takes place even in English with as, which is perhaps only another form of so or sa. Upon this theory, all that so will perform in such a pass age as the present will be to mark and separate the clause which it heads by an emphatic introductory compendium : — That (or this), namely, that with love I might, etc. ; and the fact of the statement in the clause being a sup position, or assumption, will be left to be inferred. That fact, however, would be expressed by the so according to the doctrine of Dr Webster, who conceives the word to be derived from some Hebrew or other root signifying to compose, to set, to still. "This sense," he affirms, " is re tained in the use of the word by milkmaids, who say to cows so, so, that is, stand still, remain as you are." Such an application of the term, I apprehend, is not peculiar to the milkmaid tongue, — a familiarity with which, how ever, is certainly carrying linguistic knowledge a great way. — The First Folio points, blunderingly, "I would not so (with love I might intreat you)."
57. Be any further moved. — Here again, as in 45, Mr Collier prints farther, though further is the reading of both the First and the Second Folio.
108 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENT AET. [ACT I.
57. Chew upon this. — We have lost the native word in this application ; but we retain the metaphor, only trans lating chew into the Latin equivalent, ruminate.
57. Brutus had rather be . . . than to repute. — The sense of the verb Have in the phrase Had rather is pecu liar. Johnson calls it barbarous. "Webster asks, " Is not this phrase a corruption of would rather ?" It has the same sense, as we have seen (54), in Had as lief, and in the older Had liefer, or lever. This verb (one very variously applied in some other languages, — witness the il y a of the French, the vi ha or havvi of the Italian, the ha or hay of the Spanish, as well as certain constructions of the Greek ^x£tv) mav nave been employed by us for merly with more latitude of signification than now. We still say Have at him, and, with a somewhat different sense, Have at yon. Even Shakespeare has, in Rich. II., in. 3, " Me rather had my heart might feel your love Than my unpleased eye see your courtesy."
There is also the phrase, Had like, not yet quite gone out, of which all that Dr Webster has to say is, that it seems to be a corruption, — unless, he adds, like be here a noun, and used for resemblance or probability (which it may be safely affirmed that it is not). The to before repute is, apparently, to be defended, if at all, upon the ground that had rather is equivalent in import to would prefer, and that, although it is only an auxiliary before be a villager^, it is to be taken as a common verb before to repute. It is true that, as we have seen (1), the to Avas in a certain stage of the language sometimes inserted, sometimes omitted, both after auxiliaries and after other verbs; but that was hardly the style of Shakespeare's age. We certainly could not now say " I had rather to repute ;" and I do not suppose that any one would have directly so written or spoken then. The irregularity is softened or disguised in the passage before us by the in tervening words.
SO. 2.] JULIUS C33SAE. 109
57. Under these hard conditions as. — This is the read ing in all the old copies ; these — as where we should now say such — as, or those — that. If suck, so, as, that (or this) be all etymologically of the same or nearly the same signification, they would naturally, till custom regulated their use, and assigned a distinct function to each, be interchangeable one with another. Thus in 129 we have " To such a man That is no fleering tell-tale." Although those — as, or that — as, is common, however, these — as is certainly at any rate unusual. Mr Collier prints, upon the authority of his MS. corrector, "under such, hard conditions." I should suspect the true reading to be " under those hard conditions." Vid. 44.
57. Is like. — This form of expression is not quite, but nearly, gone out. "We now commonly say is likely.
58. / ami glad that my weak words. — In this first line of the speech of Cassius and the last of the preceding speech of Brutus we have two hemistichs, having no pros- odical connexion. It was never intended that they should form one line, and no torturing can make them do so.
Re-enter CaBsar. — In the original text it is Enter.
60. What hath proceeded. — That is, simply, happened, — a sense which the verb has now lost.
61. I will do so, etc. — Throughout the Play, the ius of Cassius (as also of Lucilius) makes sometimes only one syllable, sometimes two, as here.
62. Being crossed in conference, etc. — If the being and conference be fully enunciated, as they will be in any but the most slovenly reading, we have two supernumerary syllables in this line, but both so short that neither the mechanism nor the melody of the verse is at all impaired by them.
65. Let me lime men about me, etc. — Some of the ex pressions in this speech are evidently suggested by those of North in his translation of Plutarch's Life of Csesar :
110 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTAEY. [ACT I.
— " When Caesar's friends complained unto him of Anto- nius and Dolabella, that they pretended [i. e. intended'] some mischief towards him, he answered; 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." 65. Such as sleep o* nights. — That is, on nights; as o'clock is on clock, and also as aboard is on board, aside on side, aloft on loft, alive in life, etc. In the older stages of the language the meanings that we now discrim inate by on and in are confused, and are both expressed by an, on, un, in, or in composition by the contractions a or o. The form here in the original text is a-nights.
65. Yond Cassius. — Though yond is no longer in use, we still have both yon and yonder. The d is probably no proper part of the word, but has been added to strengthen the sound, as in the word sound itself (from the French son), and in many other cases. See, upon the origin of Yonder, Dr Latham's Eng. Lang. 375.
66. Well given. — Although we no longer say absolutely well or ill given (for well or ill disposed), we still say given to study, given to drinking, etc.
67. Yet, if my name. — A poetic idiom for " Yet, if I, bearing the name I do." In the case of Caesar the name was even more than the representative and most precise expression of the person ; it was that in which his power chiefly resided, his renown. Every reader of Milton will remember the magnificent passage (P. L. ii. 964) : —
" Behold the throne Of Chaos, and his dark pavilion spread "Wide on the wasteful deep ; with him enthroned Sat sable-vested Night, eldest of things, The consort of his reign ; and by them stood Orcus and Ades, and the dreaded name Of Demogorgon."
67. Liable to fear. — The word liable has been somewhat restricted in its application since Shakespeare's time.
SC. 2.] JULIUS CJESAE. Ill
"We should scarcely now speak of a person as liable to fear. And see 249 for another application of it still far ther away from our present usage.
67. Such men as he, etc. — In this and the following line we have no fewer than three archaisms, words or forms which would not and could not be used by a writer of the present day : — le (for are), at heart's ease (for in ease of mind), whiles (for while). It would be difficult to show that the language has not in each of these instances lost something which it would have been the better for re taining. But it seems to be a law of every language which has become thoroughly subdued under the domin ion of grammar, that perfectly synonymous terms cannot live in it. If varied forms are not saved by having dis tinct senses or functions assigned to each, they are thrown off as superfluities and encumbrances. One is selected for use, and the others are reprobated, or left to perish from mere neglect. The logic of this no doubt is, that verbal expression will only be a correct representation of thought if there should never be any the slightest variation of the one without a corresponding variation of the other. But the principle is not necessarily inconsistent with the ex istence of various forms which should be recognized as differing in no other respect whatever except only in vocal character ; and the language would be at least musically richer with more of this kind of variety. It is what it regards as the irregularity or lawlessness, however, of such logically unnecessary variation that the grammatical spirit hates. It would be argued that with two or more words of precisely the same signification we should have really something like a confusion of two or more lan guages.
67. Eor the present stage direction at the end of this speech, we have in the original text " Sennit. Exeunt Ccesar and his Trained
69. What hath chanced to-day. — So in 71 ; where, also,
112 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT I.
most of the modern editions have " what hath chanced," Mr Collier's one-volume edition included, although had is the word in all the Folios. Instead of to chance in this sense we now usually say to happen. Chance is a French word (from the cas- of the Latin casus strength ened by the common expedient of inserting an n) ; hap pen, hap, and also happy, appear to be derivatives from a Welsh word, hap or hob, luck, fortune. The Original English verb was befeallan, from which also we have still to befall.
78. Ay, marry, was't. — This term of asseveration, marry, which Johnson seems to speak of as still in common use in his day, is found in Chaucer in the form Mary, and appears to be merely a mode of swearing by the Holy Virgin.
78. Every time gentler than other. — I do not know that this use of other will be admitted to be of the same nature with that which we have in Macbeth, i. 7, where the reading of the First Folio is " Vaulting ambition, which o'er-leaps itself, And falls on the other." The other in both pass ages ought perhaps to be considered as a substantive, as it still is in other cases, though it is no longer used exactly in this way. So in Meas. for Meas. iv. 4 ; — " Every letter he hath writ hath disvouched other."
82. The rabblement shouted.— The first three Folios have howted, the Fourth houted. The common reading is hooted. But this is entirely inconsistent with the con text. The people applauded when Caesar refused the crown, and only hissed or hooted when they thought he was about to accept it. Shouted was substituted on con jecture by Hanmer, and almost indicates itself; but it has also the support of Mr Collier's MS. annotate.
82. Their chopped hands. — In the old copies chopt. Mr Collier, however, has chapped.
82. For he swooned. — Swoonded is the word in all the Folios.
SC. 2.] JULIUS C^SAR. 113
83. Did Ccssar swoon ? — Here swound is the word in all the Folios.
/ 85. 'Tis very like : Tie hath the falling sickness. — Like is likely, or probable, as in 57. I am surprised to find Mr Collier adhering to the blundering punctuation of the early copies, " 'Tis very like he hath," etc. Caesar's in firmity was notorious ; it is mentioned both by Plutarch and Suetonius.
86. And honest Casca, etc. — The slight interruption to the flow of this line occasioned by the supernumerary syllable in Casca adds greatly to the effect of the emphatic we that follows. It is like the swell of the wave before it breaks.
87. If the tag-rag people. — In Coriolanus, Hi. 1, we have "Will you hence, before the tag return." "This," says Nares, " is, perhaps, the only instance of tag without his companions rag and bobtail, or at least one of them."
87. No true man. — JN"o honest man, as we should now say. Jurymen, as Malone remarks, are still styled " good men and true."
89. He plucked me ope his doublet. — Though we still use to ope in poetry, ope as an adjective is now obsolete. As for the me in such a phrase as the present, it may be considered as being in the same predicament with the my in My Lord, or the man in the French Monsieur. That is to say, it has no proper pronominal significancy, but merely serves (in so far as it has any effect) to enliven or otherwise grace the expression. How completely the pronoun is forgotten, — or we may say, quiescent — in such a case as that of Monsieur is shown by the common phrase " Mon cher monsieur." Vid. 205 and 471.
The best commentary on the use of the pronoun that we have here is the dialogue between Petrucio and his servant G-rumio, in Tarn, of Shrew, i. 2: — "Pet. Villain, I say, knock me here soundly. Gru. Knock you here, sir ? Why, sir, what am I, sir, that I should knock you
114 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT I.
here, sir ? Pet. Villain, I say, knock me at this gate, and rap me well, or I'll knock your knave's pate. Gru. My master is grown quarrelsome : I should knock you first, And then I know after who comes by the worst. . . . Hor- tensio. How now, what's the matter? . . . Gru. Look you, sir, — he bid me knock him, and rap him soundly, sir : Well, was it fit for a servant to use his master so ? ... Pet. A senseless villain ! — Good Hortensio, I bade the rascal knock upon your gate, And could not get him for my heart to do it. Gru. Knock at the gate ? — 0 heavens ! Spake you not these words plain, — ' Sirrah, knock me here, Rap me here, knock me well, and knock me soundly ? ' And come you now with — knocking at the gate ? "
89. A man of any occupation. — This is explained by Johnson as meaning " a mechanic, one of the plebeians to whom he offered his throat." But it looks as if it had more in it than that. In the Folios it is " and I had been a man;" and again in 95 "and I tell you." So also Bacon writes (Essay 23rd) : — " Certainly it is the nature of extreme self-lovers, as they will set an house on fire, and it were but to roast their eggs;" and (Essay 40th) : — " For time is to be honoured and respected, and it were but for her daughters, Confidence and Reputation."
95. Marullus and Flavins. — In this instance the Ma- rullus is Murrellus in the First Folio (instead of Murel- lus, as elsewhere).
97. 1 am promised forth. — An old phrase for I have an engagement.
102. He was quick mettle. — This is the reading of all the old copies. Mr Collier, however, in his regulated text, has mettled, but not, it would appear, on the authority of his MS. corrector. I have allowed the distinction made by the modern editors between metal and mettle to stand throughout the Play, although there can be little doubt that the latter form is merely a corruption of the former, and that the supposed two words are the same.
SC. 2.] JULIUS CJESAR. 115
In the First Folio it is always mettle ; in 16 and 105, as well as here and in 177 and 506. Dr "Webster, however, thinks that mettle may be the "Welsh mezwl or methwl, mind.
103. However Tie puts on. — "We should hardly now use however, in this sense, with the indicative mood. "We should have to say, " However he may put on." — This tardy form : this shape, semblance, of tardiness or dulness.
104. / will come home to you . . . Come home to me. — To come home to one, for to come to one's house, is an other once common phrase which is now gone out of use.
105. Think of the world. — The only meaning that this can have seems to be, Think of the state in which the world is.
105. From that it is disposed. — Here we have the omis sion, not only of the relative, which can easily be dis pensed with, but also of the preposition governing it, which is an essential part of the verb ; but, illegitimate as such syntax may be, it is common with our writers down to a date long subsequent to Shakespeare's age. Vid. 224.
105. Therefore it is meet. — It is (instead of 'tis) is the reading of the First Folio, which has been restored by Mr Knight. The excess here is* of a syllable (the fore of therefore) not quite so manageable as usual, and it makes the verse move ponderously, if we must not say halt ; but perhaps such a prosody may be thought to be in accord ance with the grave and severe spirit of the passage.
105. With their likes. — "We scarcely use this substan tive now.
105. Ccesar doth bear me hard. — Evidently an old phrase for does not like me, bears me a grudge. It occurs again in 199, and a third time in 345. In 199, and there only, the editor of the Second Folio has changed hard into hatred, in which he has been followed by the Third and Fourth Folios, and also by Rowe, Pope, Hanmer, and i 2
116 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTAEY. [ACT I.
even Capel. Mr Collier's MS. annotator restores the hard. It is remarkable that the expression, meeting us so often in this one Play, should be found nowhere else in Shakespeare. Nor have the commentators been able to refer to an instance of its occurrence in any other writer.
105. He should not humour me. — The meaning seems to be, If I were in his position (a favourite with Caesar), and he in mine (disliked by Caesar), he should not cajole, or turn and wind, me, as I now do him. He and me are to be contrasted by the emphasis, in the same manner as I and he in the preceding line. This is Warburton's ex planation ; whose remark, however, that the words convey a reflection on Brutus's ingratitude, seems unfounded. It is rather Brutus's simplicity that Cassius has in his mind. It would be satisfactory, however, if other ex amples could be produced of the use of the verb to humour in the sense assumed. Johnson appears to have quite mistaken the meaning of the passage : he takes the he to be not Brutus, but Caesar ; and his interpretation is, " his (that is, Caesar's) love should not take hold of my affec tion, so as to make me forget my principles."
105. In several hands. — Writings in several hands.
105. Let Caesar seat him sure. — Seat himself firmly (as on horseback) .
SCENE III.— The same. A Street.
Thunder and Lightning. Enter, from opposite sides, CASCA, icith his sword drawn, and CICERO.
106. Cic. Good even, Casca; Brought you Caesar home? "Why are you breathless ? and why stare you so ?
107. Casca. Are not you moved, when all the sway of earth Shakes, like a thing unfirm ? 0 Cicero,
I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds Have rived the knotty oaks ; and I have seen The ambitious ocean swell, and rage, and foam, To be exalted with the threatening clouds :
SC. 3.] JULIUS CAESAR. 117
But never till to-night, never till now, Did I go through a tempest dropping fire. Either there is a civil strife in heaven, Or else the world, too saucy with the gods, Incenses them to send destruction.
108. Cic. Why, saw you anything more wonderful ?
109. Casca. A common slave (you know him well by sight) Held up his left hand, which did flame and burn
Like twenty torches joined; and yet his hand, Not sensible of fire, remained unscorched. Besides (I have not since put up my sword), Against the Capitol I met a lion, Who glared upon me, and went surly by, "Without annoying me : And there were drawn Upon a heap a hundred ghastly women, Transformed with their fear ; who swore they saw Men, all in fire, walk up and down the streets. And yesterday the bird of night did sit, Even at noon-day, upon the market-place, Hooting, and shrieking. "When these prodigies Do so conjointly meet, let not men say, These are their reasons,— they are natural ; For, I believe, they are portentous things Unto the climate that they point upon.
110. Cic. Indeed, it is a strange-disposed time : But men may construe things after their fashion, Clean from the purpose of the things themselves. Comes Csesar to the Capitol to-morrow ?
Casca. He doth ; for he did bid Antonius Send word to you, he would be there to-morrow. 112. Cic. Good night, then, Casca: this disturbed sky Is not to walk in.
Casca. Farewell, Cicero. [Exit CICERC.
Enter CASSIUS. Gas. Who's there ? Casca. A Roman. Gas. Casca, by your voice.
117. Casca. Your ear is good. Cassius, what a night is this! Gas. A very pleasing night to honest men. Casca. Who ever knew the heavens menace so ? 120. Cas. Those that have known the earth so full of faults. For my part, I have walked about the streets, Submitting me unto the perilous night;
118 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT I.
And, thus unbraced, Casca, as you see, Have bared my bosom to the thunder-stone : And, when the cross blue lightning seemed to open The breast of heaven, I did present myself Even in the aim and very flash of it.
Casca. But wherefore did you so much tempt the heavens ? It is the part of men to fear and tremble, When the most mighty gods, by tokens, send Such dreadful heralds to astonish us. 122. Cos. You are dull, Casca; and those sparks of life That should be in a Roman you do want, Or else you use not : You look pale, and gaze, And put on fear, and cast yourself in wonder, To see the strange impatience of the heavens : But if you would consider the true cause, Why all these fires, why all these gliding ghosts, Why birds, and beasts, from quality and kind ; Why old men, fools, and children calculate ; Why all these things change from their ordinance, Their natures, and pre-formed faculties, To monstrous quality ; why, you shall find, That heaven hath infused them with these spirits, To make them instruments of fear and warning Unto some monstrous state. Now could I, Casca, Name to thee a man most like this dreadful night ; That thunders, lightens, opens graves, and roars, As doth the lion, in the Capitol : A man no mightier than thyself, or me, In personal action ; yet prodigious grown, And fearful, as these strange eruptions are.
Casca. 'Tis Caesar that you mean : Is it not, Cassius ? 124. Gas. Let it be who it is : for Romans now Have thews and limbs like to their ancestors, But, woe the while ! our fathers' minds are dead, And we are governed with our mothers' spirits ; Our yoke and sufferance show us womanish.
Casca. Indeed, they say, the senators to-morrow Mean to establish Csesar as a king : And he shall wear his crown by sea and land, In every place, save here in Italy. 126. Gas. I know where I will wear this dagger, then ; Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius : Therein, ye gods, you make the weak most strong ;
SC. 3.] JULIUS C^ESAB. H9
Therein, ye gods, you tyrants do defeat :
Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass,
Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron,
Can be retentive to the strength of spirit ;
But life, being weary of these worldly bars,
Never lacks power to dismiss itself.
If I know this, know all the world besides,
That part of tyranny that I do bear
I can shake off at pleasure. [ Thunder still.
127. Casca. So can I:
So every bondman in his own hand bears The power to cancel his captivity.
128. Gas. And why should Caesar be a tyrant, then ? Poor man ! I know, he would not be a wolf, But that he sees the Romans are but sheep :
He were no lion, were not Romans hinds. Those that with haste will make a mighty fire Begin it with weak straws : What trash is Rome. "What rubbish, and what offal, when it serves For the base matter to illuminate So vile a thing as C^sar ? But, 0, grief! Where hast thou led me ? I, perhaps, speak this Before a willing bondman : Then I know My answer must be made. But I am armed, And dangers are to me indifferent.
129. Casca. You speak to Casca ; and to such a man, That is no fleering tell-tale. Hold, my hand :
Be factious for redress of all these griefs ; And I will set this foot of mine as far As who goes farthest.
130. Cas. There's a bargain made.
Now know you, Casca, I have moved already Some certain of the noblest-minded Roman* To undergo, with me, an enterprise Of honourable-dangerous consequence ; ' And I do know by this they stay for me In Pompey's porch : for now, this fearful night There is no stir or walking in the streets ; And the complexion of the element In favour's like the work we have in hand, Most bloody, fiery, and most terrible. Enter CiNNA.
Casca. Stand close awhile, for here comes one in haste.
Cas. 'Tis Cinna, I do know him by his gait;
120 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY [ACT I.
He is a friend. — Cinna, where haste you so ?
Gin. To find out you: Who's that? Metellus Cimber ?
134. Cas. No, it is Casca; one incorporate
To our attempts. Am I not staid for, Cinna ?
135. Cin. I am glad on't. "What a fearful night is this ! There's two or three of us have seen strange sights.
136. Cas. Am I not staid for ? Tell me.
137. Cm. Yes, you are. — 0 Cassius, if you could
But win the noble Brutus to our party !
138. Cas. Be you content. Good Cinna, take this paper, And look you lay it in the praetor'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 ?
139. 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.
140. Cas. That done, repair to Pompey's theatre. [Exit CINXA. 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. 0, 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. 142. 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.
The heading of Scene III. in the old copies is only " Thunder and Lightning. Enter Casca, and Cicero."
106. Brought you Ccesar home ? — Bring, which is now ordinarily restricted to the sense of carrying liitlier (so that we cannot say Bring there), was formerly used in that of carrying or conveying generally. To bring one on his way, for instance, was to accompany him even if he had been leaving the speaker. So " Brought you Caesar home ?" is Did you go home with Caesar? The word re-
SO. 3.] JULIUS CJESAE. 121
tains its old sense in the expression To bring forth (fruit, or young), if not also in To "bring down (a bird with a gun). To fetch, again, seems always to have meant more than to "bring or to carry. "A horse cannot fetch, but only carry," says Launce in The Two Gent, of Ver. Hi. 1.
107. All the sway of earth. — Sway, swing, swagger, are probably all of the same stock with weigh, and also with wave. The sway of earth may be explained as the balanced swing of earth.
107. Like a thing unfirm. — "We have now lost the ad jective unfirm, and we have appropriated infirm almost ex clusively to the human body and mind, and their states and movements. For infirm generally we can only say not firm .
107. Have rived. — We have nearly lost this form, which is the one Shakespeare uses in the only two pas sages in which (if we may trust to Mrs Clarke) the past participle passive of the verb to rive is found in his works. The other is also in this Play : — " Brutus hath rived my heart," in 554. Milton, again, has our modern riven in the only passage of his poetry in which any part of the verb to rive occurs : — (P. L. vi. 449), " His riven arms to havoc hewn."
107. To he exalted with. — That is, in order, or in the effort, to be raised to the same height with.
107. A tempest dropping fire. — In the original text these three words are joined together by hyphens.
107. A. civil strife in heaven. — A strife in which one part of heaven wars with another.
108. Any thing more wonderful. — That is, anything more that was wonderful. So in Coriolanus, iv. 6 : —
" The slave's report is seconded, and more, More fearful, is delivered."
So also in King John, iv. 2 : —
" Some reasons of this double coronation I have possessed you with, and think them strong ; And more, more strong, .... I shall endue you with."
122 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT I.
109. You know him well ly sight. — Is it to be supposed that Casca really means to say that the common slave •whom he chanced to meet was a particular individual well known to Cicero ? Of what importance could that circumstance be? Or for what purpose should Casca notice it, even supposing him to have been acquainted with the fact that Cicero knew the man well, and yet knew him only by sight ? It is impossible not to suspect some interpolation or corruption. Perhaps the true read ing may be, " you Tcnew him well by sight," meaning that any one would have known him at once to be but a common slave (notwithstanding the preternatural appear ance, as if almost of something godlike, which his uplifted hand exhibited, burning but unhurt) .
109. Besides (I have not since, etc. — In the Folios " I ha' not since."
109. Against the Capitol. — Over against, opposite to.
109. Who glared upon me. — In all the FoKos the word is glazed. Pope first changed it to glared. Malone afterwards substituted gazed, partly on the strength of a passage in Stowe's Chronicle, — which gave Steevens an opportunity of maliciously rejoining, after quoting other instances of Shakespeare's use of glare; — "I therefore continue to repair the poet with his own animated phraseology, rather than with the cold expression sug gested by the narrative of Stowe; who, having been a tailor, was undoubtedly equal to the task of mending Shakespeare's hose, but, on poetical emergencies, must not be allowed to patch his dialogue." Glared is also the correction of Mr Collier's MS. annotator. The only other instance known of the use of glazed, in apparently the sense which it would have here, is one produced by Boswell, from King James's translation of the Urania of Du Bartas : " I gave a lusty glaise." Boswell adds that "Du Bartas' s original affords us no assistance."
109. Drawn upon a heap. — Gathered together in a heap,
SC. 3.] JULIUS C^SAK. 123
or crowd. "Among this princely heap," says Grloster in King Richard III., ii. 1. Heap was in common use in this sense throughout the seventeenth century.
109. The- bird of night.— The owl ; as the " bird of dawning" (the cock) in Hamlet, i. 1.
109. Hooting and shrieking. — Howting is the word in the first three Polios, houting in the Fourth.
109. Even at noonday, etc. — There may be a question as to the prosody of this line ; whether we are to count even a monosyllable and throw the accent upon day, or, making even a dissyllable and accenting noon, to reckon day supernumerary.
109. These are their reasons, etc. — That such and such are their reasons. It is the same form of expression that we have afterwards in 147: — "Would run to these and these extremities." But the present line has no claim to either a distinctive type or inverted commas. It is not as if it were " These are our reasons." Is it possible that Mr Collier can hold the new reading which he gives us in his one volume edition, on the authority of his MS. annotator, " These are their seasons" to be what Shakespeare really wrote ? This is their season might have been conceivable ; but who ever heard it remarked of any description of phenomena that these are their seasons ?
109. Unto the climate. — The region of the earth, ac cording to the old geographical division of the globe into so many Climates, which had no reference, or only an accidental one, to differences of temperature.
110. A strange-disposed time. — We should now have to use the adverb in this kind of combination. If we still say strange-shaped, it is because there we seem to have a substantive for the adjective to qualify; just as we have in high-mind-ed, strong-mind-ed, able-lodi-ed, and other similar forms. In other cases, again, it is the ad jective, and not the adverb, that enters into the compo sition of the verb ; thus we say strange-looking, mad-look-
124 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT T.
ing. heavy-looking, etc., because the verb is to look strange, etc* not to look strangely (which has quite another mean ing) . Foreign-built may be regarded as an irregular form ation, occasioned probably by our having no such adverb asforeignly. Even in home-built, home-baked, home-brewed, home-grown, home-made, etc., the adverb home has a mean ing (at home) which it never has when standing alone.
110. Clean from the purpose. — A use of clean (for com pletely) now come to be accounted inelegant, though common in the translation of the Bible. "From the purpose" is away from the purpose.
112. The metre of this speech stands, or rather stum bles, thus in the original edition : —
" Good-night then, Caska : This disturbed Skie is not to walke in."
117. Your ear is good, etc. — The old copies have " What night is this ?" But, notwithstanding the super numerary short syllable, the only possible reading seems to be the one which I have given ; " Cassius, what a night is this !" The a is plainly indispensable ; for surely Casca cannot be supposed to ask what day of the month it is. What he says can only be understood as an exclamation, similar to that of Cinna, in 135 : " What a fearful night is this ! " As for the slight irregularity in the prosody, it is of perpetual occurrence. Thus, only thirty lines lower down (in 122) we have an instance of it produced exactly as here : — " Name to thee a man most like this dreadful night." And so again in 155 : — " Are then in council ; and the state of a man."
120. So full of faults.— The word fault, formerly, though often signifying no more than it now does, carried sometimes (as here) a much greater weight of meaning than we now attach to at. Conf. 143.
120. TJie thunder-stone. — The thunder-stone is the /imaginary product of the thunder, which the ancients \ called Brontia, mentioned by Pliny (JV. H. xxxmi. 10) as
SC. 3.] JULIUS C^ISAB. 125
j& species of gem, and as that which, falling with the /lightning, does the mischief. It is the fossil commonly .- called the Belemnite, or Finger-stone, and now known to be a shell. We still talk of the thunder-bolt, which, how ever, is commonly confounded with the lightning. The thunder-stone was held to be quite distinct from the light ning, as may be seen from the song of Gruiderius and Arviragus in Cymbeline, iv. 2.
" Quid. Fear no more the lightning-flash. Arv. Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone."
It is also alluded to in Othello, v. 2 : —
" Are there no stones in heaven, But what serve for the thunder ? "
122. You are dull, etc. — The commencement of this speech is a brilliant specimen of the blank verse of the original edition : —
" You are dull, Caska :
And those sparkes of Life, that should be in a Roman, , You doe want, or else you use not. You looke pale, and gaze, and put on feare, And cast your selfe in wonder, To see," etc.
122. Cast yourself in wonder.. — Does this mean throw yourself into a paroxysm of wonder ? Or may cast your- self mean cast your self, or your mind, about, as in idle conjecture ? The Commentators are mute. Shakespeare sometimes has in where we should now use into. In an earlier stage of the language, the distinction now estab lished between in and into was constantly disregarded ; and in some idiomatic expressions, the radical fibres of a national speech, we still have in used to express what is commonly and regularly expressed by into. To fall in love is a familiar example. Perhaps we continue to say in love as marking more forcibly the opposition to what Julia in the concluding line of The Two Gentlemen of
126 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT I.
Verona calls out of love. The expression cast yourself in wonder seems to be most closely paralleled by another in King Richard III., i. 3 :— " Clarence, whom I, indeed, have cast in darkness," as it stands in the First Folio, although the preceding Quartos (of which there were five, 1597, 1598, 1602, 1612 or 1613, 1622) have all "laid in darkness." We have another instance of Shakespeare's use of in where we should now say into in the familiar lines in The Merchant of Venice, v. 1 ; —
" How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank ! Here we will sit, and let the sounds of music Creep in our ears."
122. Why old men, etc. — Blackstone's novel pointing of this passage is ingenious : — " Why old men fools " (i. e. why we have all these fires, etc., why we have old men fools). But the amendment is hardly required; or, at any rate, it would not go far to give us a perfectly satis factory text. Nor does there seem to be any necessity for assigning to calculate the singular sense of prophesy (which the expression adduced by Johnson, to calculate a nativity, is altogether insufficient to authorize). There is probably some corruption ; but the present line may be very well understood as meaning merely, why not only old men, but even fools and children, speculate upon the future; or, still more simply, why all persons, old and young, and the foolish as well as the wise, take part in such speculating and prognosticating. Shakespeare may have been so far from thinking, with Blackstone, that it was something unnatural and prodigious for old men ever to be fools, that he has even designed to classify them with foolish persons generally, and with children, as specially disqualified for looking with any very deep in sight into the future. And so doubtless they are apt to be, when very old.
122. Unto some monstrous state. — That is, I suppose,
SO. 3.] JULIUS CJESAR. 127
some monstrous or unnatural state of things (not some overgrown commonwealth) .
122. And roars, etc. — That is, roars in the Capitol as doth the lion. Many readers, I believe, go away with the notion that Caesar is here compared by Cassius to some live lion that was kept in the Capitol. Or perhaps it may be sometimes imagined that he alludes to the same lion which Casca (though not in his hearing) has just been telling Cicero that he had met " against the Capitol." — The Second and two following Polios have tears for roars. Mr Collier, however, prints roars, although it is not stated that that word is restored by his MS. anno- tator.
122. No mightier than thyself, or me. — Of course, in strict grammar it should be than I. But the personal pronouns must be held to be, in some measure, emanci pated from the dominion or tyranny of syntax. Who would rectify even Shelley's bold
" lest there be No solace left for thou and me ? "
The grammatical law has so slight a hold that a mere point of euphony is deemed sufficient to justify the neglect of it.
As we have me for I in the present passage, we have / for me in Antonio's " All debts are cleared between you and I" {Merchant of Venice, in. 2). Other examples of the same irregularity are the following : —
" Which none but Heaven, and you and I, shall hear."
King John, i. 1. "Which none may hear but she and thou."
Coleridge, Day Dream.
In both these passages but can only be the preposition. So where Corin, in his conversation with Touchstone, in As You Like It, Hi. 2, says, " You told me you salute not at the court but you kiss your hands," he does not
123
PHILOLOGICAL COMMEXTABY.
[ACT i.
mean that there is no saluting at court, only kissing of hands, hut that people never salute without kissing hands. There ought to be no comma after court. The form of phrase is the same that we have afterwards in Hi. 5 : —
" The common executioner . . . Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck But first begs pardon ; " —
that is, without first asking pardon.
• 124. Let it be who it, is. — Not who it may be ; Cassius, in his present mood, is ahove that subterfuge. While he abstains from pronouncing the name, he will not allow it to be supposed that there is any doubt about the actual existence of the man he has been describing.
124. Thews and limbs. — The common signification of the word thews in our old writers is manners, or qualities of mind and disposition. This is the sense in which it is always used both by Chaucer and by Spenser. It is also the only sense of the Original English theaw. And even at a comparatively late date any other sense seems to have been felt to be strange. The editors of the Third and Fourth Folios (1664 and 1685) substitute sinews in the present passage. Pope, on the other hand, retaining, or restoring, thews, explains it as meaning here manners or capacities. But, even if the true meaning of the word were disputable in this passage considered by itself, the other instances of its use by Shakespeare would clearly show what sense he attached to it. They are only two. " Care I," says Falstaff, in the Second Part of King Henry IV., Hi. 2, "for the limb, the thews, the stature, bulk, and big assemblance of a man ? Give me the spirit, Master Shallow." And exactly in the same way it is used by Laertes in Hamlet, i. 3 : —
" For nature, crescent, does not grow alone In thews and bulk ; but, as this temple waxes, The inward service of the mind and soul Grows wide withal."
SO. 3.] JULIUS CJESAK. 129
In all the three passages by thews Shakespeare means unquestionably brawn, nerves, muscular vigour. And to this sense, and this only, the word has now settled down ; the other sense, which was formerly so familiar in our literature, is quite gone out and forgotten. Shakespeare's use of it had probably been always common in the popular language. There appear in fact to have been two Ori ginal English words, tlieaw and tJieozu, the latter the ori ginal of our modern thigh and also of Shakespeare's ihew. It is preserved, too, in the Scottish thowless, meaning feeble or sinewless. Only one or two instances, however, have been discovered of the word being used by any other English writer before Shakespeare in his sense of it. One is given by Nares from G-eorge Turbervile, who, in his translation of Ovid's Epistles, first printed in 1567, has " the thews of Helen's passing [that is, surpassing] form." In the earlier version of Layamorfs Brut, also, which belongs to the end of the twelfth century, we have in one place (verse 6361), " Monnene strongest of maine and of theawe of alle thissere theode " (of men strongest of main, or' strength, and of sinew, of all this land). But Sir Frederic Madden remarks (III. 471) : — " This is the only instance in the poem of the word being applied to bodily qualities, nor has any other passage of an earlier date than the sixteenth century been found in which it is so used." It may be conjectured that it had only been a provincial word in this sense, till Shakespeare adopted it.
124. But, woe the while ! — This, I believe, is commonly understood to mean, alas for the present time ; but may not the meaning, here at least, rather be, alas for what hath come to pass in the mean while, or in the interval that has elapsed since the better days of our heroic an cestors ?
124. And we are governed with. — We now commonly employ ly to denote agency, and witli where there is only instrumentality ; but that distinction was not formerly so
n
130 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT I.
fully established, and with was used more frequently than it is with us. Shakespeare even has (Rich. II., Hi. 3) " I live with bread like you, feel want, taste grief."
126. / know where I will wear this dagger, then. — The true meaning of this line is ruined by its being printed, as it is in the old, and also in most of the modern editions, without the comma. Cassius does not intend to be under stood as intimating that he is prepared to plunge his dagger into his heart at that time, but in that case.
126. Can be retentive to. — Can retain or confine the spirit.
126. If I know this, etc. — The logical connexion of " If I know this " is with " That part of tyranny," etc. ; but there is also a rhetorical connexion with " Know all the world besides." As if he had said, " Knowing this, I can shake off, etc. ; and, I knowing this, let all others too know and be aware that I can," etc.
127. The power to cancel, etc. — Here, it will be observed, we have power reduced to a monosyllable, although it had been employed as a dissyllable only five lines before, " Never lacks power," etc.
128. He were no lion, etc. — His imagination is still filled with the image by which he has already pictured the tyranny of the Dictator ; — " roars, as doth the lion, in the Capitol."— Hind, a she stag, is correctly formed from the Original English hinde, of the same meaning ; our other hind, a peasant, was originally hine and hina, and has taken the d only for the sake of a fuller or firmer enunciation. It may be noted, however, that, although there is a natural tendency in certain syllables to seek this addition of breadth or strength, it is most apt to operate when it is aided, as here, by the existence of some other word or form to which the d properly belongs. Thus, soun (from sonner and sono) has probably been the more easily converted into sound from having become confounded in the popular ear and understanding with
SC. 3.] JULIUS (LESAE. 131
the adjective sound and the verb to sound, meaning to search; and such . obsolete or dialectic forms as drownd and swound (for drown and swoon) may be supposed to have been the more readily produced through the mis leading influence of the parts of the verb which actually and properly end in d or ed. As we have confounded the old hinde and Jiine, so we have also the Original English herd, or heord, meaning a flock or crowd (the modern German heerde), with hyrd, meaning a keeper or tender (the modern German Tiirt) ; our one form for both being now herd.
128. My answer must be made. — I must answer for what I have said.
129. To such a man, That is, etc. — Vid. 57.— To fleer (or flear, as is the old spelling) is to mock, or laugh at. The word appears to have come to us from the Norse or Scandinavian branch of the Gothic, — one of the roots of our English tongue which recent philology has almost abjured, although, besides all else, we owe to it even forms of such perpetual occurrence as the are of the substantive verb and the ordinary sign of our modern genitive (for such a use of the preposition of, common to us with the Swedish, is unknown to the classical English of the times before the Norman Conquest, although we have it in full activity, probably adopted from the popular speech of the northern counties, in the written language of the twelfth century) .
129. Hold, my hand. — That is, Have, receive, take hold (of it) ; there is my hand. The comma is distinctly marked in the early editions.
129. Be factious for redress of all these griefs. — Here factious seems to mean nothing more than active or urgent, although everywhere else, I believe, in Shakespeare the word is used in the same disreputable sense which it has at present. Griefs (the form still used in the French language, and retained in our own with another meaning) K 2
132 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT I.
is his by far more common word for what we now call grievances, although he has that form too occasionally (which Milton nowhere employs). Vid. 436.
130. To undergo, with me, an enterprise. — We should now rather say to undertake where there is anything to be done.
130. Of honourable-dangerous. — These two words were probably intended to make a compound adjective, although the hyphen with which they are connected by most of the modern editors is not in the oldest printed text. The language does not now, at least in serious composition, indulge in compounds of this description. Shakespeare, however, has apparently several such. Thus : —
"More active- valiant, or more valiant-young."
1 Hen. IV., v. 1.
"But pardon me, I am too sudden-bold."
Love's Lab. Lost, ii. 1.
" More fertile-fresh than all the field to see."
Mer. W. of Wind., v. 5. " So full of shapes is fancy, That it alone is high-fantastical." —
Twelfth Night, i. 1.
130. .% this they stay for me. — That is, by this time. And it is a mode of expression which, like so many others which the language once possessed, we have now lost. Yet we still say, in the same sense, ere this, before this, after this, the preposition in these phrases being felt to be suggestive of the notion of time in a way that by is not.
130. There is no . . . walking. — In another connexion this might mean, that there was no possibility of walking ; but here the meaning apparently is that there was no walking going on.
130. The complexion of the element. — That is, of the heaven, of the sky. North, in his Plutarch, speaks of " the fires in the element." The word in this sense was much in favour with the fine writers or talkers of Shake-
SC. 3.] JULIUS CAESAR. 133
speare's day. He has a hit at the affectation in his Twelfth Night, Hi. 1, where the Clown, conversing with Viola, says, " Who you are, and what you would, are out of niy welkin : I might say, element : but the word is overworn." Of course, welkin is, and is intended to be, far more absurd. Yet we have element for the sky or the air in other passages besides the present. Thus : —
" The element itself, .... Shall not behold her face at ample view."
Twelfth Night, i. 1.
" I, in the clear sky of fame, o'ershine you as much as the full moon doth the cinders of the element, which show like pins' heads to her" (Falstaff, in 2 Hen. IV., iv. 3).
It is curious to find writers of the present day who are scrupulous about the more delicate proprieties of expres sion still echoing Shakespeare's dissatisfaction : " The ter ritorial element, to use that favourite word," says Hallam, Mid. Ages, I. 297 (edit, of 1855), probably without any thought of the remark of the all-observing dramatist two centuries and a half before.
130. In favour's like the ivork. — The reading in all the Folios is "Is favors" (or "favours " for the Third and Fourth). The present reading, which is that generally adopted, was first proposed by Johnson ; and it has the support, it seems, of Mr Collier's MS. annotator. Favour, as we have seen (vid. 54), means aspect, appearance, features. Another emendation that has been proposed (by Steevens) is "Is favoured." But to say that the complexion of a thing is either featured like, or in feature like, to something else is very like a tautology. I should be strongly inclined to adopt Heed's ingenious conjecture, " Is feverous," which he supports by quoting from Mac beth, ii. 3, " Some say the earth Was feverous and did shake." So also in Coriolanus, i. 4 ; — " Thou mad'st thine enemies shake, as if the world Were feverous and did tremble." Feverous is exactly the sort of word that, if
134 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT I.
not very distinctly written, would be apt to puzzle and be mistaken by a compositor. It may perhaps count, too, for something, though not very much, against both " favour's like " and " favoured like " that a very decided comma separates the two words in the original edition.
134. One incorporate To our attempts.— One of our body, one united with us in our enterprise. The expression has probably no more emphatic import.
135. There's two or three. — The contraction there's is still used indifferently with a singular or a plural ; though there is scarcely would be.
136. Am I not staid for ? — This is the original reading, which has been restored by Mr Knight. The common modern reading is, " Am I not staid for, Cinna ? " the last word being inserted (and that without notice, which is unpardonable) only to satisfy the supposed demands of the prosody.
137. This speech stands thus in the First Folio : —
"Yes, you are. 0 Cassius, If you could but winne the Noble Brutus To our party—."
The common metrical arrangement is : —
"Yes,
You are. 0 Cassius, if you could but win The noble Brutus to our party."
No person either having or believing himself to have a true feeling of the Shakespearian rhythm can believe this to be right. Nor am I better satisfied with Mr Knight's distribution of the lines, although it is adopted by Mr Collier :—
" Yes, you are.
0, Cassius, if you could but win the noble Brutus, To our party ; "
which gives us an extended line equally unmusical and undignified whether read rapidly or slowly, followed (to make matters worse which were bad enough already) by
SC. 3.] JULIUS CJESAE. 135
what could scarcely make the commencement of any kind of line. I cannot doubt that, whatever we are to do with " Yes, you are," — whether we make these comparatively unimportant words the completion of the line of which Cassius's question forms the beginning, or take them along with what follows, which would give us a line want ing only the first syllable (and deriving, perhaps, from that mutilation an abruptness suitable to the occasion) — the close of the rhythmic flow must be as I have given it:—
" 0 Cassius, if you could But win the noble Brutus to our party."
138. Where 'Brutus may lutfind it. — If lut be the true word (and be not a misprint for best), the meaning must be, Be sure you lay it in the praetor's chair, only taking care to place it so that Brutus may be sure to find it.
138. Upon old Brutus' statue. — Lucius Brutus, who expelled the Tarquins, the reputed ancestor of Marcus Lucius Brutus ; also alluded to in 56, " There was a Brutus once," etc.
139. / will Me. — To hie (meaning to hasten) is used reflectively, as well as intransitively, but not otherwise as an active verb. Its root appears to be the Original Eng lish hyge, meaning mind, study, earnest application; whence the various verbal forms hyggan, hygian, hiegan, higgan, higian, hogian, hugian, and perhaps others-. Hug is probably another modern derivative from the same root.
139. And so bestow these papers. — This use of bestow (for to place, or dispose of) is now gone out; though something of it still remains in stow.
140. Pompey's theatre. — The same famous structure of Pompey's, opened with shows and games of unparalleled cost and magnificence some ten or twelve years before the present date, which has been alluded to in 130 and 138.
142. You, have right well conceited. — To conceit is an-
136 PIIILOLOQICAL COiliTENTAET. [ACT IT.
other form of our still familiar to conceive. And the noun conceit, which survives with a limited meaning (the con ception of a man by himself, which is so apt to be one of over-estimation), is also frequent in Shakespeare with the sense, nearly, of what we now call conception, in general. So in 349. Sometimes it is used in a sense which might almost be said to be the opposite of what it now means ; as when Juliet (in Romeo and Juliet, ii. 5) employs it as the term to denote her all-absorbing affection for Borneo : —
" Conceit, more rich in matter than in words, Brags of his substance, not of ornament : They are but beggars that can count their worth ; But my true love is grown to such excess, I cannot sum the sum of half my wealth."
Or as when Gratiano, in The Merchant of Venice, i. 1, speaks of a sort of men who
" do a wilful stillness entertain, With purpose to be dressed in an opinion Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit" —
that is, deep thought.
So, again, when Eosaline, in Love's Labour's Lost, ii. I, speaking of Biron, describes his " fair tongue " as " con ceit's expositor," all that she means is that speech is the expounder of thought. The scriptural expression, still in familiar use, " wise in his own conceit " means merely wise in his own thought, or in his own eyes, as we are told in the margin the Hebrew literally signifies. In the New Testament, where we have " in their own conceits," the Greek is simply Trap' law-cue (in or with themselves).
ACT II.
SCENE I.— The same. BRUTUS' s Orchard.
Enter BRUTUS. 143. Bru. TVhat, Lucius! ho!
I cannot, by the progress of the stars,
SO. 1.] JULIUS CJESAB. 137
Give guess how near to day. — Lucius, I say !— I would it were my fault to sleep so soundly. — When, Lucius ? when ? Awake, I say : What, Lucius !
Enter Lucius. Luc. Called you, my Lord ? Bru. Get me a taper in my study, Lucius : When it is lighted, come and call me here.
Luc. I will, my lord. [Exit.
147. Bru'. It must be by his death : and, for my part, I know no personal cause to spurn at him,
But for the general. He would be crowned : —
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 Tiim ? — 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
Eemorte from power; and, to speak truth of Caesar,
I have not known when his affections swayed
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,
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,
Would run to these and these extremities :
And therefore think him as a serpent's egg,
Which, hatched, would, as his kind, grow mischievous ;
And kill him in the shell.
Re-enter Lucius.
148. Luc. The taper burneth in your closet, Sir. Searching the window for a flint, I found This paper, thus sealed up ; and, I am sure,
It did not lie there when I went to bed. [ Gives him the letter.
149. 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.
138 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT II.
Luc. I will, Sir. [Exit.
153. Bru. The exhalations, whizzing in the air, Give so much light, that I may read hy them.
[ Opens the letter, and reads. " Brutus, thou sleep1 st; awake, and see thyself.
Shall Rome, 8$c. Speak, strike, redress!''
Brutus, thou sleep' st ; awake. Such instigations have been often dropped Where I have took them up. Shall Rome, t$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 called a king. Speak, strike, redress! Am I entreated
To speak, and strike ? 0 Rome ! I make thee promise, If the redress will follow, thou receivest Thy full petition at the hand of Brutus. Re-enter Lucres.
154. Luc. Sir, March is wasted fourteen days. [Knock within.
155. Bru. 'Tis good. Go to the gate ; somebody knocks.
[Exit Lucius.
Since Cassius first did whet me against Caesar, 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 : 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.
Re-enter Lucius.
156. Luc. Sir, 'tis your brother Cassius at the door, "Who doth desire to see you.
Bru. Is he alone ?
158. Luc. No, Sir, there are moe with him. Bru. Do you know them ?
160. Luc. No, Sir; their hats are pluckt about their ears, And half their faces buried in their cloaks,
That by no means I may discover them By any mark of favour.
161. Bru. Let 'em enter. [Exit Lucius
SC. 1.] JULIUS CJESAE. 139
They are the faction. 0 Conspiracy !
Sham'st thou to show thy dangerous brow by night,
When evils are most free ! 0, then, by day,
"Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough
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.
Enter CASSIUS, CASCA, DECIUS, CINNA, METELLUS CIMBER, and TEEBONIUS.
162. 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. He is welcome too. 168. 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.
173. Cin. 0, pardon, Sir, it doth ; and yon grey lines, That fret the clouds, are messengers of day.
174. Casca. You shall confess, that you are both deceived. 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,
175. Bru. Give me your hands all over, one by one. Cas. And let us swear our resolution.
177. Bru. No, not an oath : If not the face of men,
140
PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY.
[ACT ii.
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 Komans, that have spoke the word, And will not palter ? And what other oath, Than honesty to honesty engaged 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, If he do break the smallest particle Of any promise that hath passed from him. 178. Cos. But what of Cicero ? Shall we sound him ? I think, he will stand very strong with us.
Casca. Let us not leave him out.
Cm. No, by no means.
181. Met. 0 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 ruled our hands ; Our youths, and wildness, shall no whit appear, But all be buried in his gravity.
182. Bru. 0, name him not; let us not break with him; For he will never follow anything
That other men begin. Cas. Then leave him out. Casca. Indeed, he is not fit.
Dec. Shall no man else be touched but only Caesar ? 186. Cas. Decius, well urged : — I think it is not meet,
SC. 1.] JULIUS CJ3SAE. 141
Mark Antony, so well beloved of Csesar, 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, Let Antony and Caesar fall together. 187- 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 : For Antony is but a limb of Csesar. Let us be sacrificers, but not butchers, Cains. We all stand up against the spirit of Csesar ; And in the spirit of men there is no blood : 0, that we then could come by Caesar's spirit, And not dismember Caesar ! But, alas, 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, Stir up their servants to an act of rage, And after seem to chide 'em. This shall mark Our purpose necessary, and not envious : Which so appearing to the common eyes, We shall be called purgers, not murderers. And for Mark Antony, think not of him ; For he can do no more than Caesar's arm When Caesar's head is off.
188. Gas. Yet I do fear him .
For in the ingrafted love he bears to Caesar,
189. Bru. Alas, good Cassius, do not think of him : 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.
190. Treb. There is no fear in him; let him not die ;
For he will live, and laugh at this hereafter. [Clock strikes,
Bru. Peace, count the clock. 192. Cas. The clock hath stricken three.
Treb. 'Tis time to part. 194. Cas. But it is doubtful yet
Whether Caesar will come forth to-day or no : For he is superstitious grown of late ;
142
PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT II.
Quite from the main opinion he held once
Of fantasy, of dreams, and ceremonies ;
It may be, these apparent prodigies,
The unaccustomed terror of this night,
And the persuasion of his augurers,
May hold him from the Capitol to-day. 195. Dec. Never fear that : If he he so resolved,
I can o'ersway him : for he loves to hear
That unicorns may be betrayed 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.
Cos. Nay, we will all of us be there to fetch him. 197. Bru. By the eighth hour : Is that the uttermost ? Cin. Be that the uttermost, and fail not then.
199. Met. Caius Ligarius doth bear Caesar hard, "WTio rated him for speaking well of Pompey ; I wonder none of you have thought of him.
200. 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.
201. Cas. The morning comes upon us : We'll leave you, Brutus :— And, friends, disperse yourselves : but all remember
What you have said, and show yourselves true Romans.
202. Bru. Good gentlemen, look fresh and merrily ; Let not our looks put on our purposes :
But bear it as our Roman actors do,
With untired 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 heavy honey-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.
Enter PORTIA. For. Brutus, my lord !
Bru. Portia, what mean you ? Wherefore rise you now ? It is not for your health, thus to commit
SC. 1.] JULIUS CJESAE. 143
Your weak condition to the raw-cold morning. 205. For. Nor for yours neither. You've ungently, Brutus, Stole from my bed : And yesternight, at supper, You suddenly arose, and walked about, Musing, and sighing, with your arms across : And, when I asked you what the matter was, You stared upon me with ungentle looks : I urged you further ; then you scratched your head, And too impatiently stamped with your foot : Yet I insisted, yet you answered 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 seemed 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 prevailed 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.
For. 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. 209. For. 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, 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 Have had resort to you : for here have been Some six or seven, who did hide their faces Even from darkness.
144 PHILOLOGICAL COMttENTABY. [ACT II.
Bru. Kneel not, gentle Portia.
211. For. 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.
Bru. You are my true and honourable wife ; As dear to me as are the ruddy drops That visit my sad heart.
213. For. 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; Gate's daughter.
Think you, I am no stronger than my sex,
Being so fathered,, 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
Here, in the thigh : Can I bear that with patience,
And not my husband's secrets ?
214. Bni. 0 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
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.
Enter Lucius and LIGARIUS.
Lucius, who's 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 ?
217. Lig. Vouchsafe good-morrow from a feeble tongue.
218. Bru. 0, 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
SC. 1.] JULIUS (LESAK. 145
Any exploit worthy the name of honour.
Bru. Such an exploit have I in hand, Ligarius, Had you a healthful ear to hear of it. 221. Lig. By all the gods that Romans bow before I here discard my sickness. Soul of Rome ! Brave son, derived from honourable loins ! Thou, like an exorcist, hast conjured up My mortified spirit. Now bid me run, And I will strive with things impossible , Yea, get the better of them. What's to do ?
Bru. A piece of work that will make sick men whole.
Lig. But are not some whole, that we must make sick r
224. Bru. That must we also. What it is, my Caius, I shall unfold to thee, as we are going
To whom it must be done.
225. Lig. Set on your foot;
And, with a heart new-fired, I follow you, To do I know not what : but it sufficeth, That Brutus leads me on. Bru. Follow me then. [Exeunt.
Scene I. — The heading here in the Folios (in which there is no division into Scenes), is merely " Enter Brutus in Ms Orchard."'' Assuming that Brutus was probably not possessed of what we now call distinctively an orchard (which may have been the case), the modern editors of the earlier part of the last century took upon them to change Orchard into Garden. But this is to carry the work of rectification (even if we should admit it to be such) beyond what is warrantable. To deprive Brutus in this way of his orchard was to mutilate or alter Shakespeare's conception. It is probable that the words Orchard and Garden, were commonly understood in the early part of the seventeenth century in the senses which they now bear ; but there is nothing in their etymology to support the manner in which they have come to be distinguished. In Much Ado About Nothing, ii. 3, al though the scene is headed " Leonato's Garden," Benedick, sending the Boy for a book from his chamber-window,
liG PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTABY. [ACT II.
says, " Bring it hither to me in the orchard." A Garden (or yard, as it is still called in Scotland) means merely a piece of ground girded in or enclosed ; and an Orchard (properly Ortyard) is, literally, such an enclosure for worts, or herbs. At one time Orchard used to be written Hortyard, under the mistaken notion that it was derived from hortus (which may, however, be of the same stock) .
143. How near to day. — How near it may be to the day.
143. / would it were my fault. — Compare the use of fault here with its sense in 120.
143. When, Lucius ? when ? — This exclamation had not formerly the high tragic or heroic sound which it would now have. It was merely a customary way of calling impatiently to one who had not obeyed a previous sum mons. So in Richard the Second (i. 2) John of Gaunt calls to his son — " When, Harry ? when ? Obedience bids, I should not bid again."
147. But for the general. — The general was formerly a common expression for what we now call the community or the people. Thus Angelo in Measure for Measure, ii. 4 :—
" The general, subject to a well- wished king, Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness Crowd to his presence."
147. And that craves. — It might be questioned whether that here be the demonstrative (as it is commonly con sidered) or the relative (to the antecedent " the bright
day").
147. Crown him? That. — Here the emphatic that ap pears to be used exactly as so (etymologically of the same import) often is. Vid. 57. Either, or any equivalent term, thus used, might obviously serve very well for the sign of affirmation ; in the present passage we might sub stitute yes for that with the same effect. It used to be held that the French oui, anciently oyl, was merely the
SC. 1.] JULIUS C^SAE. 147
ill of the classic ill-e, ill-a, ill-ud, and that the old Pro- ven£al oc was hoc. It appears however, that oui or oyl is really voul (oTj'e voul), the old present of vouloir. The common word for yes in Italian, again, si (not unknown in the same sense to the French tongue), may be another form of so. The three languages used to be distinguished as the Langue d'Oyl (or Lingua Oytana), the Langue d'Oc (or Lingua Occitana), and the Lingua di Si. — The point ing in the First Polio here is " Crowne him that, And then," etc.
147. Do danger. — Danger, which we have borrowed from the French, is a corruption of the middle age Latin domigerium, formed from damno. It is, in fact, radically the same with damage. A detail of the variations of meaning which the word has undergone in both languages wrould make a long history. In French also it anciently bore the same sense (that of mischief) which it has here. Sometimes, again, in both languages, it signified power to do mischief or to injure ; as when Portia, in The Merchant of Venice (iv. 1), speaking to Antonio of Shylock, says, " You stand within his danger, do you not ? "
147. The abuse of greatness is, etc. — The meaning ap parently is, " The abuse to which greatness is most subject is when it deadens in its possessor the natural sense of humanity, or of that which binds us to our kind ; and this I do not say that it has yet done in the case of Caesar; I have never known that in him selfish affection, or mere passion, has carried it over reason." Remorse is generally used by Shakespeare in a wider sense than that to which it is now restricted. •
147. But 'tis a common proof. — A thing commonly proved or experienced (what commonly, as we should say, proves to be the case).
A frequent word with Shakespeare for to prove is to approve. Thus, in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, v. 4, we have —
L 2
1-18 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT II.
" 0, 'tis the curse in love, and still approved, When women cannot love where they're beloved."
So, in Much Ado About Nothing, we have, in iv. 1, " an approved wanton," and afterwards " Is he not approved in the height a villain ? " When Don Pedro in the same Play, ii. 1, describes Benedick as " of approved valour," the words cannot be understood as conveying any notion jof what we now call approval, or approbation ; the mean ing is merely, that he had proved his valour by his con duct. This is, no doubt, also, the meaning of the word in the last verse of Sir Thomas Wyat's passionately earnest lines entitled " To his Mistress " (supposed to be Anne Boleyn) : —
" Forget not, then, thine own approved, The which so long hath thee so loved, Whose steadfast faith yet never moved ; Forget not this ! "
So in Hamlet, i. 1, Marcellus says, speaking of Horatio and the Ghost, —
" 1 have entreated him along
With us to watch the minutes of this night,
That, if again this apparition come,
He may approve our eyes, and speak to it ; "
that is, prove our eyes true. And in Meas.for Meets., i. 3, Claudio says, —
" This day my sister should the cloister enter, And there receive her approbation" —
for what we now ca\\. probation. This sense of the word (which we still retain in" the law-term an approver, in Latin prolator) occurs repeatedly both in the Bible and in Milton, and in fact is the most common sense which it has in our earlier English. It is strange that it should not be noticed at all by Nares, and that the only reference for it in Boucher is in the following insertion by Stephen- 8on : — " To bring proof of. — ' Matabrun in likewise en-
SC. 1.] JULIUS C^SAE. 149
devored her on the other syde to approve the said iniury . . . bi hir commised and pnrpensed.' — Heylas, p. 27."
147. Whereto the climber upward, etc. — There is no hyphen in the original text connecting climber and upward, as there is in some modern editions ; but any doubt as to whether the adverb should be taken along with climber or with turns might be held to be determined by the expression in Macbeth, iv. 2 : — " Things at the worst will cease, or else climb upwards To what they were before."
147. The upmost round. — The step of a ladder has come to be called a round, I suppose, from its being usually cylindrically shaped. Mr Knight (whose collation of the old copies is in general so remarkably careful) has here (probably by a typographical error) utmost.
147. The base degrees. — The lower steps of the ladder — les bas degres (from the Latin gradus) of the French. The epithet base, however, must be understood to express something of contempt, as well as to designate the position of the steps.
147. By which he did ascend. — It is not the syntax of our modern English to use the auxiliary verb in such a case as this. Vid. 16.
147. Then, lest he may, prevent. — "We should not now say to prevent lest. But the word prevent continued to convey its original import of to come before more distinctly in Shakespeare's day than it does now. Vid. 161 and 709.
147. Will bear no colour for the thing he M.— "Will take no shew, no plausibility, no appearance of being a just quarrel, if professed to be founded upon what Caesar at present actually is. The use of colour, and colourable, in this sense is still familiar.
147. What he is, augmented. — What he now is, if aug mented or heightened (as it is the nature of things that it should be).
147. Would run to these, etc. — To such and such ex-
150 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTABY. [ACT II.
tremities (which we must suppose to be stated and explained). Vid. 109.
147. Think him as. — The verb to think has now lost this sense, though we might still say " Think him a ser pent's egg," " Think him good, or wicked," and also "To think a good or evil thought."
147. As his kind. — Like his species.
147. And kill him in the shell. — It is impossible not to feel the expressive effect of the hemistich here. The line itself is, as it were, killed in the shell.
148. This speech is headed in the Folios "Enter Lucius" The old stage direction, " Gives him the Letter,'' is omitted by most of the modern editors.
149. The ides of March. — The reading of all the ancient copies is " ihe first of March ; " it was Theobald who first made the correction, which has been adopted by all suc ceeding editors (on the ground that the day was actually that of the ides). At the same time, it does not seem to be impossible that the poet may have intended to present a strong image of the absorption of Brutus by making him forget the true time of the month. The reply of Lucius after consulting the Calendar — "Sir, March is wasted fourteen days " — sounds very much as if he were correcting rather than confirming his master's notion. Against this view we have the considerations stated by Warburton: — "We can never suppose the speaker to have lost fourteen days in his account. He is here plainly ruminating on what the Soothsayer told Ca3sar [i. 2] in his presence [Beware the ides of March~\" Mr Collier also prints " the ides ; " but the correction does not ap pear to be made by his MS. annotator. Mr Knight, I apprehend, must be mistaken in saying that Shakespeare found "the first of March" in North's Plutarch: the present incident is not, I believe, anywhere related by Plutarch.
153. Brutus, thou sleep1 st ; awalce. — I have endeavour-
SC. 1.] JULIUS C^SAK. 151
ed to indicate b y the printing that the second enunciation of these words is a repetition by Brutus to himself, and not, as it is always made to appear, a further portion of the letter. The letter unquestionably concluded with the emphatic adjuration, " Speak, strike, redress ! " It never, after this, would have proceeded to go over the ground again in the same words that had been already used. They would have only impaired the effect, and would have been quite inappropriate in their new place. We see how the speaker afterwards repeats in the like manner each of the other clauses before commenting upon it.
153. Where I have tooTc.—Vid. 46.
153. Speak, strike, redress ! — Am I entreated, etc. — The expression is certainly not strengthened by the then which was added to these words by Hanmer, in the notion that it was required by the prosody, and has been retained by Steevens and other modern editors. At the same time Mr Knight's doctrine, that " a pause, such as must be made after redress, stands in the place of a syllable," will, at any rate, not do here ; for we should want two syllables after redress. The best way is* to regard the supposed line as being in reality two hemistichs ; or to treat the words repeated from the letter as no part of the verse. How otherwise are we to manage the preceding quotation, " ShaU Eome, etc." ?
153. I make thee promise. — I make promise to tbee. In another connexion, the words might mean I make thee to promise. The Second Polio has " the promise." The heading that follows this speech, and also 155, in the First Eolio is Enter Lucius.
153. Thou receivest. — Mr Collier prints receiv'st, — it is not apparent wh}r.
154. March is wasted fourteen days. — In all the old edi tions it is fifteen. The correction was made by Theobald. Vid. 149. Mr Collier has also fourteen; but he does not here appear to have the authority of his MS. annotator.
152 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT II.
— The heading which precedes is " Enter Lucius " in the original text.
155. The genius and the mortal instruments.— The com mentators have written and disputed lavishly upon these celebrated words. Apparently, by the genius we are to understand the contriving and immortal mind, and most probably the mortal instruments are the earthly passions. The best light for the interpretation of the present passage is reflected from 186, where Brutus, advising with his fellow conspirators on the manner in which they should dispatch their mighty victim, not as blood-thirsty butch ers, but as performing a sacrifice of which they lamented the necessity, says : —
" Let our hearts, as subtle masters do, Stir up their servants to an act of rage, And after seem to chide 'em."
The servants here may be taken to be the same with the instruments in the passage before us. It has been pro posed to understand by the mortal instruments the bodily powers or organs ; but it is not obvious how these could be said to hold consultation with the genius or mind. Neither could they in the other passage be so fitly said to be stirred up by the heart.
The bodily organs, however, seem to be distinctly desig nated the instruments and agents, in Coriolanus, i. 1, where, first, Menenius Agrippa says, in his apologue of the rebel lion of the other members of the body against the belly, —
" The other instruments Did see and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel, And, mutually participate, did minister Unto the appetite and affection common Of the whole body"—
and, shortly after, the Second Citizen asks, —
" The former agents, if they did complain, What could the belly answer? "
So again, in Macbeth, i. 7 : —
SC. 1.] JULIUS C2ESAE. 153
" I am settled, and bent up Each corporal agent to this terrible feat."
We have, apparently, the word Genius used for the spirit or mind in what the Duke says, in The Comedy of Errors, v. 1, of the two Antipholuses and the two Dromios : —
" One of these men is genius to the other ; And so of these : which is the natural man, And which the spirit ? "
155. And the state of a man. — This is the original read ing, in which the prosodical irregularity is nothing more than what frequently occurs. The common reading omits the article. There is certainly nothing gained in vivid ness of expression by so turning the concrete into the abstract. We have elsewhere, indeed, in Macbeth, i. 3, " My single state of man ; " and Falstaff, in the Second Part of Henry IV., iv. 4, speaks of " This little kingdom, man ; " bat in neither of these cases is the reference in the word man to an individual, as here. — The Exit Lucius attached to the first line of this speech is modern.
156. Your brother Cassius. — Cassius had married Junia, the sister of Brutus.
158. No, Sir, there are moe with him. — Moe, not more, is the word here and in other passages, not only in the First, but in all the Four Folios. It was probably the common form in the popular speech throughout the seven teenth century, as it still is in Scotland in the dialectic meh (pronounced exactly as the English may) . No con fusion or ambiguity is produced in this case by the reten tion of the old word, of continual occurrence both in Chaucer and Spenser, such as makes it advisable to con vert the then, which the original text of the Plays gives us after the comparative, into our modern than. In some cases, besides, the moe is absolutely required by the verse ; as in Balthazar's Song in Much Ado About Nothing
154 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT II.
" Sing no more ditties, sing no moe,
Or dumps so dull and heavy ; The frauds of men were ever so, Since summer first was leavy."
160. PlucTct about their ears. — Pulled down about their ears.
160. By any mark of favour. — That is, of feature or countenance. Vid. 54.
161. When evils are most free ! — When evil things have most freedom.
161. To mask thy monstrous visage ? — The only prosodi- cal irregularity in this line is the common one of the one supernumerary short syllable (the age of visage} . The two unaccented syllables which follow the fifth accented one have no effect.
161. Hide it in smiles. — This is the old reading, which Mr Knight has restored. He states that all the modern editions have in it.
161. For, if thou path, thy native semblance on. — Coleridge has declared himself convinced that we should here read " if thou put thy native semblance on ; " and Mr Knight is inclined to agree with him, seeing. that putte might be easily mistaken for pathe. If path be the word, the meaning must be, If thou go forth. Path is employed as a verb by Drayton, but not exactly in this sense: he speaks of pathing a passage, and pathing a way, that is, making or smoothing a passage or way. There is no comma or other point after path in the^old copies.
161. To hide thee from prevention. — To prevent (prse- venire) is to come before, and so is equivalent in effect with to hinder, which is literally to make behind. I make that behind me which I get before. — The heading that follows is in the old copies; — "Enter the Conspira tors, Cassius, Casca, Decius, Cinna, Metellus, and Tre- bonius."
SC. 1.] JULIUS CJESAE. 155
162. We are too bold upon your rest. — "We intrude too boldly or unceremoniously upon your rest.
168. This, Casca ; this, Ginna ; etc. — I print this speech continuously, as it stands in the original edition, and as Mr Knight has also given it. It might perhaps be pos sible, by certain violent processes, to reduce it to the rude semblance of a line of verse, or to break it up, as has also been attempted, into something like a pair of hemistichs : but it is far better to regard it as never having been in tended for verse at all, like many other brief utterances of the same level kind interspersed in this and all the other Plays.
173. And yon grey lines. — This is the reading of all the Polios. Why does Mr Collier print yond? ?
174. Which is a great way, etc. — The commentators, who flood us with their explanations of many easier pas sages, have not a word to say upon this. Casca means that the point of sunrise is as yet far to the south (of east), weighing (that is, taking into account, or on account of) the unadvanced period of the year. But is there not some allusion, which the look and tone of the speaker might express more clearly than his words, to the great act about to be performed in the Capitol, and the change, as of a new day, that was expected to follow it ? Other wise, it is difficult to understand the elaborate emphasis of the whole speech, — more especially the closing words —
" and the high east Stands, as the Capitol, directly here."
175. Give me your hands all over. — That is, all included. The idiom is still common.
177. If not the face of men. — The commentators are all alive here, one proposing to read fate of men, another faith of men, another faiths (as nearer in sound to face). It is difficult to see much difficulty in the old reading, understood as meaning the looks of men. It is prefer-
156 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT IT.
able, at any rate, to anything which it has been proposed to substitute.
177. The time's abuse. — This, apparently, must be taken to mean the prevalence of abuse generally, all the abuses of the time.
177. Hence to his idle led. — That is, bed of idleness, or in which he may lie doing nothing (not vacant or un occupied bed. as some would understand it).
177. So let high-sighted tyranny. — High-looking, proud. — Some modern editions have rage instead of range, pro bably by an accidental misprint.
177. Till each man drop by lottery. — That is, probably, as if by chance, without any visible cause why he in par ticular should be struck down or taken off. It has been suggested, however, that there may be an allusion to the process of decimation.
177. Than secret Romans. — Romans bound to secrecy.
177. And will not palter? — To palter (perhaps ety- mologically connected with falter) means to shuffle, to equivocate, to act or speak unsteadily or dubiously with the intention to deceive. It is best explained by the well-known passage in Macbeth (v. 7) : —
"And be these juggling fiends no more believed, That palter with us in a double sense ; That keep the word of promise to our ear, And break it to our hope."
177. Or we will fall for it ?— "Will die for it.
177. Men cautelous. — Cautelous is given to cautels, full of cautels. A cautel, from the E-oman law-term cautela (a caution, or security), is mostly used in a discreditable sense by our old English writers. The caution has passed into cunning in their acceptation of the word ; — it was natural that caution should be popularly so estimated ; — and by cautels they commonly mean craftinesses, deceits. Thus we have in Hamlet (i. 3) ; —
SC. 1.] JULIUS CJESAE. 157
" And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch The virtue of his will."
And in the passage before us cautelous is cautious and wary at least to the point of cowardice, if not to that of insidiousness and trickery.
. 177. Old feeble carrions. — Carrions, properly masses of dead and putrefying flesh, is a favourite term of contempt with Shakespeare.
177. Such suffering souls, etc. — See the note on that gentleness as in 44. In the present speech we have both the old and the new phraseology; — such . . . that in one line, and such . . . as in the next. — Suffering souls are patient, all-enduring souls.
177. The even virtue of our enterprise. — The even virtue is the firm and steady virtue. The our is emphatic.
177. Nor the insuppressive mettle. — The keenness and ardour incapable of being suppressed (however illegiti mate such a form with that sense may be thought to be). So we have in As You Like It (Hi. 2) " The fair, the chaste, and uneocpressive she." And even Milton has (Lycidas, 176) " And hears the unexpressive nuptial song." —For mettle see 102.
177. To think that. — The easiest supplement, or filling up of the ellipsis, is, so as to think.
177. Is guilty of a several bastardy. — The etymology of the word bastard is uncertain. Shakespeare probably took his notion of what it radically expressed from the convertible phrase base-lorn. Thus, in Lear, i. 2, Edmund soliloquizes, — " Why bastard ? Wherefore base ? " By a several bastardy here is meant a special or distinct act of baseness, or of treason against ancestry and honourable birth. For several see 444.
178. But what of Cicero ? etc. — Both the prosody and the sense direct us to lay the emphasis on him.
178. He will stand very strong. — He will take part with us decidedly and warmly.
153
PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY.
[ACT
ir.
181. It shall le said, Jiis judgment, etc. — Dr Guest, in the paper " On English Verbs," in the Second Volume of the Proceedings of the Philslogical Society, which has been already referred to, adduces some examples to show that the primary sense of shall is to owe. Hence the use of should which is still common in the sense of ought. " The use of shall to denote future time," Dr Guest con tinues, " may be traced to a remote antiquity in our lan guage ; that of will is of much later origin, and prevailed chiefly in our northern dialects. — Writers, however, who paid much attention to their style generally used these terms with greater precision. The assertion of will or of duty seems to have been considered by them as implying to a certain extent the power to will or to impose a duty. As a man has power to will for himself only, it was only in the first person that the verb will could be used with this signification ; and in the other persons it was left free to take that latitude of meaning which popular usage had given to it. Again, the power which overrides the will to impose a duty must proceed from some external agency; and consequently shall could not be employed to denote such power in the first person. In the first person, therefore, it was left free to follow the popular meaning, but in the other two was tied to its original and more precise signification. These distinctions still con tinue a shibboleth for the natives of the two sister king doms. Walter Scott, as is well known to his readers, could never thoroughly master the difficulty."
In the Third Edition of Dr Latham's English Language, pp. 470 — 474, may be found two other explanations ; the first by the late Archdeacon Julius Charles Hare (from the Cambridge Philological Museum, n. 203), the second by Professor De Morgan (from the Proceedings of the Philological Society, iv. 185 ; No. 90, read 25th Jan. 1850).
The manner of using shall and will which is now so completely established in England, and which through-
SC. 1.] JULIUS C-ESAB. 159
out the greater part of the country is so perfectly uniform among all classes, was as yet only growing up in the early part of the seventeenth century. -This was very clearly shewn some years ago by a writer in Blackwood' s Maga zine, by comparing many passages of the authorized ver sion of the Scriptures, published in 1611, with the same passages in the preceding translation, called the Bishops' Bible, which had appeared in 1568. The old use of shall, instead of will, to indicate simple futurity, with the 2nd and 3rd persons, as well as with the 1st, is still common with Shakespeare. Here, in this and the next line, are two instances : — " It shall be said ; " "Shall no whit appear." So afterwards we have, in 187, " This shall mark our pur pose necessary ; " in 238, " Caesar should be a beast with out a heart ; " in 351, " The enemies of Caesar shall say this ; " in 620, " The enemy, marching along by them, By them shall make a fuller number up." We have occasion ally the same use of shall even in Clarendon : — " Whilst there are Courts in the world, emulation and ambition will be. inseparable from them ; and kings who have no thing to give shall be pressed to promise " (Hist., Book xiii) . In some rare instances the received text of Shake speare gives us will where we should now use shall; as when Portia says, in The Merchant of Venice, Hi. 4, "I'll hold thee any wager,
When we are both accoutred like young men,
I'll prove the prettier fellow of the two."
But here we should probably read " / prove,"
181. Shall no ivhit appear. — Whit is the Original Eng lish wiht, any thing that exists, a creature. It is the same word with wight, which we now use only for a man, in the same manner as we have come in the language of the present day to understand creature almost exclusively in the sense of a living creature, although it was formerly used freely for every thing created, — as when Bacon says (Essay, Of Truth}, "The first creature of God, in the
160 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT II.
works of the days, was the light of the sense ; the last was the light of reason ; and his Sabbath work ever since is the illumination of his spirit ; " or (Advance, of Learning, B. i.), " The wit and mind of man, if it work upon matter, which is the contemplation of the creatures of God, work- eth according to the stuff, and is limited thereby ; " or as it is written in our authorized version of the Scriptures (1 Tim. iv. 4), "Every creature of God (TTO.V KTICT^LCL Qeov) is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving." We have creature used in this extensive sense even by so late a writer as the Scotch metaphysician Dr Reid (who died in 1796), in his Inquiry into the Human Mind, ch. 1, first published in 1764 : — " Conjec tures and theories are the creatures of men, and will always be found very unlike the creatures of God." — No ivhit is not anything, nowhat, not at all. And our modern not (anciently nought} is undoubtedly no whit : — how otherwise is the t to be accounted for ? So that our Eng lish "I do not speak,"=Ido no whit speak, is an exactly literal translation of the French Je ne parlepas (or point), which many people believe to contain a double negative. 182. Let us not break with him. — -That is, Let us not break the matter to him. This is the sense in which the idiom to break with is most frequently found in Shake speare. Thus, in Much A.do About Nothing (i. 1), the Prince, Don Pedro, says to his favourite Don Claudio, " If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it ; and I will break with her ; " that is, I will open the matter to her. And again, in the same scene ; " Then after to her father will I break." So in The Two Gentlemen of Verona (Hi. 1), " I am to break with thee of some affairs." But when in The Merri/ Wives of Windsor (iii. 2), Slender says to Eord, in answer to his invitation to dinner, " We have appointed to dine with Mistress Anne, and I would not break with her for more money than I'll speak of," he means he would not break his engagement with her. The
SC. 1.] JULIUS CJ3SA.R. 161
phrase is nowhere, I believe, used by Shakespeare in the only sense which it now bears, namely, to quarrel with.
186. A shrewd contriver. — The adjective shrewd is generally admitted to be connected with the substantive shrew ; and according to Home Tooke (Div. of Purley, 457-9), both are formations from the Original English verb syrwan, syrewan, or syrewian, meaning to vex, to molest, to cause mischief to, from which he also deduces sorrow, sorry, sore, and sour. Bosworth (who gives the additional forms syrwian, syrtvyan, searwian, searwan, sear- ian, serian), interprets the old verb as meaning to pre pare, endeavour, strive, arm, to lay snares, entrap, take, bruise. A shrew, according to this notion, might be in ferred to be one who vexes or molests ; and shrewd will mean endowed with the qualities or disposition of a shrew. Shrew, as Tooke remarks, was formerly applied to a male as well as to a female. So, on the other hand, paramour and lover, now only used of males, were formerly also ap plied to females ; and in some of the provincial dialects villain is still a common term of reproach for both sexes alike.
Both to shrew and to leshrew are used by our old writers in the sense of to curse, which latter verb, again (originally cursan or cursian) , also primarily and properly signifies to vex or torment. Now, it is a strong confirmation of the derivation of shrewd from the verb to shrew that we find shrewd and curst applied to the disposition and temper by our old writers in almost, or rather in precisely, the same sense. Shakespeare himself affords us several instances. Thus, in Much Ado About Nothing (ii. 1), Leonato having remarked to Beatrice, " By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get a husband if thou be so shreivd of thy tongue," his brother Antonio adds, assentingly, " In faith, she's too curst" So, in A Midsummer Night's Dream (Hi. 2), Helena, declining to reply to a torrent of abuse from Hermia, says, " I was never curst ; I have no gift at all M
162 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT II.
in shrewishness" And in The Taming of the Shrew (i. 2), first we have Hortensio describing Katharine to his friend Petrucio as "intolerable curst, and shrewd, and froward," and then we have Katharine, the shrew, repeat edly designated " Katharine the curst" At the end of the Play she is called "a curst shrew," that is, as we might otherwise express it, an ill-tempered shrew.
Shrew, by the way, whether the substantive or the verb, always, I believe, and also shrewd very frequently, appear throughout the First Folio with ow as the diphthong, instead of ew ; and in The Taming of the Shrew the word shrew is in various places made to rhyme with the sound of o; so that there can be little doubt that its common pro nunciation in Shakespeare's day was shrow, and also that the same vowel sound was given to shrewd or shrowd in at least some of its applications. It is the reverse of what appears to have happened in the case of the word which probably was formerly pronounced shew (as it is still often spelled), but now always show. Thus Milton, in his 7th Sonnet : —
" How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, Stolen on his wing my three and twentieth year ! My hasting days fly on with full career, But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th."
So likewise in 11 Penseroso (171, 172) : —
" Of every star that heaven doth shew, And every herb that sips the dew."
In the case, again, of strew, or strow, neither mode either of spelling or of pronunciation can perhaps be said to have quite gone out, although the dictionaries,.! be lieve, enjoin us to write the word with an e, but to give it the sound of an o. In the passage before us the First Folio has " a shrew'd contriver."
As it is in words that ill-temper finds the readiest and most frequent vent, the terms curst and shrew, and
SC. 1.] JULIUS (LESAB. 1C3
shrewd, and shrewish are often used with a special refer ence to the tongue. But sharpness of tongue, again, always implies some sharpness of understanding as well as of temper. The terms shrewd and shrewdly, accord ingly, have come to convey usually something of both of these qualities, — at one time, perhaps, most of the one, at another of the other. The sort of ability that we call shrewdness never suggests the notion of anything very high : the word has always a touch in it of the sarcastic or disparaging. But, on the other hand, the disparage ment which it expresses is never without an admission of something also that is creditable or nattering. Hence it has come to pass that a person does not hesitate to use the terms in question even of himself and his own judg ments or conjectures. We say, " I shrewdly suspect or guess," or " I have a shrewd guess, or suspicion," taking the liberty of thus asserting or assuming our own intel lectual acumen under cover of the modest confession at the same time of some little ill-nature in the exercise of it. Even when shrewd is used without any personal refer ence, the sharpness which it implies is generally, if not always, a more or less unpleasant sharpness. " This last day was a shrewd one to us," says one of the Soldiers of Octavius to his comrade, in Antony and Cleopatra, iv. 9, after the encounter in which they had been driven back by Antony near Alexandria. Shrewdness is even used by Chaucer in the sense of evil generally ; as in The House of Fame, Hi. 537 : —
" Speke of hem harm and shreuednesse, Jnstead of gode and worthinesse."
And so too Bacon : — " An ant is a wise creature for it self; but it is a shrewd thing in an orchard or garden." Essay 23rd ; " Of Wisdom for a Man's Self."
186. If he improve them.—Th&i is, if he apply them, if he turn them to account. It is remarkable that no M 2
164 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTABY. [ACT II.
notice is taken of this sense of the word either by Johnson or Todd. Many examples of it are given by Webster under both Improve and Improvement. They are taken from the writings, among others, of Tillotson, Addison, Chatham, Blackstone, Gibbon. We all remember
" How doth the little busy bee Improve each shining hour."
Even Johnson himself, in The Rambler, talks of a man " capable of enjoying and improving life," — by which he can only mean turning it to account. The im of improve must be, or must have been taken to be, the preposition or the intensive particle, not the in negative, although it is the latter which we have both in the Latin improbus and improbo, and also in the French improuver, the only signification of which is to disapprove, and although in the latinized English of some of our writers of the six teenth century to improve occurs in the senses both of to reprove and to disprove. In Much Ado About Nothing, ii. 3, when Benedick, speaking to himself of Beatrice, says, " They say the lady is fair ; . . . and virtuous' ; 'tis so, I cannot reprove it," he seems to mean that he cannot dis prove it. The manner in which the word improve was used in the middle of the seventeenth century may be seen from the following sentences of Clarendon's : — " This gave opportunity and excuse to many persons of quality ... to lessen their zeal to the King's cause ; . . . and those contestations had been lately improved with some sharpness by the Lord Herbert's carriage towards the Lord Marquis of Hertford " (Hist., Book vi.) . " Though there seemed reasons enough to dissuade her [the Queen] from that inclination [of retiring from Oxford, when it was threatened with a siege, for Exeter], and his majesty heartily wished that she could be diverted, yet the per plexity of her mind was so great, and her fears so vehe ment, both improved by her indisposition of health, that
SC. 1.] JULIUS C^SAB. 165
all civility and reason obliged everybody to submit" (Id., Book viii.}.
187. And envy afterwards. — Envy has here the sense often borne by the Latin invidia, or nearly the same with hatred or malice. And this, as Malone remarks, is the sense in which it is almost always used by Shake speare.
187. Let its le sacrificers. — I cannot think that the Lefs le of the First Eolio indicates more, at most, than that it was the notion of the original printer or editor that sacrificers should be pronounced with the emphasis on the second syllable. If we keep to the ordinary pro nunciation, the line will merely have two supernumerary short, or unaccented, syllables ; that is to say, " sacrificers, but not" will count for only two feet, or four syllables. This is nothing more than what we have in many other lines.
187. We all stand up, etc. — Spirit is the emphatic word in this line.
187. And let our hearts, etc. — Vid. 155.
187. This shall mark.— For the shall see 181.— The old reading is " This shall make" which is sense, if at all, only on the assumption that make is here equivalent to make to seem. I have no hesitation in accepting the correction, which we owe to Mr Collier's MS. annotator. "We have now a clear meaning perfectly expressed ; — this will show to all that our act has been a measure of stern and sad necessity, not the product of envy (or private hatred) .
187. Our purpose necessary, etc. — There is nothing irregular in the prosody of this line, nor any elision to be made. The measure is completed by the en of envious ; the two additional unaccented syllables have no prosodical effect.
188. Yet I do fear him.— -The old reading is, "Yet I fear him ; " the do was inserted by Steevens. It im proves, if it is not absolutely required by, the sense or
166 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT II.
expression as well as the prosody. Mr Knight, by whom it is rejected, says, "The pause which naturally occurs before Cassius offers an answer to the impassioned argu ment of Brutus would be most decidedly marked by a proper reader or actor." This pause Mr Knight would have to be equivalent to a single short sellable, or half a time. Surely one somewhat longer would have been necessary for such an effect as is supposed. — The manner in which the next line is given in the original text shows that the printer or so-called editor had no notion of what the words meant, or whether they had any meaning : in his exhibition of them, with a full-point after Ccesar, they have none.
189. Is io himself, etc. — To think, or to take thought, seems to have been formerly used in the sense of to £ive way to sorrow and despondency. Thus, in Antony and Cleopatra, Hi. 11, to Cleopatra's question, after the battle of Actium, " What shall we do, Enobarbus ? " the answer of that worthy is, "Think and die."
189. And that were much he should. — That would be much for him to do.
190. There is no fear in him. — That is, cause of fear. It is still common to use terror in this active sense,— as when in 551 Brutus says, " There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats."
192. The clock hath stricken.— Vid. 46.
194. Whether Ccssar will come forth to day or no. — Whether is thus given uncontracted here in all the old copies. And it might have so stood, inoffensively enough, in all the other passages in which the slight irregularity of the superfluous short syllable has been got rid of by its conversion into where or whe'r.
194. Quite from the main opinion. — " Quite from " is quite away from. So in Twelfth Night, v. 1, Malvolio, charging the Countess with having written the letter, says : —
SC. 1.] • JULIUS (LESAE. 167
" You must not now deny it is your hand ; Write from it, if you can, in hand or phrase."
Malone remarks that the words "main opinion" occur also in Troilus and Cressida, where, as he thinks, they signify, as here, general estimation. The passage is in i. 3:—
" "Why then we should our main opinion crush In taint of our best man."
Johnson's interpretation is perhaps better; — "leading, fixed, predominant opinion." Mason has ingeniously proposed to read " mean opinion " in the present passage.
194. Of fantasy, etc. — Fantasy is fancy, or imagination, with its unaccountable anticipations and apprehensions, as opposed to the calculations of reason. By ceremonies, as Malone notes, we are to understand here omens or signs deduced from sacrifices or other ceremonial rites. The word is used again in the same sense in 233. For another sense of it see 16.
194. These apparent prodigies. — Apparent is here plain, evident, about which there can be no doubt ; as in . Fal- staff's (to Prince Henry) "Were it not here apparent that thou art heir apparent " (First part of King Henry the Fourth, i. 2), — where the here is also certainly intend ed to coincide with the heir, giving rise to a suspicion that the latter word may have, sometimes at least, admitted of a different pronunciation in Shakespeare's day from that which it always has now. So when Milton says of our first parents after their fall (Par. Lost, x. 112) that
" Love was not in their looks, either to God Or to each other, but apparent guilt,"
he means by " apparent guilt " manifest and undoubted guilt. In other cases by apparent we mean, not empha tically apparent, or indisputable, but simply apparent, apparent and nothing more, or what we otherwise call probable or seeming. "The sense is apparent " would
168 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT II.
mean that the sense is plain ; " the apparent sense is," that the sense seems to be.
194. The unaccustomed terror. — Unaccustomed is un usual ; we now commonly employ it for unused to. Terror has here the active sense, as fear has in 190.
194. And the persuasion of his augurers. — Augurer, formed from the verb, is Shakespeare's usual word, in stead of the Latin augur, which is commonly employed, and which he too, however, sometimes has. So again in 236.
195. Thai unicorns, etc. — " Unicorns," says Steevens, " are said to have been taken by one who, running behind a tree, eluded the violent push the animal was making at him, so that his horn spent its force on the trunk, and stuck fast, detaining the beast till he was dispatched by the hunter." He quotes in illustration Spenser's description (F. Q. ii. 5) :—
" Like as a lion whose imperial power A proud rebellious unicorn defies, To avoid the rash assault and wrathful stour Of his fierce foe him to a tree applies ; And, when him running in full course he spies, He slips aside ; the whiles the furious beast His precious horn, sought of his enemies, Strikes in the stock, ne thence can be releast, But to the mighty victor yields a bounteous feast."
" Bears," adds Steevens, " are reported to have been sur prised by means of a mirror, which they would gaze on, affording their pursuers an opportunity of taking a surer aim. This circumstance, I think, is mentioned by Clau- dian. Elephants were seduced into pitfalls, lightly cover ed with hurdles and turf, on which a proper bait to tempt them was exposed. See Pliny's Natural History, Book viii." Reference might also be made to a speech of Tim on to Apemantus in Timon of Athens, iv. 3, " If thou wert the lion," etc., which is too long to be quoted. The
SC. 1.] JULIUS C^ESAE. 1G9
import of the For, with which Deems introduces his state ment, is not seen till we come to his " But when I tell him," etc., which, therefore, ought not, as is commonly done, to be separated from what precedes by so strong a point as the colon, — the substitute of the modern editors for the full stop of the original edition.
195. He says, Tie does ; being then most flattered. — The ing of being counts for nothing in the prosody. For the ed of flattered, see the note on 246.
197. By the eighth hour. — It is the eight hour in the first three Folios. The author, however, probably wrote eighth.
199. Doth bear Caesar hard.—Vid. 105. In the Second Folio the hard in this passage is changed into hatred. But the meaning is manifestly different from what that would give, even if to bear one hatred were English at all.
200. Go along by him. — Pope, who is followed by the other editors before Malone, changed by into to. But to go along by a person was in Shakespeare's age to take one's way where he was. So afterwards in 620, " The enemy, marching along by them " (that is, through the country of the people between this and Philippi).
200. I'll fashion him. — I will shape his mind to our purposes.
201. The morning comes upon us. — It may just be noted that all the old copies have "upon's." And probably such an elision would not have been thought inelegant at any time in the seventeenth century.
202. Let not our looks put on our purposes. — Put on such expression as would betray our purposes. Compare the exhortation of the strong-minded wife of Macbeth to her husband (Macbeth, i. 5) : —
" To beguile the time,
Look like the time : bear welcome in your eye, Your hand, your tongue ; look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under it."
170 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT II.
But the sentiment takes its boldest form from the lips of Macbeth himself in the first fervour of his weakness ex alted into determined wickedness (i. 7) : —
" Away, and mock the time with fairest show : False face must hide what the false heart doth know."
202. Formal constancy. — Constancy in outward form, or aspect ; the appearance, at any rate, of perfect freedom from anxiety and the weight of our great design. The original stage direction is; "Exeunt. Manet Brutus?
202. The heavy honey-dew of slumber. — This is the cor rection by Mr Collier's MS. annotator of the old reading "the honey-heavy dew." I cannot doubt that it gives us what Shakespeare wrote. "The compound," as Mr Collier remarks, " unquestionably is not honey-heavy, but honey-dew, a well-known glutinous deposit upon the leaves of trees, etc. ; the compositor was guilty of a transposi tion." "We have a trace, it might be added, of some con fusion or indistinctness in the manuscript, perhaps occasioned by an interlineation, and of the perplexity of the compositor, in the strange manner in which in the First Folio the dew also, as well as the heavy, is attached by a hyphen ; thus, " the honey-heavy-Dew."
202. Thou hast no figures, etc. — Pictures created by imagination or apprehension. So, in The Merry Wives of Windsor, iv. 2, Mrs Page, to Mrs Ford's " Shall we tell our husbands how we have served him (Falstaff) ? " re plies, " Yes, by all means ; if it be but to scrape the figures out of your husband's brains."
205. You've ungently. — All the Folios have Y1 have ; which, however, was perhaps not pronounced differently from the modern elision adopted in the present text. As that elision is still common, it^seems unnecessary to sub stitute the full You have, as most of the recent editors have done.
205. Stole from my led.—Vid. 46.
SC. 1.] JTJLITTS (LESAK. 171
205. I urged you further. — This is the reading of the old copies. Mr Collier, as elsewhere, has farther.
205. Which sometime hath his hour. — That is, its hour. Vid. 54.
205. Wafture of your hand. — Wafter is the form of the word in all the Polios.
205. Fearing to strengthen that impatience. — For the prosody of such lines see the note on 246.
205. An effect of humour. — Humour is the peculiar mood, or caprice, of the moment ; a state of mind opposed or exceptional to the general disposition and character.
205. As it hath much prevailed on your condition. — Condition is the general temper or state of mind. "We still say ill-conditioned, for ill-tempered. Thus, in The Merchant of Venice, i. 2, Portia makes the supposition that her suitor the black Prince of Morocco, although his complexion be that of a devil, may have " the condition of a saint." Note how vividly the strong feeling from which Portia speaks is expressed by her repetition of the much — " could it work so much As it hath much prevailed."
205. — Dear my lord. — So, in Romeo and Juliet, Hi. 5, Juliet implores her mother, " 0, sweet my mother, cast me not away !" For the principle upon which this form of expression is to be explained, see the note on 89. Though now disused in English, it corresponds exactly to the French Cher Monsieur. The personal pronoun in such phrases has become absorbed in the noun to which it is prefixed, and its proper or separate import is not thought of. A remarkable instance, in another form of construc tion, of how completely the pronoun in such established modes of speech was formerly apt to be overlooked, or treated as non-significant, occurs in our common version of the Bible, where in 1 Kings, xviii. 7, we have, "And, as Obadiah was in the way, behold, Elijah met him : and he knew him, and fell on his face, and said, Art thou that my lord Elijah ? " Still more extraordinary is what we
172 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT II.
have in Troilus and Cressida, v. 2, where (Ulysses having also addressed Troilus, "Nay, good my lord, go off") Cressida exclaims to herself, —
" Ah ! poor our sex ! this fault in us I find, The error of our eye directs our mind."
209. Is it physical ? — Medicinal.
209. Of the dank morning. — The Second Folio changes dank into dark. Mr Collier retains dank ; but it is not stated that the restoration is made by his manuscript an- notator.
209. To add unto his sickness. — His is misprinted hit in the First Folio. So in Macbeth, i. 5, we have, in the same original text, " the effect and hit" apparently for " the effect and it " (the purpose), — although the mis print, if it be one, is repeated in the Second Folio, and is, as far as we can gather from Mr Collier, left uncorrected by his MS. annotator. It is even defended as probably the true reading by Tieck. It cannot, at any rate, be received as merely a different way of spelling it, deliber ately adopted in this instance and nowhere else through out the volume : such a view of the matter is the very Quixotism of the belief in the immaculate purity of the old text.
209. You have some sick offence. — Some pain, or grief, that makes you sick.
209. By the right and virtue of my place. — By the right that belongs to, and (as we now say) in virtue of (that is by the power or natural prerogative of) my place (as your wife). The radical meaning of the term virtue, connected with vis, and perhaps also with vireo, and with vi r, is force (which word itself, indeed, with its Latin progenitor for Us, may possibly be from the same root). The old spelling of the English word, and that which it has here in the First Folio, is vertue, as we still have it in the French vertu.
SC. 1.] JULIUS C^SAE. 173
209. I charm you. — Charm (or charme) is the reading of all the old printed copies, and Mr Collier tells us of no correction by his MS. annotator. Pope substituted charge, which was adopted also by Hanmer. It must be con fessed that the only instance which has been referred t« in support of charm is not satisfactory. It is adduced by Steevens from Cyinbeline, i. 7, where lachimo says to Imogen, —
" ' Tis your graces
That from my mutest conscience to my tongue Charms this report out."
This is merely the common application of the verb to charm in the sense of to produce any kind of effect as it were by incantation. Charm is no doubt a derivative from carmen, as incantation or enchantment is from cano. In the passage before us, I charm you (if such be the reading) must mean I adjure or conjure you. Spenser uses charm with a meaning which it does not now retain ; as when he says in his Shepherd's Calendar (October, 118), " Here we our slender pipes may safely charm," and, in the beginning of his Colin Cloutfs Come Home Again, speaks of " charming his oaten pipe unto his peers," that is, playing or modulating (not uttering musical sounds, as explained by JSTares, but making to utter them). Still more peculiar is the application of the word by Marvel in a short poem entitled " The Picture of T. C. in a Pros pect of Flowers ;" —
" Meanwhile, whilst every verdant thing Itself does at thy heauty charm ;" —
that is, apparently, delights itself in contemplating thy beauty. "We do not now use this verb thus reflectively at all. There seems, however, to have been formerly a latitude in the application of it which may possibly have extended to such a sense as that which must be assigned to it if it was really the word here employed by Portia, — Two stage directions are added here by Mr Collier's MS.
174 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTAEY. [ACT II.
annbtator : — " Kneeling" where Portia says " Upon my knees I charm you;" and "Raising her" at 210.
211. But, as it were, in sort, or limitation. — Only in a manner, in a degree, in some qualified or limited sense. "VVe still say in a sort.
211. To keep with you, etc. — To keep company with you. To keep in the sense of to live or dwell is of con stant occurrence in our old writers ; and Nares observes that they still say in the University of Cambridge, "Where do you keep ? I "keep in such a set of chambers. We sometimes hear it asserted that the word comfort, as well as the thing, is exclusively English. But it is also an old French word, though bearing rather the sense of our law term to comfort, which is to relieve, assist, or encourage. And it exists, also, both in the Italian and in the Spanish. Its origin is an ecclesiastical Latin verb conforto (from con andfortis), meaning to strengthen.
211. And talk to you sometimes, etc. — The true proso- dical view of this line is to regard the two combinations "to you" and "in the" as counting each for only a single syllable. It is no more an Alexandrine than it is an hexameter.
213. Being so fathered, and so husbanded. — We have here two exemplifications of the remarkable power which our language possesses (though a consequence of its po verty of inflection, or of the loss of their distinctive ter minations by the infinitive and present indicative of the verb) of turning almost any noun, upon occasion, into a verb. It may be called its most kingly prerogative, and may be compared to the right of ennobling exercised by the crown in our political constitution, — the more, inas much as words too, as well as men, were originally, it is probable, all of equal rank, ancf the same word served universally as noun at one time and as verb at another. Most of our verbs that are of purely English or Grothic descent are still in their simplest form undistinguishable
SO. 1.] JULIUS CJGSAR. 175
from nouns. The noun and the verb might be exhibited together in one system of inflection ; father, for instance, might be at once declined and conjugated, through fa thered, and fathering, and have fathered, and will father, and all the other moods and tenses, as well as through fathers and father's, and of a father, and to a father, and the other so called nominal changes. It is to this their identity of form with the noun that our English verbs owe in a great measure their peculiar force and liveliness of expression, consisting as that does in their power of setting before us, not merely the fact that something has been done or is doing, but the act or process itself as a concrete thing or picture. Shakespeare in particular freely employs any noun whatever as a verb.
It is interesting to note the germ of what we have here in The Merchant of Venice (i. 2) : —
" Her name is Portia ; nothing undervalued To Cato's daughter, Brutus' Portia."
The Merchant of Venice had certainly been written by 1598.
213. 1 have made strong proof. — The prosody concurs here with the sense in demanding a strong emphasis upon the word strong.
214. All the charactery. — All that is charactered or expressed by my saddened aspect. The word, which occurs also in the Merry Wives of Windsor, v. 5, is accented on the second syllable there as well as here. And no doubt this was also the original, as it is still the vulgar, accent uation of character. Shakespeare, however, always accents that word on the char-, as we do, whether he uses it as a noun or as a verb ; though a doubt may be entertained as to the pronunciation of the participial form both in the line, "Are visibly charactered and engraved," in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, ii. 7, and in the " Show me one scar charactered on the skin" of the Second Part of King
173 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT II.
Henry the Sixth, Hi. 1, as well as with regard to that of the compound which occurs in Troilus and Cressida, Hi. 2,—
" And mighty states characterless are grated To dusty nothing."
— The stage direction near the beginning of this speech is merely Knock in the original edition.
214. Lucius, who's that knocks ? — Who is that who knocks ? The omission of the relative is a familiar ellipsis. Vid. 34. Who's, and not who is, is the reading of all the Folios. It is unnecessary to suppose that the two broken lines were intended to make a whole between them. They are best regarded as distinct hemistichs. Mr Col lier, however, prints " Who is't that knocks ?" Does he follow his MS. annotator in this ?
217. The Lig. (for Ligarius) is Cat. throughout in the original text. The authority for the prsenomen Caius, by which Ligarius is distinguished throughout the Play, is Plutarch, in his Life of Brutus, towards the beginning.
218. To wear a kerchief. — Kerchief is cover-chief, the chief being the French chef, head (from the Latin Cap-Mi, which is also the same word with the English Head and the G-erman Haupt). But, the proper import of chief being forgotten or neglected, the name kerchief came to be given to any cloth used as a piece of dress. In this sense the word is still familiar in handkerchief, though both kerchief itself and its other compound neckerchief are nearly gone out. In King John, iv. 1, and also in As You Like It, iv. 3 and v. 2, the word in the early editions is handkercher ; and this is likewise the form in the Quarto edition of Othello.
218. Would you were not sick ! — I do not understand upon what principle, or in what notion, it is that the Shakespearian editors print would in such a construction as this with an apostrophe (' Would) . Even if it is to be taken to mean / would, the / will not be a part of the
SC. 1.] JULIUS CJSSAE. 177
word which has been cut off, like the i of it in the con traction 'tis.
221. Thou, like an exorcist. — "Here," says Mason, " and in all other places where the word occurs in Shake speare, to exorcise means to raise spirits, not to lay them ; and I believe he is singular in his acceptation of it." The only other instances of its occurrence, according to Mrs Clarke, are j-^-in the Song in Cymbeline, iv. 2 : —
" No exerciser harm thee ! Nor no witchcraft charm thee ! Ghost unlaid forbear thee ! Nothing ill come near thee!"
in All's Well that Ends Well, v. 3, where, on the ap pearance of Helena, thought to be dead, the King ex claims,
" Is there no exorcist Beguiles the truer office of mine eyes ? "
and in the Second Part of King Henry the Sixth, i. 4, where Bolingbroke asks, " Will her ladyship [the Duchess of Grloster] behold and hear our exorcisms?" meaning the incantations and other operations by which they were to raise certain spirits. — In Mr Collier's regulated text, in this speech, at the words " Soul of Rome," we have the stage direction, " Throwing away his bandage"
221. MJy mortified spirit. — Mor-ti-fi-ed here makes four syllables, spirit counting for only one. And mortified has its literal meaning of deadened.
224. As we are going To ivhom it must be done. — "While we are on our way to those whom it must be done to. The ellipsis is the same as we have in 105, " From that it is disposed." I do not understand how the words are to be interpreted if we are to separate going from what fol lows by a comma, as is done in most editions.
225. Set on your foot. — This was probably a somewhat energetic or emphatic mode of expression. In Scotland they say, " Put down your foot" in exhorting one to walk
178 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT II.
on briskly. — At the end of this speech the old copies have Thunder as a stage direction.
SCENE II.— The same. A Room in CESAR'S Palace. Thunder and Lightning. Enter C^ISAB in his night-gown.
227. Cces. Nor heaven, nor earth, have been at peace to-night • Thrice hath Calphurnia in her sleep cried out, Help, ho ! they murder Caesar /—Who's within ?
Enter a SERVANT. Serv. My lord?
229. Cces. Go bid the priests do present sacrifice, And bring me their opinions of success. Serv. I will, my lord. [Exit.
Enter CALPHURNIA.
Cal. What mean you, Caesar ? Think you to walk forth 'i You shall not stir out of your house to-day.
Cces. Caesar shall forth : The things that threatened me Ne'er looked but on my back ; when they shall see The face of Caesar, they are vanished.
233. Cal. Caesar, I never stood on ceremonies, Yet now they fright me. There is one within, Besides the things that we have heard and seen, Recounts most horrid sights seen by the watch. A lioness hath whelped in the streets ;
And graves have yawned, and yielded up their dead :
Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds,
In ranks and squadrons, and right form of war,
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.
0 Caesar ! these things are beyond all use,
And I do fear them.
234. Cces. What can be avoided,
Whose end is purposed by the mighty gods ? Yet Caesar shall go forth ; for these predictions Are to the world in general, as to Caesar.
Cal. When beggars die, there are no comets seen; The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes 236. Cess. Cowards die many times before their deaths ;
SC. 2.] JULIUS C^SAB. 170
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 ;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come, when it will come.
Re-enter a SERVANT. t
What say the augurers ?
Serv. 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 heast.
238. Cces. 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. We are two lions littered in one day, And I the elder and more terrible ; And Caesar shall go forth.
239. Cal. Alas, my lord,
Your wisdom is consumed 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.
240. Cces. 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.
241. Dec. Caesar, all hail! Good morrow, worthy Caesar: I come to fetch you to the senate-house.
242. Goes. And you are come in very happy time 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.
Cal. Say, he is sick. 244. Cats, Shall Caesar send a lie ?
Have I in conquest stretched mine arm so far To be afeared to tell grey-beards the truth ? Decius, go tell them, Caesar will not come. Dec. Most mighty Caesar, let me know some cause, N 2
180 PHILOLOGICAL COMMEtfTABY. [ACT II.
Lest I be laughed at when I tell them so. 2 15. CCBS. 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.
Calphurnia here, my wife, stays me at home :
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
Of evils imminent ; and on her knee
Hath begged, that I will stay at home to-day. 246. Dec. This dream is all amiss interpreted :
It was a vision fair and fortunate :
Your statue spouting blood in many pipes,
In which so many smiling Romans bathed,
Signifies that from you great Rome shall suck
Reviving blood ; and that great men shall press
For tinctures, stains, relics, and cognizance.
This by Calphurnia' s dream is signified. Goes. And this way have you well expounded it.
249. 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 Caesar.
If you shall send them word you will not come,
Their minds may change. Besides, it were a mock
Apt to be rendered, for some one to say,
Break up the senate till another time,
When Cfesar's wife shall meet with better dreams.
If Caesar hide himself, shall they not whisper,
Lo, Ccesar is afraid f
Pardon me, Caesar ; for my dear, dear love
To your proceeding bids me tell you this ;
And reason to my love is liable.
250. Cccs. How foolish do your fears seem now, Calphurnia ! I am ashamed I did yield to them.—
Give me my robe, for I will go :—
Enter PUBLIUS, BRUTUS, LIGARIUS, METELLUS, CASCA, TREBONIUS, and CINNA.
And look where Publius is come to fetch me. Pub. Good morrow, Csesar.
SC. 2.] JULIUS CJESAE. 181
252. Cas. Welcome, Publius. —
What, Brutus, are you stirred so early too ? — 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 ?
253. Bru. Caesar, 'tis strucken eight.
254. Cces. I thank you for your pains and courtesy.
Enter ANTONY
See ! Antony, that revels long o' nights, Is, notwithstanding, up : — Good morrow, Antony.
Ant. So to most nohle Caesar. 256. Cces. Bid them prepare within : — I am to blame to be thus waited for.— Now, Cinna :— Now, Metellus :— What, Trebonius ! I have an hour's talk in store for you. Eemember that you call on me to-day : Be near me, that I may remember you.
Treb. Caesar, I will : — and so near will I be, That your best friends shall wish I had been farther. [Aside.
Cces. Good friends, go in, and taste some wine with me ; And we, like friends, will straightway go together. 259. Bru. That every like is not the same, 0 Csesar,
The heart of Brutus yearns to think upon! [Aside. Exeunt.
Scene II. The same. A Room in C&sar's Palace. — This is not in the old editions; but the stage direction that follows is, only with Julius Ccesar (for Ccesar).
227. Nor heaven nor earth, etc. — This use of nor . . . nor for the usual neither . . . nor of prose (as well as of or ... or for either . . . or) is still common in our poetry. On the other hand, either was sometimes used formerly in cases where we now always have or ; as in Luke m. 42: — "Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye ? " — The strict grammatical principle would of
182 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT II.
course require " has been at peace ; " but where, as here, the two singular substantives are looked at together by the mind, it is more natural to regard them as making a plu rality, and to use the plural verb, notwithstanding the dis junctive conjunction (as it is sometimes oddly designated).
229. Do present sacrifice. — In this and a good many other cases we are now obliged to employ a verb of a more specific character instead of the general do. This is a different kind of archaism from what we have in the " do danger " of 147, where it is not the do, but the danger, that has a meaning which it has now lost, and for which the modern language uses another word.
229. Their opinions of success. — That is, merely, of the issue, or of what is prognosticated by the sacrifice as likely to happen. Johnson remarks (note on Othello, Hi. 3) that successo is also so used in Italian. So likewise is succes in French. In addition to earlier examples of such a sense of the English word, Boswell adduces from Sidney's Arcadia : — " He never answered me, but, pale and quak ing, went straight away ; and straight my heart misgave me some evil success ; " and from Dr Barrow, in the latter part of the seventeenth century : — " Tea, to a person so disposed, that success which seemeth most adverse justly may be reputed the best and most happy." Shakespeare's ordinary employment of the word, however, is accordant with our present usage. But see 735, 736. Sometimes it is used in the sense of our modern succession ; as in A Winter's Tale, i. 2: — "Our parents' noble names, In whose success we are gentle." In the same manner the verb to succeed, though meaning etymologically no more than to follow, has come to be commonly understood, when used without qualification, only in a good sense. We still say that George II. succeeded George I., and could even, perhaps, say that a person or thing had suc ceeded very ill : but when we say simply, that any thing has succeeded, we mean that it has had a prosperous issue.
SC. 2.] JULIUS CLESAR. 183
Shakespeare's use of the word success may be further illustrated by the following examples : —
" Is your blood
So madly hot, that no discourse of reason, Nor fear of. bad success in a bad cause, Can qualify the same ? " — Trail, and Cress., ii. 2 ;
" Commend me to my brother : soon at night I'll send him certain word of my success."
Meas. for Meas., i. 5 ;
" Let this be so, and doubt not but success "Will fashion the event in better shape Than I can lay it down in likelihood."
Much Ado About Noth., iv* 1 ;
" And so success of mischief shall be born, And heir from heir shall hold this quarrel up."
Second Part of Henry IV., iv. 2;
" Should you do so, my lord, My speech should fall into such vile success Which my thoughts aimed not." — Othello, Hi. 3.
233. I never stood on ceremonies. — Vid. 194.
233. Recounts most horrid sights. — Who recounts. As in 34 and 214.
233. Which, drizzled blood.— To drizzle is to shed (or to fall) in small drops. The Dictionaries bring it from the G-erman rieseln (of the same signification) ; but the English word probably derives a main part of its peculiar effect from the same initial dr which we have in drip, drop, drivel, etc.
233. The noise of battle hurtled in the air. — The three last Folios substitute hurried for hurtled. Hurtle is pro bably the same word with hurl (of which, again, whirl may be another variation) . Chaucer uses it as an active verb in the sense of to push forcibly and with violence ; as in 0. T. 2618 :—
" And he him hurtleth with his hors adoun ; " and again in C. T. 4717 : —
184 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT II.
"0 firste moving cruel firmament! "With thy diurnal swegh that croudest ay, And hurtlest all from est til Occident, That naturally wold hold another way."
Its very sound makes it an expressive word for any kind of rude and crushing, or " insupportably advancing," movement. Hustle and justle (or jostle) may be con sidered, if not as other forms, or somewhat softened mo difications, of the same vocal utterance of thought, as at least fashioned upon the same principle.
233. Horses did neigh, and dying men did groan. — This is the reading of the Second and subsequent Polios. The First has " Horses do neigh, and dying men did grone." "We may confidently affirm that no degree of mental agi tation ever expressed itself in any human being in such a jumble and confusion of tenses as this, — not even insan ity or drunkenness. The "Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds," which we have a few lines before, is not a case in point. It is perfectly natural in animated narrative or description to rise occasionally from the past tense to the present ; but who ever heard of two facts or circumstances equally past, strung together, as here, with an and, and enunciated in the same breath, being pre sented the one as now going on, the other as only having taken place ? Mr Collier's MS. annotator, it is to be pre sumed, approves or accepts the " did neigh " of the Second Folio.
233. And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets. — It is rare to find Shakespeare coming so near upon the same words in two places as he does here and in dealing with the same subject in Hamlet, i. 1 : —
" In the most high and palmy state of Borne, A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets."
SC. 2.] JTJLirS CJESAE, 185
This passage, however, is found only in the Quarto editions of Hamlet, and is omitted in all the Folios.
233. Beyond all use. — "We might still say "beyond all use and wont."
234. Whose end is purposed, etc. — The end, or comple tion, of which is designed by the gods.
236. What say the augurers ? — Vid. 194. — The preced ing stage 'direction is in the original edition, " Enter a Servant"
238. In shame of cowardice. — For the shame of coward ice, to put cowardice to shame.
238. CcBsar should le a least. — We should now say Caesar would be a beast. It is the same use of shall where we now use will that has been noticed at 181. So in Merchant of Venice, i. 2, Nerissa, conversing with her mistress Portia about her German suitor, the nephew of the Duke of Saxony, says, " If he should offer to choose, and choose the right casket, you should refuse to perform your father's will if you should refuse to accept him." Tet the fashion of saying It should appear, or It should seem (instead of It would), which has come up with the revived study of our old literature, is equally at variance with the principle by which our modern employment of shall and will is regulated.
238. We are two lions. — The old reading, in all the Polios, is We heare (or hear in the Third and Fourth). Nobody, as far as I am aware, has defended it, or affected to be able to make any sense of it. Theobald proposed We were, which has been generally adopted. But We are, as recommended by Upton, is at once nearer to the original and much more spirited. It is a singularly happy restoration, and one in regard to which, I conceive, there can scarcely be the shadow of a doubt. It is, however, confirmed, if it needed any confirmation, by its being found among the corrections of Mr Collier's MS. anno- tator.
186 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT II.
239. Is consumed in confidence. — As anything is con sumed in fire.
240. For thy humour. — For the gratification of thy whim or caprice. Vid. 205. Mr Collier's MS. annotator directs that Caesar should here raise Calphurnia, as he had that she should deliver the last line of her preceding speech kneeling.
241. C(Bsar, all hail ! — Hail in this sense is the Original English Jiael or hdl, meaning hale, whole, or healthy (the modern German heil). It ought rather to be spelled hale. Hail, frozen rain, is from haegl, haegel, otherwise hagol, hagul, or haegol (in modern German hagel).
242. To bear my greeting. — To greet in this sense is the Original English gretan, to go to meet, to welcome, to salute (the grussen of the modern German) . The greet of the Scotch and other northern dialects, which is found in Spenser, represents quite another verb of the old lan guage, greotan, or graetan, to lament, apparently the same root which we have in the French regret and the Italian regretto, as well as in our own regret (obtained immediately from the French).
244.. To be afeard. — The common Scotch form for afraid is still feared, orfeard, from the verb to fear, taken in the sense of to make afraid ; in which sense it is sometimes found in Shakespeare ; as in Measure for Measure, ii.1: —
" We must not make a scarecrow of the law, Setting it up to fear the beasts of prey ; "
And in Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 6 : —
"Thou canst not fear us, Pompey, with thy sails."
In The Taming of the Shrew, i. 2, we have in a single line (or two hemistichs) both senses of the verb to fear : — " Tush ! tush ! fear boys with bugs," says Petrucio in scorn ; to which his servant Grumio rejoins, aside, " For he fears none."
246. That is enough to satisfy the senate. — Xot (as the
SC. 2.] JULIUS CAESAR. 187
words might in other circumstances mean) enough to ensure their being satisfied, but enough for me to do to wards that end.
246. She dreamt to-night she saw my statue. — It maybe mentioned that both Boweand Pope substitute last night, which would, indeed, seem to be the most natural expres sion ; but it is unsupported by any of the old copies. — The word statue is of frequent occurrence in Shakespeare ; and in general it is undoubtedly only a dissyllable. In the present Play, for instance, in the very next speech we have
" Your statue spouting blood in many pipes."
And so likewise in 138, and again in 378. Only in one line, which occurs in Richard the Third, Hi. 7,
" But like dumb statues or breathing stones,"
is it absolutely necessary that it should be regarded as of three syllables, if the received reading be correct. In that passage also, however, as in every other, the word in the First Folio is printed simply statues, exactly as it al ways is in the English which we now write and speak.
On the other hand, it is certain that statue was fre quently written statua in Shakespeare's age ; Bacon, for example, always, I believe, so writes it ; and it is not im possible that its full pronunciation may have been always trisyllabic, and that it became a dissyllable only by the two short vowels, as in other cases, being run together so as to count prosodically only for one.
" From authors of the times," says Reed, in a note on The Two Gentlemen of Verona, iv. 4, " it would not be difficult to fill whole pages with instances to prove that statue was at that period a trisyllable." But unfortun ately he does not favour us with one such instance. Nor, with the exception of the single line m Richard the Third, the received reading of which has been suspected for an-
188 PHILOLOGICAL COMMEKTABY. [ACT IT.
other reason (breathing stones being not improbably, it has been thought, a misprint for uribreatliing stones), has any decisive instance been produced either by Steevens, who refers at that passage to what he designates as Reed's " very decisive note," or by any of the other commenta tors anywhere, or by jN^ares, who also commences his ac count of the word in his Glossary by telling us that it " was long used in English as a trisyllable."
The only other lines in Shakespeare in which it has been conceived to be other than a word of two syllables are the one now under examination, and another which also occurs in the present Play, in 426 : — " Even at the base of Pompey's statue."
These two lines, it will be observed, are similarly con structed in so far as this word is concerned ; in both the supposed trisyllable concludes the verse.
Now, we have many verses terminated in exactly the same manner by other words, and yet it is very far from being certain that such verses were intended to be ac counted verses often syllables, or were ever so pronounced.
First, there is the whole class of those ending with words in tion or sion. This termination, it is true, usually makes two syllables in Chaucer, and it may do so some times, though it does not generally, in Spenser ; it is fre quently dissyllabic, in indisputable instances, even with some of the dramatists of the early part of the seventeenth century, and particularly with Beaumont and Fletcher ; but it is only on the rarest occasions that it is other than monosyllabic in the middle of the line with Shakespeare. Is it, then, to be supposed that he employed it habitually as a dissyllable at the end of a line ? It is of continual occurrence in both positions. For example, in the follow ing line of the present speech, —
" But for your private satisfaction," — can we think that the concluding word was intended to
SC. 2.] JULIUS CjESAIt. 189
have any different pronunciation from that which it has in the line of Romeo and Juliet (ii. 2), —
" What satisfaction canst thou have to-night ? " or in this other from Othello (Hi. 3),—
" But for a satisfaction of my thought ? "
Is it probable that it was customary then, any more than it is now, to divide tion into two syllables in the one case more than in the other ?
Secondly, there are numerous verses terminating with the verbal affix ed, the sign of the preterite indicative active or of the past participle passive. This termination is not circumstanced exactly as tion is : the utterance of it as a separate syllable is the rare exception in our mo dern pronunciation ; but it evidently was not so in Shake speare's day ; the distinct syllabication of the ed would rather seem to have been almost as common then as its absorption in the preceding syllable. For instance, when Juliet, in Romeo and Juliet, Hi. 2, repeating the Nurse's words, exclaims,
" Tybalt is dead, and Romeo banished : That banished — that one word banished — Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts,"
the ed in That banished clearly makes a distinct syllable ; and, that being the case, it must be held to be equally such in the two other repetitions of the word. But in other cases its coalescence with the preceding syllable will only produce the same effect to which we are accustomed when we disregard the antiquated pronunciation of the tion at the end of a line, and read it as one syllable. In the present Play, for example, it might be so read in 305,—
" Thy brother by decree is banished ; " —
as it was probably intended (in another prosodical posi tion) to be read afterwards in 310, —
190 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT II.
" That I was constant Cimber should be banished," and as it must be read in 306, —
" For the repealing of my banished brother."
Yet, although most readers in the present day would elide the e in all the three instances, it ought to be observed that in the original edition the word is printed in full in the first and with the apostrophe in the two others. And this distinction in the printing is employed to indicate the pronunciation throughout the volume. How such a line as
" Thy brother by decree is banished," —
being a very common prosodical form in Shakespeare, — was intended by him to be read, or was commonly read in his day, must therefore remain somewhat doubtful. If, however, the e was elided in the pronunciation, such verses would be prosodically exactly of the same form or struc ture with those, also of very frequent occurrence, in which all that we have for a fifth foot is the affix or terminnHon t ion, on the assumption that that was pronounced oniy as- one syllable.
One way of disposing of such lines would be to regard them as a species of hemistich or truncated line. Verses which, although not completed, are correctly constructed as far as they go, occur in every Play in great numbers and of all dimensions ; and those in question would be such verses wanting the last syllable, as others do the two or three or four or five last. This explanation would take in the case of the lines, " She dreamt to-night she saw my statue," and " Even at the base of Pompey's statue," and of others similarly constructed, supposing statue to be only a dissyllable, as well as all those having in the last foot only tion or ed. But most probably this particular kind of truncated line, consisting of nine syllables, would not occur so frequently as it does but for the influence
SC. 2.] JULIUS C^ISAE. 191
exerted by the memory of the old pronunciation of the two terminations just mentioned even after it had come to be universally or generally disused. For instance, al though the word satisfaction had already come in the age of Shakespeare to be generally pronounced exactly as it is at the present day, the line "But for your private satis faction" was the more readily accepted as a sufficient verse by reason of the old syllabication of the word, which, even by those who had abandoned it (as Shakespeare himself evidently had done), was not forgotten. Other lines having nothing more for their tenth syllable than the Verbal affix ed, in which also an elision had become usual, would be acted upon in the same manner ; the ed would still retain something of the effect of a separate syllable even when it had ceased to be generally so pro nounced. But after the public ear had thus become re conciled and accustomed to such a form of verse, it might be expected to be sometimes indulged in by poetic writers when it had to be produced in another way than through the instrumentality of the half separable ed and the half dissyllabic tion. The line " But for your private satisfac tion," pronounced as we have assumed it to have been, would make such a line as " She dreamt to-night she saw my statue " seem to have an equal right to be accounted legitimate, seeing that its effect upon the ear was precisely the same. Still the conservative principle in language would keep the later and more decided deviation from the normal form comparatively infrequent. Sometimes a singular effect of suddenness and abruptness is produced by such a form of verse ; as in the sharp appeal of Mene- nius, in the opening scene of Coriolanus, to the loud and grandiloquent leader of the mutinous citizens, —
" What do you think. You, the great toe of this assembly ? "
Unless, indeed, we are to assume the verse here to be
192 PHILOLOGICAL COMilEKTAEY. [ACT II.
complete and regular, and that assembly is to be read as a word of four syllables, as-sem-bl-y. In the present Play, however, at 295, we have an instance to which that objec tion does not apply. The line there — "Look, how he makes to Ca3sar : mark him " — is of precisely the same rhythm with " She dreamt to-night she saw my statue," and also with the one by which it is immediately preceded, — " I fear our purpose is discovered " (in 294), as well as with "He says he does; being then most nattered" (in 195), and many others, read (as it is probable they were intended to be) without the distinct syllabication of the ed. After all, Shakespeare's word may really have been statua, as Eeed and Steevens suppose. This is decidedly the opinion of Mr Dyce, who, in his Remarks on Mr Collier's and Mr Knight' s editions (p. 186), calls attention to the following line from a copy of verses by J onn Harris, prefixed to the 1647 Folio of the Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher ;—
" Defaced statua and martyr* d book."
" I therefore have not," he adds, " the slightest doubt that wherever statue occurs, while the metre requires three syllables, it is a typographical error for statua." Perhaps the best way would be to print statua in all cases, and to assume that that was the form which Shakespeare always wrote. Statua would have the prosodical value either of a dissyllable or of a trisyllable according to cir cumstances, just as Mantua, for instance, has throughout Romeo and Juliet, where we have in one place such a line as
" For then thou canst not pass to Mantu-a" (Hi. 3), or
" But I will write again to Mantu-a" (v. 2),
and in another such as
" Sojourn in Mantua ; I'll find out your man " (Hi. 3), or
u So that my speed to Mantua there was stayed " (v. 2).
SC. 2.] JULITTS C^ISAE. 193
"We have a rare example of the termination -tion forming a dissyllable with Shakespeare in the middle of a line in Jaques's description of the Fool Touchstone (As You Like It, ii. 2) :—
" He hath strange places crammed "With observation, the which he vents In mangled forms."
This may be compared with the similar prolongation of the -trance in the sublime chant of Lady Macbeth (Mac beth, i. 5) :—
" The raven himself is hoarse That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan Under my battlements ; " —
or with what we have in the following line in The Two ^ Gentlemen of Verona, ii. 4,
" And that hath dazzled my reason's light ; " or with this in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hi. 2, — "0 me ! you. juggler ! you canker-blossom."
The name Henry, in like manner, occasionally occurs as a trisyllable both in the three Parts of Henry VI., and also in Hichard III.
The following are examples of what is much more com mon, the extension or division of similar combinations at the end of a line : —
" The parts and graces of the wrestler."
As You Like It, ii. 2 ;
"And lasting, in her sad remembrance."
Twelfth Night, i. 1 ;
" The like of him. Know'st thou this country ? "
Ibid., i. 3 ; " "Which is as bad as die with tickling."
Much Ado About Noth., Hi. 1 •
" 0, how this spring of love resembleth."
Two Gent, of Ver., i. 3 ;
]94 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTABY. [ACT II.
"And these two Ih-omios, one in semblance." Com. of Err. i. 1 ;
" These are the parents to these children." — Ibid.
" Fair sir, and you my merry mistress."
Tarn, of Shrew, iv. 5.
In other cases, however, the line must apparently be held to be a regular hemistich (or truncated verse) of nine syllables ; as in
" Of our dear souls. Meantime sweet sister."
Twelfth Night, v. 1 ;
" I'll follow you and tell what answer."
Third Part of Henry VI., iv. 3.
" Be valued 'gainst your wife's commandment." Mer. of Few., iv. 1.
Unless, indeed, in this last instance we ought not to read commandement (in four syllables), as Spenser occasionally has it ; although I am not aware of the occurrence of such a form of the word elsewhere in Shakespeare.
246. Which, like a fountain with an hundred spouts. — This is the reading of both the First and Second Folio. Mr Collier, however, has "a hundred."
246. And these does she apply for warnings and portents. — This is the reading of all the Folios. It is not quite satisfactory ; and the suspected corruption has been at tempted to be cured in various ways. Shakespeare's ha bitual accentuation of portent seems to have been on the last syllable. If the passage were in any one of cer tain others of the Plays, I should be inclined to arrange the lines as follows :—
" And these does she apply for warnings and Portents of evils imminent ; and on her knee Hath begged that I will stay at home to-day."
The crowding of short syllables which this would occasion in the second line is much less harsh and awkward than what the received arrangement produces in the first. But
SC. 2.] JULIUS CLESAB. 195
so slight a monosyllable as and in the tenth place would give us a structure of verse of which, although common in several of the other Plays, we have no example in this. See Prolegomena, sect. vi.
246. Of evils imminent. — This conjectural emendation, which appears to be Warburton's, had long been generally accepted ; but it has now the authority of Mr Collier's manuscript annotator. The reading in all the old copies 'is "And evils."
247. For tinctures, etc. — Tinctures and stains are un derstood both by Malone and Steevens as carrying an allusion to the practice of persons dipping their handker chiefs in the blood of those whom they regarded as martyrs. And it must be confessed that the general strain of the passage, and more especially the expression " shall press for tinctures," etc., will not easily allow us to reject this interpretation. Yet does it not make the speaker assign to Caesar by implication the very kind of death Calphur- nia's apprehension of which he professes to regard as visionary? The pressing for tinctures and stains, it is true, would be a confutation of so much of Calphurnia's dream as seemed to imply that the Roman people would be delighted with his death, —
" Many lusty Romans Came smiling, and did bathe their hands in it."
Do we refine too much in supposing that this inconsist ency between the purpose and the language of Decius is intended by the poet, and that in this brief dialogue be tween him and Caesar, in which the latter suffers himself to be so easily won over, — persuaded and relieved by the very words that ought naturally to have confirmed his fears, — we are to feel the presence of an unseen power driving on both the unconscious prophet and the blinded victim ? Compare 408.
Johnson takes both tinctures and cognizance in the heraldic sense as meaning distinctive marks of honour o 2
196 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT IT.
and armorial bearings (in part denoted by colours). But the stains and relics are not so easily to be accounted for on this supposition ; neither would it be very natural to say that men should press to secure such distinctions. The speech altogether Johnson characterizes as "inten tionally pompous " and " somewhat confused."
249. The senate have concluded. — To conclude, for to resolve, is one of numerous expressions, which, although no longer used, are nevertheless almost as universally in telligible as ever. They are the veterans, or emeriti, of the language, whose regular active service is over, but who still exist as a reserve force, or retired list, which may always be called out on special occasions.
249. Apt to be rendered. — Easy and likely to be thrown out in return or retaliation for your refusing to come.
249. Shall they not whisper? — We should now say "Will they not?" Vid. 238.
249. To your proceeding. — To your advancement. So in Grloster's protestation, in Rich. III. iv. 4, —
" Be opposite all planets of good luck To my proceeding ! if with dear heart's love, Immaculate devotion, holy thoughts, I tender not thy beauteous princely daughter ; "
that is, to my prospering, as we should now say.
249. And reason to my love is liable. — As if he had said, And, if I have acted wrong in telling you, my excuse is, that my reason where you are concerned is subject to and is overborne by my affection. Vid. 67.
250. In the original stage direction the name of Pub lics stands last, instead of first.
252. Are you stirred. — We have lost this application of stirred (for out of bed). The word now commonly used, astir , does not occur in Shakespeare ; and, what is remarkable, it has hitherto, although we have long been in the habit of applying it freely in various other ways as
SC. 2.] JULIUS C-ESAE. 197
well as in this sense, escaped all or most of our standard lexicographers. I do not find it either in Todd's Johnson, or in Webster, or in Eichardson, or in Walker, or in Smart. Of course, the emphasis is on you.
253. 'Tis strucken eight. — Shakespeare uses all the three forms, struck, strucken, and stricken, of which the existing language has preserved only the first. Vid. 192. Mr Collier has here stricken. Strictly speaking, of course, the mention of the striking of an hour by an old Roman involves an anachronism. JSTor is the mode of expression that of the time when here, and in 253 and 272, what we now call eight and nine o'clock in the morning are spoken of as the eighth and ninth hours.
254. That revels long c? nights. — Vid. 65. Here again it is a-nights in the original text.
256. Bid them prepare. — The use of prepare thus abso lutely (for to make preparation) is hardly now the current language, although it might not seem unnatural in verse, to which some assumption or imitation of the phraseology of the past is not forbidden.
256. I have an hour's taUc, etc. — Sour is here a dis syllable, as such words often are.
259. That every like is not the same. — That to be like a thing is not always to be that thing, — said in reference to Cesar's " We, like friends." So the old Scottish pro verb, "Like's an ill mark;" and the common French saying, as it has been sometimes converted, " Le vraisem- blable n'est pas toujours le vrai." The remark is surely to be supposed to be made aside, as well as that of Tre- bonius in 257, although neither is so noted in the old copies, and the modern editors, while they retain the direction to that effect inserted by Howe at 257, have generally struck out the similar one inserted by Pope here. Mr Collier, I see, gives both ; but whether on the authority of his MS. annotator does not appear. — In the same man ner as here, in Measure for Measure, v. 2, to the Duke's
198 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT II.
remark, " This is most likely" Isabella replies, " O, that it were as like as it is true."
259. The heart of Brutus yearns to think upon. — Yearns is earnes in the original text. It has been gener ally assumed that yearn and earn are radically the same ; the progress of the meaning probably being, it has been supposed, to feel strongly — to desire or long for — to en deavour after — to attain or acquire. But Mr Wedgwood has lately, in a paper published in the Proceedings of the Philological Society, V. 33 (No. 105, read 21 Feb., 1851), stated strong reasons for doubting whether there be really any connexion between earn and either yearn or earnest. The fundamental notion involved in earn, according to' the view taken by Mr "Wedgwood, is that of harvest or reaping. The primary and essential meaning of yearn and earnest, again (which are unquestionably of the same stock), may be gathered from the modern German gern, willingly, readily, eagerly, which in our Original English was georn, and was used as an adjective, signifying desir ous, eager, intent. We now commonly employ the verb to yearn only in construction wither or after, and in the sense of to long for or desire strongly. Perhaps the radical meaning may not be more special than to be strongly affected. In the present passage it evidently means to be stung or wrung with sorrow and regret. Shakespeare's construction of the word yearn, in so far as it differs from that now in use, may be illustrated by the following examples : —
" It yearns me not if men my garments wear."
Hen. V., iv. 3;
" 0, how it yearned my heart, when I beheld."
Rich. IT., v. 5.
This is the exclamation of the groom. So Mrs Quickly, in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Hi. 5 (speaking also, per haps, in the style of an uneducated person), " Well, she la ments, sir, for it, that it would yearn your heart to see it."
SC. 3.] JTJLIUS CAESAR. 199
"To think upon that every like is" would not have been said in Shakespeare's day, any more than it would be in ours, except under cover of the inversion.
SCENE III.— The same. A street near the Capitol. Enter AETEMIDOEUS, reading a Paper.
260. Art. Csesar, beware of Brutus; take heed of Cassius; come not near Casca ; have an eye to Cinna ; trust not Trebonius ; mark well Metellus Cimber; Deems Brutus loves thee not; thou hast wronged Caius Ligarius. There is but one mind in all these men, and it is bent against Csesar. If thou be'st 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. My heart laments, that virtue cannot live Out of the teeth of emulation. If thou read this, 0 Ctesar, thou mayest live ; If nof, the fates with traitors do contrive. \JExit.
260. Security gives way to. — In this sense (of leaving a passage open) we should now rather say to make way for. To give way has come to mean to yield and break under pressure. The heading of this scene in the original text is merely, Enter Artemidorus.
Artemidorus, who was a lecturer on the Greek rhetoric at Some, had, according to Plutarch, obtained his know ledge of the conspiracy from some of his hearers, who were friends of Brutus, that is, probably, through expres sions unintentionally dropt by them.
260. Thy lover. — As we might still say " One who loves thee." It is nearly equivalent to friend, and was formerly in common use in that sense. Thus in Psalm xxxviii. 11, we have in the old version " My lovers and my neigh bours did stand looking upon my trouble," and also in the common version, " My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my sore." — So afterwards in 375 Brutus begins his address to the people, "Eomans, countrymen, and
200 PHILOLOGICAL COMITEKTAUT. [ACT II.
lovers." See other instances from private letters in Chalmers's Apology, 165. Another change which has been undergone by this and some other words is that they are now usually applied only to men, whereas formerly they were common to both sexes. This has happened, for in stance, to paramour and villain, as well as to lover. But villain, as already noticed (186), is still a term of reproach for a woman as well as for a man in some of the provincial dialects. And, although we no longer call a woman a lover, we still say of a man and woman that they are lovers, or a pair of lovers. I find the term lover distinctly applied to a woman in so late a work as Smollett's Count Fathom, published in 1754 : — " These were alarming symptoms to a lover of her delicacy and pride." Vol. 1. ch. 10.
260. Out of the teeth of emulation. — As envy (Vid. 187) is commonly used by Shakespeare in the sense of hatred or malice, so emulation, as here, is with him often envy or malicious rivalry. There are instances, however, of his employing the word, and also the cognate terms emulator, emulate, and emulous, not in an unfavourable sense.
260. With traitors do contrive. — The word contrive in the common acceptation is a very irregular derivative from the French controuver, an obsolete compound of trouver (to find). The English word appears to have been an ciently written both controve and con tr eve (Vid. Chaucer's Eom. of the Eose, 4249 and 7547). Spenser, however, has a learned contrive of his own (though somewhat ir regularly formed too), meaning to spend, consume, wear out, from the Latin contero, contrivi (from which we have also contrite). And Shakespeare also at least in one place uses the word in this sense : —
"Please you we may contrive this afternoon."
Tarn, of Shrew, i. 2.
SC. 4.] JULIUS C^SAE. 201
SCENE IV. — The same. Another part of the same street, before the Jiouse of Brutus.
Enter POKTIA and Lucius.
261. For. I pr'ythee, boy, run to the senate-house ;
Stay not to answer me, but get thee gone :
Why dost thou stay ?
Luc. To know my errand, madam. 263. For. I would have had thee there, and here again,
Ere I can tell thee what thou should' st do there. —
0 constancy, be strong upon my side !
Set a huge mountain 'tween my heart and tongue !
1 have a man's mind, but a woman's might. How hard it is for women to keep counsel ! — Art thou here yet ?
Luc. Madam, what should I do ? Eun to the Capitol, and nothing else ? And so return to you, and nothing else ?
For. 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. Hark, boy ! what noise is that ?
Luc. I hear none, madam.
267. For. Pr'ythee, listen well ;
I heard a bustling rumour, like a fray, And the wind brings it from the Capitol.
268. Luc. Sooth, madam, I hear nothing.
Enter THE SOOTHSAYER.
269. For. Come hither, fellow ; "Which way hast thou been ? Sooth. At mine own house, good lady.
271. For. What is 't o'clock?
Sooth. About the ninth hour, lady.
For. Is Csesar yet gone to the Capitol ?
Sooth. Madam, not yet ; I go to take my stand, To see him pass on to the Capitol.
For. Thou hast some suit to Csesar, hast thou not ?
Sooth. That I have, lady : if it will please Caesar To be so good to Csesar as to hear me, I shall beseech him to befriend himself.
277. For. Why, knowest thou any harm's intended towards him ?
278. Sooth. None that I know will be, much that I fear may chance. Good morrow to you.
202 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT II.
Here the street is narrow : The throng that follows Caesar at the heels, Of senators, of praetors, common suitors, 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.
279. Por. I must go in. — Ay me ! how weak a thing The heart of woman is !
0 Brutus !
The heavens speed thee in thine enterprise ! — Sure, the hoy heard me : — Brutus hath a suit, That Caesar will not grant.— 0, I grow faint : — Run, Lucius, and commend me to my lord ; Say, I am merry, come to me again, And hring me word what he doth say to thee. [Exeunt.
Scene TT. — The heading of this scene in the original text is only " Enter Portia and Lucius"
261. Get thee gone. — An idiom ; that is to say, a pe culiar form of expression the principle of which cannot be carried out beyond the particular instance. Thus we cannot say either Make thee gone, or He got him (or him self} gone. Phraseologies, on the contrary, which are not idiomatic are paradigmatic, or may serve as models or moulds for others to any extent. All expression is divided into these two kinds. And a corresponding division may be made of the inflected parts of speech in any language. Thus, for instance, in Greek or Latin, while certain parts of speech are indeclinable, those that are declined are either paradigmatic (that is, exemplary), such as the noun and the verb, or non-exemplary, such as the articles and the pronouns. They might be distinguished as repro ductive and non-reproductive. And such an arrangement of them might be found convenient for some purposes.
263. O constancy. — Not exactly our present constancy ; rather what we should now call firmness or resolution. In the same sense afterwards, in 297, Brutus says, " Cas- sius, be constant." The French have another use of con stant, — H est constant (It is certain), — borrowed from the
SO. 4.] JTTLITJS (LESAR. 203
Latin impersonal constat, and not unknown to consto. rid. 310.
263. I have a man's mind, but a woman's might. — That is, but only a woman's might.
263. How hard it is for women to keep counsel. — Counsel in this phrase is what has been imparted in con sultation. In the phrases To take counsel and To hold counsel it means simply consultation. The two words Counsel and Council have in some of their applications got a little intermingled and confused, although the Latin Consilium and Concilium, from which they are severally derived, have no connexion. A rather perplexing instance occurs in a passage towards the conclusion of Bacon's Third Essay, entitled Of Unity in Religion, which is com monly thus given in the modern editions : — " Surely in counsels concerning religion, that counsel of the apostle would be prefixed; Ira hominis non impletjustitiam Dei." But as published by Bacon himself, if we may trust Mr Singer's late elegant reprint, the words are, — " in Coun cils concerning Religion, that Counsel of the Apostle — ." "What are we to say, however, to the Latin version, exe cuted under Bacon's own superintendence ? — " Certe op- tandum esset,(ut in omnibus circa Eeligionem consiliis, ante oculos hominum prsefigeretur monitum illud Apos- toli." I quote from the Elzevir edition of 1662 ; p. 20. Does this support Councils or Counsels concerning Eeli gion ? Other somewhat doubtful instances occur in the 20th Essay, entitled "Of Counsel," and in the 29th,' " Of the True Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates."
267. I heard a bustling rumour, like a fray. — Mr Knight has by mistake "I hear." — Humour is here (though not generally in Shakespeare) only a noise; a fray is a fight, from the French ; bustle is apparently connected with lusy, which is an Original English word, and may perhaps be the same with the German lose, wicked. This, if it be so, might lead us to suspect that
204 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT II.
quick is also wicked. And is weak (in Chaucer wikke or wicke) another variation of the same etymon ?
268. Sooth, madam. — Sooth, when used at all, may still mean either truth or true. We see that in Shakespeare's time it also meant truly. The Original English soth is in like manner used in all these different ways. It may be doubted whether this word has any connexion either with our modern verb to soothe, or with sweet (anciently sot}, the suss of the modern German.
269. Come hither, fellow ; which way hast Ihou been ? — The line, which stands thus in the original edition, and makes a perfect verae, is commonly cut up into two he- mistichs. But "Which way hast thou been" is. not a possible commencement of a verse, unless we were to lay an emphasis on thou, which would be absurd. Our been, it may be noted, is here, and commonly elsewhere, bin in the old text, as the word is still pronounced. Tyrwhitt would substitute Artemidorus for the Soothsayer in this scene ; but the change is not necessary. It is to be ob served that we have both Artemidorus and the Soothsayer in the next scene (the First of the Third Act) . Never theless, there is some apparent want of artifice in what may be almost described as the distribution of one part between two dramatis persons ; and there may possibly be something wrong.
271. What is't o'clock /—In the original text a clocke. Vid. 65.
277. Why, knowest Ihou any harm's intended towards him ? — Any harm that is intended. As in 34 and 214.
278. None that I know, etc. — Hanmer and Steevens object to the may chance here, as at once unnecessary to the sense and injurious to the prosody. "We should not have much missed the two words, certainly; but they may be borne with. The line is bisected in the original edition ; but, if it is to be accepted, it is better, perhaps, to consider it as a prolonged verse. In this somewhat
SC. 4.] JULIUS CJ2SAE. 205
doubtful instance the rhythm will be certainly that of an Alexandrine. Let the three words know will be, and also the three fear may chance, at any rate, be each and all emphatically enunciated.
278. Til get me. — Compare this with get thee gone in 261, and also with get you home in 1.
279. Ay me! how weak a thing. — This (written Aye me) is the reading of all the old copies. That of the modern editions, Mr Collier's one-volume included, is "Ah me!" The readers of Milton will remember his " Ay me ! I fondly dream, Had we been there," and, again, " Ay me ! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas "Wash far away," &c. (Lycidas 56 and 154). So also in Comus 511, and Samson Agonistes 330. Even in Paradise Lost we have " Ay me ! they little know How dearly I abide that boast so vain" (iv. 83), and "Ay me ! that fear Comes thundering back with dreadful revolution, "- although in the latter passage ah has been substituted in many of the modern editions. Ah me is a form which he nowhere uses.
279. The heart of woman is ! etc. — The broken lines here seem to require to be arranged as I have given them. We do not get a complete verse (if that were an object) by the incongruous annexation of the " O Brutus" to the previous exclamation.
279. Brutus hath a suit, etc. — This she addresses in explanation to the boy, whose presence she had for a moment forgotten.
279. Commend me to my lord. — In this idiomatic or formal phrase the word commend has acquired a somewhat peculiar signification. The resolution would seem to be, Give my commendation to him, or Say that I commend myself to him, meaning that I commit and recommend myself to his affectionate remembrance. So we have in Latin "Me totum tuo amori fideique commendo" (Cicero, Epist. ad Att. Hi. 20) ; and " Tibi me totum
206 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT III.
commendo atque trado " (Id., Epist. Fam. ii. 6). At the same time, in considering the question of the origin and proper meaning of the English phrase the custom of what was called Commendation in the Feudal System is not to be overlooked : the vassal was said to commend himself to the person whom he selected for his lord. Commend is etymologically the same word with command; and both forms, with their derivatives, have been applied, in Latin and the modern tongues more exclusively based upon it, as well as in English, in a considerable variety of ways.
ACT III. SCENE I.— The same. The Capitol; the Senate sitting.
A Crowd of People in the Street leading to the Capitol ; among them ARTEMIDORUS and the SOOTHSAYER. Flourish. Enter C^SAR, BRUTUS, CASSIUS, CASCA, DECIUS, METELLUS, TREBONIUS, CINNA, ANTONY, LEPIDUS, POPILIUS, PUBLIUS, and others.
CCBS. The ides of March are come. Sooth. Ay, Caesar; but not gone. Art. Hail, Caesar, read this schedule. 283. Dec. Trebonius doth desire you to o'er-read, At your best leisure, this his humble suit.
Art. 0, Caesar, read mine first ; for mine's a suit That touches Caesar nearer : Read it, great Caesar. 285. Cats. That touches us ? Ourself shall be last served. Art. Delay not, Caesar ; read it instantly. Cas. What, is the fellow mad ? Pub. Sirrah, give place.
289. Cas. What, urge you your petitions in the street ? Come to the Capitol.
C.3SSAR enters the Capitol, the rest following. All the
SENATORS rise.
Pop. I wish your enterprise to-day may thrive. Cas. What enterprise, -Popilius ?
292. Pop. Fare you well. [Advances to CAESAR.
Bru. What said Popilius Lena ?
SC. 1.] JULIUS CJ3SAK. 207
Cas. He wished to-day our enterprise might thrive. I fear our purpose is discovered.
295. Bru. Look, how he makes to Caesar : Mark him.
296. Cas. Casca, be sudden, for we fear prevention.— Brutus, what shall be done ? If this be known, Cassius on Csesar never shall turn back,
For I will slay myself.
297. Bru. Cassius, be constant :
Popilius Lena speaks not of our purposes ;
For, look, he smiles, and Csesar doth not change.
298. Cas. Trebonius knows his time ; for, look you, Brutus, He draws Mark Antony out of the way.
[Exeunt ANTONY and TREBONIUS. CAESAR and the
SENATORS take their seats. Dec. "Where is Metellus Cimber ? Let him go, And presently prefer his suit to Csesar.
300. Bru. He is addressed : press near and second him.
301. Cin. Casca, you are the first that rears your hand.
302. Casca. Are we all ready ? Cces. "What is now amiss,
That Csesar, and his senate, must redress ?
304. Met. Most high, most mighty, and most puissant Csesar, Metellus Cimber throws before thy seat
An humble heart :— [Kneeling.
305. Cas. I must prevent thee, Cimber. These crouchings, 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 Csesar bears such rebel blood,
That will be thawed from the true quality
"With that which melteth fools ; I mean sweet words,
Low-crouched curt'sies, and base spaniel fawning.
Thy brother by decree is banislied ;
If thou dost bend, and pray, and fawn for him,
I spurn thee like a cur out of my way.
Know, Caesar doth not wrong ; nor without cause
Will he be satisfied,
306. Met. Is there no voice more worthy than my own, To sound more sweetly in great Csesar's ear
For the repealing of my banished brother ? 307- Bru. I kiss thy hand, but not in flattery, Csesar ; Desiring thee that Publius Cimber may
208 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT III.
Have an immediate freedom of repeal. Cats. What, Brutus !
309. Gas. Pardon, Caesar ; Caesar, pardon : As low as to thy foot doth Cassius fall,
To beg enfranchisement for Publius Cimber.
310. Cces. I could be well moved, if I were as you ; If I could pray to move, prayers would move me : But I am constant as the northern star,
Of whose true fixt and resting quality There is no fellow in the firmament. The skies are painted with unnumbered sparks ; They are all fire, and every one doth shine ; But there's but one in all doth hold his place : So, in the world ; 'tis furnished 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, Unshaked of motion : and, that I am he, Let me a little show it, even in this ; That I was constant Cimber should be banished, And constant do remain to keep him so.
Cin. 0 Caesar,
312. Cees. Hence ! wilt thou lift up Olympus ?
Dec. Great Caesar,
314. Cees. Doth not Brutus bootless kneel ?
315. Casca. Speak, hands, for me.
[CASCA stabs C^ISAR in the neck. CJESAB catches hold of his arm. He is then stabbed by several other Conspirators, and at last by MARCUS BRUTUS.
316. Cees. Et tu, Brute.— Then, fall, Caesar.
[Dies. The Senators and People retire in confusion.
Cin. Liberty ! Freedom ! Tyranny is dead !— Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets.
Cas. Some to the common pulpits, and cry out, Liberty, freedom, and enfranchisement ! 319. JBru. People, and senators ! be not affrighted ; Fly not ; stand still: — ambition's debt is paid.
Casca. Go to the pulpit, Brutus.
Dec. And Cassius too.
Bru. Where's Publius ?
Cin. Here, quite confounded with this mutiny.
Met. Stand fast together, lest some friend of Caesar's Should chance
SC. 1.] JULIUS CJESAR. 209
32-5. Bru. Talk not of standing ; Publius, good cheer ; There is no harm intended to your person, Nor to no Roman else : so tell them, Publius.
Gas. And leave us, Publius ; lest that the people, Rushing on us, should do your age some mischief.
327. Bru. Do so ;— and let no man abide this deed, But we the doers.
Re-enter TEEBONIUS.
328. Cos. Where's Antony ?
329. Tre. Fled to his house amazed :
Men, wives, and children stare, cry out, and run, As it were doomsday.
Bru. Fates ! we will know your pleasures : That we shall die, we know ; 'tis but the time, And drawing days out, that men stand upon. 331. Casca. Why, he that cuts off twenty years of life Cuts off so many years of fearing death.
Bru. Grant that, and then is death a benefit : So are we Csesar's friends, that have abridged 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, Let's all cry, Peace ! Freedom ! and Liberty !
333. Cas. Stoop, then, and wash. How many ages hence, Shall this our lofty scene be acted over
In states unborn, and accents yet unknown !
334. Bru. How many times shall Caesar bleed in sport, That now on Pompey's basis lies along,
No worthier than the dust !
335. Cas. So oft as that shall be,
So often shall the knot of us be called The men that gave their country liberty.
Dec. What, shall we forth ? 337. Cas.- Ay, every man away :
Brutus shall lead ; and we will grace his heels With the most boldest and best hearts of Rome.
Enter a SEKVANT.
Bru. Soft, who comes here ? A friend of Antony's. 339. Serv. Thus, Brutus, did my master bid me kneel ; Thus did Mark Antony bid me fall down :
210 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENT ART. [ACT III.
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, T feared Caesar, honoured him, and loved him. If Brutus will vouchsafe, that Antony May safely come to him, and be resolved How Caesar hath deserved to lie in death, Mark Antony shall not love Caesar dead So well as Brutus living ; but will follow The fortunes and affairs of noble Brutus, Thorough the hazards of this untrod state, "With all true faith. So says my master Antony. 340. Bru. Thy master is a wise and valiant Roman ; I never thought him worse. Tell him, so please him come unto this place, He shall be satisfied ; and, by my honour, Depart untouched.
Serv. I'll fetch him presently. [Exit SERV.
342. Bru, I know that we shall have him well to friend.
343. Gas. I wish we may : but yet have I a mind That fears him much ; and my misgiving still Falls shrewdly to the purpose.
Re-enter ANTONY.
344. Bru. But here comes Antony. — "Welcome, Mark Antony.
345. Ant. 0 mighty Caesar ! Dost thou lie so low ? Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils, Shrunk to this little measure ? — Fare thce 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 Cuesar's death's hour; nor no instrument
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,
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.
346. Bru. 0 Antony ! beg not your death of us
SC. 1.] JULIUS CAESAR. 211
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 ; And pity to the general wrong of Rome (As fire drives out fire, so pity, pity), Hath done this deed on Ca?sar. For your part, To you our swords have leaden points, Mark Antony : Our arms, in strength of welcome, and our hearts, Of brothers' temper, do receive you in "With all kind love, good thoughts, and reverence. Gas. Your voice shall be as strong as any man's In the disposing of new dignities.
348. Bru. Only be patient, till we have appeased The multitude, beside themselves with fear, And then we will deliver you the cause
"Why I, that did love Csesar when I struck him, Have thus proceeded.
349. 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 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.
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, Csesar, 0, '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 bayed, brave hart ;
Here didst thou fall ; and here thy hunters stand,
Signed in thy spoil, and crimsoned in thy death, r 2
212 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTAET. [ACT III.
0 world ! thou wast the forest to this hart ; And this, indeed, 0 world, the heart of thee. — How like a deer, strucken by many princes, Dost thou here lie !
Cas. Mark Antony,
351. Ant. Pardon me, Caius Cassius : The enemies of Caesar shall say this ; Then, in a friend, it is cold modesty.
352. Cas. I blame you not for praising Caesar so ; But what compact mean you to have with us ? "Will you be pricked in number of our friends ; Or shall we on, and not depend on you ?
353. Ant. Therefore I took your hands; but was, indeed, Swayed from the point, by looking down on Caesar. Friends am I with you all, and love you all ;
Upon this hope, that you shall give me reasons "Why, and wherein, Caesar was dangerous.
354. Bru. Or else were this a savage spectacle. Our reasons are so full of good regard, That, were you, Antony, the son of Caesar, You should be satisfied.
355. 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. Bru. You shall, Mark Antony.
357. Cas. Brutus, a word with you. —
You know not what you do ; Do not consent
That Antony speak in his funeral :
Know you how much the people may be moved
By that which he will utter ? [Aside.
358. Bru. By your pardon;—
1 will myself into the pulpit first,
And show the reason of our Cansar's death : What Antony shall speak, I will protest He speaks by leave and by permission ; And that we are contented, Caosar shall Have all true rites, and lawful ceremonies. It shall advantage more than do us wrong.
359. Cas. I know not what may fall ; I like it not.
360. Bru. Mark Antony, here, take you Caesar's body You shall not in your funeral speech blame us,
SO. 1.] JULIUS CAESAR. 213
But speak all good you can devise of Caesar , 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. Be it so ; I do desire no more.
362. Bru. Prepare the body, then, and follow us.
[Exeunt all but ANTONY.
363. Ant. 0, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, 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 loins 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 quartered with the hands of war ; All pity choked with custom of fell deeds : And Caesar's spirit ranging for revenge, With Ate by his side, come hot from hell, Shall in these confines, with a monarch's voice, 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 Caesar, do you not ? Serv. I do, Mark Antony. Ant. Caesar did write for him to come to Rome.
366. Serv. He did receive his letters, and is coming : And bid me say to you by word of mouth, —
0 Caesar ! [Seeing the Body.
367. 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,
214 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT III.
Began to water. Is thy master coming ?
Serv. He lies to-night within seven leagues of Rome. 369. Ant. Post back with speed, and tell him what hath chanced : Here is a mourning Rome, a dangerous Rome, No Rome of safety for Octavius yet ; Hie hence, and tell him so. Yet, stay a while ; Thou shalt not back, till I have borne this corpse Into the market-place : there shall I try, In my oration, how the people take The cruel issue of these bloody men ; According to the which thou shalt discourse To young Octavius of the state of things. Lend me your hand. [Exeunt with CESAR'S body.
All the heading that we have to this Act in the original copy, where the whole is thrown into one scene, is, "Flou rish. Enter C&sar, Brutus, Cassius, Caska, Decius, Me- tellus, Trebonius, Cynna, Antony, Lepidus, Artemidorus, Publius, and the Soothsayer." — A Flourish is defined by Johnson " a kind of musical prelude." It is commonly, if not always, of trumpets. "Webster has omitted this sense of the word. . It is of continual occurrence in the stage directions of our old Plays ; and Shakespeare has, not only in his Richard the Third, iv. 4,
"A flourish, trumpets !— strike alarum, drums!" but in Titus Andronicus, iv. 2,
" "Why do the emperor's trumpets flourish thus ? "
283. Doth desire you to o'er-read. — Over (or o'er) in composition has four meanings: — 1. Throughout (or over all), which is its effect here (answering to the per in the equivalent peruse) ; 2. Beyond, or in excess, as in overleap, overpay; 3. Across, as in one sense of overlook; 4. Down upon, as in another sense of the same verb.
283. At your best leisure. — Literally, at the leisure that is best for your convenience, that best suits you. The phrase, however, had come to be understood as im plying that the leisure was also to be as early as could be made convenient.
SC. 1.] JULIUS (LESAK. 215
283. This Ms humble suit.— Suit is from sue (which we also have in composition in ensue, issue, pursue) ; and sue is the French suivre (which, again, is from the Latin sequor, secutus). A suit of clothes is a set, one piece fol lowing or corresponding to another. Suite is the same word, whether used for a retinue, or for any other kind of succession (such as a suite of apartments) .
285. That touches us ? Ourself shall le last served.— This is the correction of Mr Collier's MS. annotator. The common reading is, " What touches us ourself shall be last served." To serve, or attend to, & person is a fa miliar form of expression ; to speak of a thing as served, in the sense of attended to, would, it is apprehended, be unexampled. The "us ourself," however, would be un objectionable. Whatever may be the motive or view which has led to the substitution of the plural for the singular personal pronoun in certain expressions, it is evident that the plurality of the pronoun could not con veniently be allowed to carry along with it a correspond ing transformation of all the connected words. Although an English king might speak of himself as We, it would be felt that the absurdity was too great if he were to go on to say, " We the Kings of England." Hence such awkward combinations as " We ourself," or " Us ourself;" which, however, are only exemplifications of the same con struction which we constantly employ in common life when in addressing an individual we say "You yourself." The same contradiction, indeed, is involved in the word Yourself standing alone. It may be observed, however, that the verb always follows the number "of the pronoun which is its nominative, so that there is never any viola tion of the ordinary rule of grammatical concord. Upon the nature of the word Self, see Latham, Eng. Lan. 416. See also the note on 54, Did lose his lustre.
289. There is no such stage direction in the old editions as we now have at the end of this speech.
21G PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT III.
292. The stage direction attached to this speech is also modern.
295. Look, how he makes to Cccsar. — We should now say, he makes up to. And we also say to make /or, with another meaning. — For the prosody of this verse, see note on 246.
296. Casca, be sudden, etc. — We should now rather say, Be quick. Prevention is hindrance by something happen ing before that which is hindered. Vid. 147.
296. Cassius on Caesar never shall turn back. — The reading of all the old copies is " or Caesar," and it is re tained by most or all of the modern editors. It is inter preted by Ritson as meaning "Either Caesar or I shall never return alive." But to turn back cannot mean to return alive, or to return in any way. The most it could mean would be to make a movement towards returning ; which is so far from being the same thing with the ac complished return which this translation would have it to imply that it may almost be said to be the very opposite. Besides, even if to turn back could mean here to leave or get away from the Capitol alive, although Cassius, by plunging his dagger into his own heart, would indeed have prevented himself from so escaping, how was that act to bring with it any similar risk to Caesar ? I will slay myself, Cassius is supposed to say, whereby either I shall lose my life or Caesar will his. The emendation of " or Caesar" into " on Caesar" was proposed and is strongly supported by Malone, although he did not venture to in troduce it into his text. We have probably the opposite misprint of on for or in the speech of Paulina in the con cluding scene of The Winter's Tale, where the old copies give us —
" Then, all stand still : On : those that think it is unlawful business I am about, let them depart."
Although Mr Knight adheres to the on and the point.
SC. 1.] JULIUS CAESAR. 217
297. Cassius, be constant. — Vid. 203.
297. Popilius Lena speaks not of our purposes. — Al though this verse has twelve syllables, it is not for that an Alexandrine. Its rhythm is the same as if the last word had been merely the dissyllable purpose, or even a monosyllable, such as act or deed. It is completed by the strong syllable pur- in the tenth place, and the two un accented syllables that follow have no prosodical effect. Of course, there is also an oratorical emphasis on our, al though standiEg in one of those places which do not require an accented syllable, but which it is a mistake to suppose incapable of admitting such.
;*r297. Ctfsar doth not change. — In his manner of looking, or the expression of his countenance.
298. The stage direction attached to this speech is modern.
300. He is addressed. — To dress is the same word with to direct. Immediately from the French dresser, it is ultimately from the Latin rectus and directus, through the Italian rizzare and dirizzare ; and its literal meaning, therefore, is, to make right or straight. Formerly, ac cordingly, anything was said to be dressed or addressed when it was in complete order for the purpose to which it was to be applied. Thus, in the Second Part of King Henry the Fourth, iv. 4, the King says, ".Our navy is addressed, our power collected;" and in A Midsummer Night's Dream, v. 1, Philostrate, the Master of the Revels, makes his official announcement to Theseus thus ; — " So please your Grace, the prologue is addressed." So He is addressed in the present passage means merely He is ready. The primary sense of the word is still retained insuch phrases as To dress the ranks ; and it is not far departed from in such as To dress cloth or leather, To dress a wound, To dress meat. The notion of decoration or embellishment which we commonly associate with dressing does not enter fully even into the expression To
218 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT III.
dress the hair. In To redress, meaning to set to rights again that which has gone wrong, to make that which was crooked once more straight, we have the simple etymolo gical or radical import of the word completely preserved. To redress is to re-rectify.
The following are some examples of the employment of the word addressed by writers of the latter part of the seventeenth century: — "When Middleton came to the King in Paris, he brought with him a little Scotish vicar, who was known to the King, one Mr Knox. ... He said he was addressed from Scotland to the Lords in the Tower, who did not then know that Middleton had ar rived in safety with the King;" etc. — Clarendon, Hist., Book xiii. "Thereupon they [the King's friends in England] sent Harry Seymour, who, being of his Majesty's bedchamber, and having his leave to attend his own affairs in England, they well knew would be believed by the King, and, being addressed only to the Marquis of Ormond and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he might have op portunity to speak with the King privately and undisco vered;" etc. — Id., Book xiv. "Though the messengers who were sent were addressed only to the King himself and to the Chancellor of the Exchequer;" etc. — Ibid. " Two gentlemen of Kent came to Windsor the morning after the Prince [of Orange] came thither. They were addressed to me. And they told me ; " etc. — Bur net, Own Time, I. 799.
301. You are tlie first that rears your hand. — In strict grammar, perhaps, it should be either "rears his" or " rear your ;" but the business of an editor of Shakespeare is not to make for us in all cases perfect grammar, but to give us what his author in all probability wrote. A writer's grammatical irregularities are as much part of his style, and therefore of his mind and of himself, as any other characteristic.
302. Casca. Are we all ready? 303. C«s. What is
SC. l.J JULIUS (LESAK. 210
now amiss, etc. There can, I think, be no doubt that Mr Collier's MS. annotator has here again given us the true reading, and a valuable restoration. "What Casca could possibly mean by exclaiming " What is now amiss, That Caesar and his Senate must redress ?" is nearly inconceiv able. The question is plainly suitable to Ca3sar only, to the person presiding ; the proceedings could never have been so opened by any mere member of the Senate. And the absurdity of supposing it to have been spoken by Casca becomes still stronger when we have to consider it as a natural sequence of the "Are we all ready?" which immediately precedes. Even if any one of the conspirators was likely to have made such a display, it was hardly Casca.
304. Most puissant Ccesar. — Piiissant, and the sub stantive form puissance, are, I believe, always dissyllables in Milton ; with Shakespeare they generally are so (as here), but not always. Thus in King John, Hi. 1, the King says to the Bastard,
" Cousin, go draw our puissance together." Walker, however, is mistaken in producing the line — "Either past, or not arrived to pith and puissance" —
(from the Chorus before the Third Act of King Henry the FiflJi) as necessarily to be read with the trisyllabic division of the word. It is not even probable that it ought to be so read, — barely possible. In Spenser too we have occasionally this pronunciation: — as in F. Q. v. 2, 7, "For that he is so puissant and strong;" and again in st. 17, " His puissance, ne bear himself upright."
305. These croucJiings. — This is the correction (for the couchings of the old printed copies) of Mr Collier's MS. annotator. Surely it does not admit of a doubt.
305. And turn pre-ordinance, etc. — The reading of the old text here is "into the lane of children." Malone actually attempts an explanation of " the lane of children ; " he says it may mean " the narrow conceits of children,
220 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT III.
which must change as their minds grow more enlarged"! The prostration of the human understanding before what it has got to hold as authority can hardly be conceived to go beyond this. Johnson conjectured that lane might be a misprint for law ; and Mr Collier's MS. annotator, it appears, makes the same emendation. The new reading may still be thought not to be perfectly satisfactory ; but at least it is not utter nonsense, like the other. In a passage which has evidently suffered some injury, we may perhaps be allowed to suspect that "first decree" should be "fixed decree." The word would be spelled^yfotf, as it is immediately afterwards in 310.
305. Be not fond, etc. — The sense in which fond is used here (that of foolish) appears to be the original one ; so that when tenderness of affection was first called fondness it must have been regarded as a kind of folly. In like manner what was thought of doting upon anything, or any person, may be inferred from the import of the word dotage. In Chaucer afonne is a fool ; and the word fond ling can scarcely be said to have yet lost that meaning (though it is omitted by Dr Webster).
305. Such rebel blood, That will be thatved.—Vid. 44.
305. Low-crouched curfsies. — This is the correction of Mr Collier's MS. annotator : the Folios have " Low- crooked-curtsies" (with hyphens connecting all the three words). We say to crouch low, but not to crook low. Curtfsies, which we have here, is the same word which appears in the second line of the present speech as cour tesies. It is akin to court and courteous, the immediate root being the French cour ; which, again, appears to be the Latin curia, — or rather curiata (scil. comitia?), as is indicated by our English court, and the old form of the French word, which was the same, and also by the Italian corte and the Spanish corte and cortes. Mr Collier prints curtesies. It is curtsies in the Second Folio, as well as in the First.
SC. 1.] JULITJS CJESAE. 221
305. Know, Cccsar doth not wrong, etc. — This is the reading of all the old printed copies, and Mr Collier ex pressly states that it is left untouched by his MS. cor rector. We must take it as meaning, " Caesar never does what is wrong, or unjust ; nor will he be appeased (when he has determined to punish) without sufficient reason being shown." At the same time, it must be confessed both that these two propositions, or affirmations, do not hang very well together, and also that such meaning as they may have is not very clearly or effectively expressed by the words. " Nor without cause will he be satisfied " has an especially suspicious look. That " without cause " should mean without sufficient reason being shown why he should be satisfied or induced to relent is only an in terpretation to which we are driven for want of a better. Now, all this being so, it is remarkable that there is good evidence that the passage did not originally stand as we now have it. Ben Jon son, in his Discoveries, speaking of Shakespeare, 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, ' Csesar, thou dost me wrong,' he replied, ' Csesar did never wrong but with just cause.'" And he ridicules the expression again in his Staple of News : — " Cry you mercy ; you never did wrong but with just cause." We must believe that the words stood originally as Jonson has given them ; and he had evidently heard of no alteration of them. "Whoever may have attempted to mend them might perhaps have as well let them alone. After all, Caesar's declaring that he never did wrong but with just cause would differ little from what Bassanio says in TJie Merchant of Venice, iv. 1 : —
" I beseech you,
Wrest once the law to your authority : To do a great right do a little wrong."
Shakespeare, however, may have retouched the passage himself on being told of Jonsou's ridicule of it, though
222 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT III.
perhaps somewhat hastily and with less painstaking than Euripides when he mended or cut out, as he is said to have done in several instances, what had incurred the derisive criticism of Aristophanes.
300. For the repealing, etc. — To repeal (from the French rappeler) is literally to recall, though no longer used in that sense, — in which, however, it repeatedly occurs in Shakespeare. Thus in Coriolanus, iv. 1, after the banish ment of Marcius, his friend Cominius says to him,
"If the time thrust forth A cause for thy repeal, we shall not send," etc.
For the probable pronunciation of banished in this and in the preceding speech, see the note on 246.
307. Desiring ihee. — We should now say in this sense " desiring of thee." To desire, from the Latin desiderium (through the French desir) is the same as to desiderate ; but, like other similar terms, it has in different construc tions, or has had in different stages of the language, va rious meanings according to the measure or degree of intensity in which that which it expresses is conceived to be presented. It may be found in every sense, from such wishing or longing as is the gentlest and quietest of all things (the soft, desire of the common herd of our amatory versemongers) to that kind which gives utterance to itself in the most imperative style of command.
307. An immediate freedom of repeal. — A free uncon ditional recall. This application of the term freedom is a little peculiar. It is apparently imitated from the ex pression freedom of a city. As that is otherwise called the municipal franchise, so this is called enfranchisement in the next speech but one.
309. As low as to thy foot.— The Second Folio has "Asfow."
310. I could be well moved. — I could fitly or properly be moved.
310. If I could pray to move, prayers would move me. —
SC. 1.] JTTLIUS CLESAE. 223
The meaning seems to be, "If I could employ prayers (as you can do) to move (others), then I should be moved by prayers (as you might be)." But it is somewhat dark. The commentators see no difficulty, or at least give us no help. " The oracles are dumb." '
310. jBut I am constant as the northern star. — Vid. 263. Both in this line and in the two last lines of the present speech, the term firm would more nearly express the no tion in our modern English.
310. Hesting quality. — Quality or property of remain ing at rest or immovable.
310. But there's but one in all doth, hold his place. — That is, its place, as we should now say. Vid. 54.
310. Apprehensive. — Possessed of the power of appre hension, or intelligence. The word is now confined to another meaning.
310. That unassailable, etc. — Holds on his rank proba bly means continues to hold his place ; and unshaked oj motion, perhaps, unshaken by any motion, or solicitation, that may be addressed to him. Or, possibly, it may be, Holds on his course unshaken in his motion, or with per fectly steady movement.
312. Wilt thou lift up Olympus ? — Wilt thou attempt an impossibility? Think you, with your clamour, to upset what is immovable as the everlasting seat of the Gods?
(314^) Doth not Brutus bootless kneel ? — Has not Brutus been refused, and shall any other be listened to ? It is surprising that Dr Johnson should have missed seeing this, and proposed to read " Do not, Brutus, bootless kneel." That, however (which Johnson does not appear to have known), is also the reading of the Second Folio, — except, indeed, that the point of interrogation is, not withstanding, still preserved. Mr Collier in his regulated text adheres to the reading of the First Folio ; but it does not appear that he has the sanction of any restoration of
224< PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT III.
that reading, or correction of that of the Second Folio, byliiaMS. annotator.
:J1.1— The only stage direction after this speech in the )riginal edition is, " They stab Ccesar"
316. Et tu, Brute. — There is no ancient Latin author ity, I believe, for this famous exclamation, although in Suetonius, I. 82, Caesar is made to address Brutus Kcu ai>, TtKvov ; (And thou too, my son ?). It may have occurred as it stands here in the Latin play on the same subject which is recorded to have been acted at Oxford in 1582 ; and it is found in The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York, first printed in 1595, on which the Third Part of King Henry the Sixth is founded, as also in a poem by S. Nicholson, entitled Acolastus his Afterwit, printed in 1GOO, in both of which nearly contemporary productions we have the same line:— "J&Ju, finite? .Wilt thou stab Caesar too ?" It may just be noticed, as the historical fact, that the meeting of the Senate at which Caesar was assassinated was held, not, as is here assumed, in the Capitol, but in the Curia in which the statue of Pompey stood, being, as Plutarch tells us, one of the edifices which Pompey had built, and had given, along with his famous Theatre, to the public. It adjoined the Theatre, which "is spoken of (with the Portico surrounding it) in 130, 138, and 140. The mistake which we have here is found also in Hamlet, where (Hi. 2) Hamlet questions Polonius about his histrionic performances when at the University : " I did enact Julius Caesar," says Polonius; "I was killed i' the Capitol ; Brutus killed me ;" to which the Prince re plies, " It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there." So also, in Antony and Cleopalra, ii. 6 : —
" What
Made the all-honoured, honest, Roman Brutus, "With the armed rest, courtiers of beauteous freedom, To drench the Capitol?"
Even Beaumont and Fletcher, in their Tragedy entitled
SC. 1.] JULIUS dESAE. 225
The False One, in defending themselves from the imputa tion of having taken up the same subject which had been already brought on the stage in the present Play, say : —
"Sure to tell
Of Caesar's amorous heats, and how he fell I' the Capitol, can never be the same To the judicious."
In the old copies the only stage direction at the end of this speech is the word " Dies"
319. Ambition's debt is paid. — Its debt to the country and to justice. Unless, as a friend suggests, the meaning may be — Ambition has now received its reward, its due.
325. Nor to no Roman else. — Where, as here, the sense cannot be mistaken, the reduplication of the negative is a very natural way of strengthening the expression. Steev- ens remarks that, according to Hickes, we have in the English of the times before the Conquest sometimes so many as four negatives employed in combination for this end.
327. And let no man abide this deed. — Let no man be held responsible for, or be required to stand any conse quences that may follow upon any penalty that may have to be paid on account of, this deed. Another form of the verb to abide is to aby ; as in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hi. 2 : —
" If thou dost intend Never so little shew of love to her, Thou shalt aby it ; "
and in the same scene, a little before, " Lest to thy peril thou aby it dear ;" and, a little after, " Thou shalt '% this dear." So in the Old Yersion of the Psalms, Hi. 26, " Thou shalt dear aby this blow." It may be questioned whether abide in this sense has any connexion with the common word. To aby has been supposed by some to be the same with buy. — The original stage direction is Enter Trebonius.
226 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTABY. [ACT III.
328. Where's Antony.— In the original text, " Where is Antony."
329. As it were doomsday. — Assuming the proper meaning of as to be what was explained in the note on 44, as it were will mean literally no more than that it were, and there will be no express intimation of the clause being suppositive or conditional ; that will be left to be merely inferred from the obvious requirements of the context, as many things in language continually are where no doubt can exist. The full expression would be " as if it were doomsday." — The doom of doomsday is no doubt the same word with deem, and means essentially only thought or judging, whether favourable or unfavourable. The Judges in the Isle of Man and in Jersey are called Deemsters, meaning, apparently, only pronouncers of judg ment upon the cases brought before them. On the other hand, however, in Scotland formerly the Dempster of Court was the legal name for the common hangman. This might suggest a possible connexion between deem or doom and the Latin damno (or demno, as in condemno). But the name Dempster in Scotland also designated a species of judge. The Dempsters of Caraldstone in For- farshire were so called as being hereditary judges to the great Abbey of Aberbrothock. Lord Hailes, under the year 1370, refers to an entry in the Chartulary recording that one of them had become bound to the Abbot and Abbey that he and his heirs should furnish a person to administer justice in their courts at an annual salary of twenty shillings sterling (facient ipsis deserviri de officio judicis, etc.).— Annals, II. 336 [edit, of 1819]. "We con tinue to use deem indifferently ; but another word origin ally of the same general signification, censure, has within the last two centuries lost its old sense, and has come to be restricted to that of pronouncing an unfavourable iudgment. The other sense, however, is still retained in census, recension, and censor, with its derivative censorship
SC. 1.] JULIUS C^SAE. 227
(as it is in the Trench forms for the two last-mentioned, censeur and censure).
331. Why, lie that cuts off, etc. — The modern editors, generally, give this speech to Cassius ; but it is assigned to Casca in all the old copies. We may suspect a misprint, — for not only is it more in the manner of Cassius, but it does not seem to be so suitable to the comparatively sub ordinate position of Casca at the present moment ;— -still, considerations of this kind are not decisive enough to warrant us in departing from the only text which claims to be of authority. JSTo alteration is made by Mr Collier's MS. corrector. But it certainly would be nothing more than what we should expect that some confusion should have taken place in the printing of this Play between Cas sius and Casca, as well as between Lucilius and Lucius.
333. Stoop, then, and wash. — So in Coriolanus, i. 10, we have — " Wash my fierce hand in his heart." In both passages wash, which is an Original English word (pre served also in the Grerman waschen), is used in what is probably its primitive sense of immersing in or covering with liquid. Thus we say to wash with gold or silver. So in Antony and Cleopatra, v. 1, Octavius, on being told of the death of Antony, exclaims, " It is a tidings To wash the eyes of kings."
333. In states unborn. — The Eirst Folio, and that only, has " In state unborn," — palpably a typographical error, and as such now given up by everybody, but a reading which Malone, in his abject subservience to the earliest text, actually retained, or restored, interpreting it as meaning " in theatric pomp as yet undisplayed."
334. That now on Pompey's basis lies along. — At the base of Pompey's statue, as in 426. — In the copy of the Eirst Eolio before me it is " lye along ;" but I do not find such a variation anywhere noticed, — not even in Jen nens's collation. Lyes is the word in the Second Eolio.
335. The men that gave their country liberty. — This i«
Q 2
228 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT III.
the reading of all the old copies, which Mr Knight has re stored, after their had been turned into our by the last century editors (Malone included), not only unnecessarily and unwarrantably, but also without notice.
337. With the most boldest. — In the old version of the Psalms we are familiar with the form the most Highest ; and even in the authorized translation of the Bible we have, in Acts xxvi. 5, " the most straitest sect of our re ligion." Nor is there anything intrinsically absurd in such a mode of expression. If we are not satisfied to con sider it as merely an intensified superlative, we may say that the most boldest should mean those who are boldest among the boldest. So again in 426 ; " This was the most unkindest cut of all." In most cases, however, the double superlative must be regarded as intended merely to ex press the extreme degree more emphatically. Double comparatives are very common in Shakespeare. ^~S39. Say, / love Brutus.— Mr Knight has, apparently by a typographical error, " I lov'd."
339. May safely come to him, and be resolved. — That is, have his perplexity or uncertainty removed. "We might still say, have his doubts resolved. But we have lost the more terse form of expression, by which the doubt was formerly identified with the doubter. So again, in 426, Caesar's blood is described by Antony as
" — rushing out of doors., to be resolved If Brutus so unkindly knocked or no ;"
and in 506 Brutus, referring to Cassius, asks of Lucilius, " How he received you, let me be resolved." — Mr Collier's MS. annotator ^£ends ' the stage direction "Kneeling" to the first line of this speech, and "Rising" to the last.
840. Tell him, so please him come unto this place. — For the meaning of so here, see the note on " So with love I might entreat you," in 57. There is an ellipsis of the usual nominative (it) before the impersonal verb (please)-,
SC. 1.] JULIUS C^SAE. 229
and the infinitive come also wants the customary prefix to. "So please him come" is equivalent to If it please (or may please) him to come.
342. I know that we shall have him well to friend. — So in Cymbeline, i. 5, lachimo says, " Had I admittance and opportunity to friend." So Macbeth (iii. 3), " What I can redress, As I shall find the time to friend, I will." Even in Clarendon we have, " For the King had no port to friend by which he could bring ammunition to Oxford," etc. — Hist., Book vii. To friend is equivalent to for friend. So we say To take to wife. The Grerman form of to (zu) is used in a somewhat similar manner: Das wird mich zu eurem Freunde machen (That will make me your friend). In the Winter's Tale, v. 1, We have " All greetings that a King at friend Can send his brother."
343. Falls shrewdly to the purpose. — The purpose is the intention ; to the purpose is according to the intention, as away from the purpose, or beside the purpose, is with out any such coincidence or conformity ; and to fall shrewdly to the purpose may be explained as being to fall upon that which it is sought to hit with mischievous sharpness and felicity of aim. Fid. 186.
344. The original heading is " Enter Antony."
345. 0 mighty Ccesarl dost thou lie so low? — Mr Col lier states, in his Notes and Emendations, p. 400, that a stage direction of his MS. annotator requires Antony, on his entrance with this line, to kneel over the body, and to rise when he comes to " I know not, gentlemen, what you intend," etc.
345. Who else is rank. — Is of too luxuriant growth, too fast-spreading power in the commonwealth.
345. As CcBsar's death's hour. — This is the reading of all the old copies. Mr Collier prints " death hour."
345. Nor no instrument.— Here the double negative, while it occasions no ambiguity, is palpably much more forcible than either and no or nor any would have been.
230 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTABY. [ACT III
345. Of half that worth as.— Vid.^.
345. I do beseech ye, if you bear me hard. — See note on Sear me hard in 105. — The present line affords a remark able illustration of how completely the old declensiorrof the personal pronoun of the second person has become obliterated in our modern English. Milton too almost always has ye in the accusative. Thus {Par. Lost, a:. 402) : — " I call ye, and declare ye now, returned Suc cessful beyond hope, to lead ye forth," etc. In the ori ginal form of the language ye (ge) is always nominative, and you (edw) accusative ; being the very reverse of what we have here.
345. Live a thousand years. — Suppose I live ; If I live ; Should I live. But, although the suppression of the con ditional conjunction is common and legitimate enough, that of the pronoun, or nominative to the verb, is hardly so defensible. The feeling probably was that the 1 in the next line might serve for both verbs.
345. So apt to die. — Apt is properly fit, or suited, generally, as here. So formerly they said to apt in the sense both of to adapt and of to agree. I apprehend, however, that such an expression as apt to die (for ready or prepared to die) would have been felt in any stage of the language to involve an unusual extension of the meaning of the word, sounding about as strange as aptus ad moriendum would do in Latin. We now, at all events, commonly understand the kind of suitableness or readiness implied in apt as being only that which consists in inclin ation, or addictedness, or mere liability. Indeed, we usually say disposed or inclined in cases in which apt was the customary word in the English of the last century ; as in Smollett's Count Fathom, Vol. II. ch. 27, " I am apt to believe it is the voice of heaven." By the substantive aptitude, again, we mostly understand an act ive fitness. The word apte was wont to be not much used in French; some of the dictionaries do not notice it;
SO. 1.] JULIUS CJ3SAK. 231
Bichelet characterizes it as obsolete ; adding, on the authority of Father Bouhours, that the noun aptitude is occasionally employed, although not considered to belong to the Court language. Like many other old-fashioned words, however, this has been revived by recent writers. Such expressions as " On est apte a juger," meaning " One has no difficulty in concluding," are common in modern books.
345. As here, by C&sar and by you, cut off. — We may resolve the ellipsis by saying " as to be," or " as being cut off." And " ~by Caesar " is, of course, beside Ca3sar ; " ~by you," through your act or instrumentality. A play of words, as it is called, was by no means held in Shake speare's day to be appropriate only to sportive writing, — any more than was any other species of verbal artifice or ornament, such, for instance, as alliteration, or rhyme, or verse itself. Whatever may be the etymology of by, its primary meaning seems to be alongside of (the same, ap parently, with that of the Greek napa). It is only by inference that instrumentality is expressed either by it or by with (the radical notion involved in which appears to be that of joining or uniting). ._ Vid. 620.
345. The choice and master spirits of this age. — Choice here may be understood either in the substantive sense as the elite, or, better perhaps, as an adjective in concord with spirits.
346. 0 Antony ! leg not your death of us. — That is, If you prefer death, or if you are resolved upon death, let it not be of us that you ask it. The sequel of the speech seems decisive in regard to the us being the emphatic word.
346. And this the Weeding business. — Only a more vivid expression for the bloody business, the jsanguinary vact .
346. Our hearts you see not, they are pitiful. — Probably the primary sense of the Latin pius and pietas may have been nothing more than emotion, or affection, generally.
232 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTABY. [ACT III.
But the words had come to be confined to the expression of reverential affection towards a superior, such as the gods or a parent. From pietas the Italian language has received pieta (anciently pietade), which has the senses both of reverence and of compassion. The French have moulded the word into two forms, which (according to what frequently takes place in language) have been respectively appropriated to the two senses; and from their piete and pitie we have borrowed, and applied in the same manner, our piety and pity. To the former, more over, we have assigned the adjective pious ; to the latter, piteous. But pity, which meant at one time reverence, and afterwards compassion, has come in some of its uses to suffer still further degradation. By pitiful (or full of pity) Shakespeare, as we see here, means full of compas sion ; but the modern sense of pitiful is contemptible or despicable. " Pity," it has been said, or sung, " melts the soul to love;" but this would seem to show that it is also near akin to a very different passion. And, instead of turning to love, it would seem more likely that it should sometimes pass on from contempt to aversion and hatred. In many cases, too, when we say that we pity an individual, we mean that we despise or loathe him.
346. As fire drives out fire, so pity pity. — In this line the first Jire is a dissyllable (like hour in 256), the second a monosyllable. The illustration we have here is a fa vourite one with Shakespeare. " Tut, man," says Benvolio to his friend E-omeo (Romeo and Juliet, i. 2),
" one fire burns out another's burning,
One pain is lessened by another's anguish."
" One fire burns out one fire ; one nail, one nail,"
exclaims Tullus Aufidius, in Coriolanus (iv. 7). But we have the thought most fully expressed in the soliloquy of Proteus in the Fourth Scene of the Second Act of The Two Gentlemen of Verona : —
SC. 1.] JULIUS C^SAE. 233
" Even as one heat another heat expels, Or as one nail by strength drives out another, So the remembrance of my former love Is by a newer object quite forgotten."
This is probably also the thought which we have in the heroic Bastard's exhortation to his uncle, in King John, v. I:—
"Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire ; Threaten the threatener ; " etc.
346. For your part. — We should not now use this phrase in the sense which it has here (in so far as regards you).
346. Our arms, in strength of welcome. — The reading in all the old printed copies is, " in strength of malice." Steevens interprets this, " strong in the deed of malice they have just performed," and Malone accepts the ex planation as a very happy one. But who can believe that Brutus would ever have characterized the lofty patriotic passion by which he and his associates had been impelled and nerved to their great deed as strength of malice ? It is simply impossible. The earlier editors, accordingly, seeing that the passage as it stood was nonsense, attempted to correct it conjecturally in various ways. Pope boldly printed " exempt from malice." Capel, more ingeniously, proposed "no strength of malice," connecting the words, not with those that follow, but with those that precede. But the mention of malice at all is manifestly in the highest degree unnatural. Nevertheless the word has stood in every edition down to that in one volume pro duced by Mr Collier in 1853 ; and there, for the first time, instead of " strength of malice" we have " strength of welcome" This turns the nonsense into excellent sense ; and the two words are by no means so unlike as that, in a cramp hand or an injured or somewhat faded page, the one might not easily have been mistaken by the first printer or editor for the other. The "welcome" would probably
234 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTAEY. [ACT III.
be written welcbe. Presuming the correction to nave been made on documentary authority, it is one of the most valuable for which we are indebted to the old annotator. Even as a mere conjecture, it would be well entitled to notice and consideration.
346. Of brothers' temper. — Brothers, that is, to one another (not to you, Antony).
348. Beside themselves. — Other forms of the same figure are Out of themselves, Out of their senses. And in the same notion we say of a person whose mind is de ranged that he is not himself.
348. And then we will deliver you the cause. — The his tory of the word deliver (properly to set free, to let go forth, and hence, as applied to what is expressed in words, to declare, to pronounce) presents some points worthy of notice. In Latin (besides liber, bark, or a book, and its derivative dettbrare, to peel off, with which we have at present no concern), there are the adjective liber, free (to which liberi, children, no doubt belongs), and the substantive libra, signifying both a balance and the weight which we call a pound or twelve ounces. "Whether liber and libra be connected may be doubted. The Greek form of libra, X/rpa, and the probable identity of liber with iXevdepoQ are rather against the supposition that they are. At the same time, that which is free, whether understood as meaning that which is free to move in any direction, or that which hangs even and without being inclined more to one side than another, would be a natural enough description of a balance. And libra (a balance), it may be added, had anciently also the form of libera. At any rate, from liber, free, we have the verb liberare, to make free ; and from libra, a balance, or weight, librare, to weigh.
So far all is regular and consistent. But then, when we come to the compound verb deliberare, we find that it takes its signification (and must therefore have taken its
SC. 1.] JULIUS C^SAR. 235
origin), not from liber are and liber, but from librare and libra; it means, not to free, but to weigh. And, such being the state of things in the Latin language, the French has from deliberare formed deliverer, having the same sig nification (to weigh) ; but it has also from liber formed another verb delivrer, with the sense of to free. From the French deliberer and delivrer we have, in like manner, in English, and with the same significations, deliberate and deliver. Thus the deviation begun in the .Latin deliberare has been carried out and generalized, till the derivatives from liber have assumed the form that would have been more proper for those from libra, as the latter had pre viously usurped that belonging to the former.
It is from deliver, no doubt, that we have fabricated our modern abbreviation clever. The ancient forms for what we now call clever and cleverly were deliver and de- liverly. Thus in Chaucer (Prol. to G. T. 84), the Knight's son, the young Squire, is described as " wonderly deliver, and grete of strengthe;" and in the Nuns' Priest's Tale of the Cock and the Fox (C. T. 15,422), we have—
" The Fox answered, In faith it shal be don : And, as he spake the word, al sodenly The Cok brake from his mouth deliverly, And high upon a tree he flew anon."
Deliver, rapidly pronounced, became dliver or dlever, and that was inevitably converted into clever by the euphonic genius of the language, in which such a combination as dl cannot live.*
* According, indeed, to Dr Webster, — who, however, gives no hint of the above etymology, — clever would be actually only another way of writing tlever. One of his rules (the 23rd) for English pronunciation is as follows : — " The letters cl, answering to kl, are pronounced as if written tl : clear, clean are pronounced tlear, tlean. Gl are pronounced as dl: glory is pronounced dlory." I transcribe this from the edition of the " Dictionary of the English Language," in 2 vols. 4to, Lon. 1832, professing to be " reprinted by E. H. Barker, Esq., of Thetford, Nor folk, from a copy communicated by the author, and containing many
236 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTABY. [ACT III.
Somewhat curious, too, are the variations of import through which the word clever has passed, or among which it still wanders. Johnson, after giving its modern or common signification as " dexterous, skilful," and no ticing that Pope has used it in the sense of "just, fit," and Arbuthnot in that of " well-shaped," concludes by describing it as " a low word applied to anything a man likes, without a settled meaning." Webster, omitting "well-shaped," gives the New England sense, "good-na tured, amiable ;" and then adds : — " In some of the United States, it is said, this word is applied to the intellect, de noting ingenious, knowing, discerning." This last, it need scarcely be observed, is in fact nearly the modern sense of the word in England. The American lexicogra pher erroneously supposes that its use in Great Britain is distinguished from its use in America by its being in the former country "applied to the body or its move ments."
348. WTien I struck him. — In the original printed text it is " strooke him."
349. Let each man render me his bloody hand. — Give me back in return for mine. Here, according to the stage direction of Mr Collier's MS. annotator, Antony " takes one after another of the conspirators by the hand, and turns to the body, and bends over it, while he says, ' That I did love thee, Caesar, 0 ! 'tis true,'" etc.
manuscript corrections and additions." The American lexicographer's sense of hearing would appear to have heen peculiarly constituted. Another thing that he tells us is, that, when he was in England, he paid particular attention to the practice of public speakers in regard to the sound of the vowel u, and was happy to find that very few of them made any distinction between the u in such words as cube or duke and the u in rude or true. I do not know whether he means to say that he found cube to be generally called coob, or rude to be pronounced as if it were written ryude. "What is most surprising is that all this should have been reproduced by an English editor without either a word of dissent or so much as a note of admiration.
SO. 1.] JULIUS C.ESAE. 237
349. Witt I shake ivith you. — It is not to be supposed that there was anything undignified in this phraseology in Shakespeare's age.
349. Though last, not least.— ^So in King Lear, i. 1, "Although the last, not least in our dear love;" as is noted by Malone, who adds that " the same expression occurs more than once in Plays exhibited before the time of Shakespeare." We have it also in the passage of Spenser's Colin Clout's Come Home Again in which Shakespeare has been supposed to be referred to : —
" And there, though last, not least, is jEtion ; A gentler shepherd may no where be found ; "Whose muse, full of high thought's invention, Doth like himself heroically sound."
This poem was published in 1595.
349. You must conceit me. — Vid. 1^2.
349. Shall it not grieve thee dearer than thy death ? — Of this use of dear we have several other instances in Shakespeare. One of the most remarkable is in Hamlet, i. 2, where Hamlet exclaims —
" "Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven Ere I had seen that day ! "
Home Tooke (Div. of Purley, 612, etc.) makes a plausi ble case in favour of dear being derived from the ancient verb derian, to hurt, to annoy, and of its proper meaning being, therefore, injurious or hateful. His notion seems to be that from this derian we have dearth^mesnimg pro perly that sort of injury which is done by the weather, and that, a usual consequence of dearth being to make the produce of the earth high-priced, the adjective dear has thence taken its common meaning of precious. This is not all distinctly asserted ; but what of it may not be explicitly set forth is supposed and implied. It is, how ever, againet an explanation which has been generally accepted, that there is no appearance of connexion between derian and the contemporary word answering to dear in
238 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT III.
the sense of high-priced, precious, beloved, which is deore, dure, or dyre, and is evidently from the same root, not with derian, but with dedran, or dyran, to hold dear, to love. There is no doubt about the existence of an old English verb dere, meaning to hurt, the unquestionable represent ative of the original derian: thus in Chaucer (C. T. 1824) Theseus says to Palamon and Arcite, in the Knight's Tale :—
"And ye shul bothe anon unto me swere That never mo ye shul my contree dere, Ne maken werre upon me night ne day, But ben my frendes in alle that ye may."
But perhaps we may get most easily and naturally at the sense which dear sometimes assumes by supposing that the notion properly involved in it of love, having first become generalized into that of a strong affection of any kind, had thence passed on into that of such an emotion the very reverse of love. We seem to have it in the in termediate sense in such instances as the following : —
" Some dear cause Will in concealment wrap me up a while." — Lear, iv. 3.
" A precious ring ; a ring that I must use In dear employment." — Romeo and Juliet, v. 3.
And even when Hamlet speaks of his "dearest foe," or when Celia remarks to Rosalind, in As You Like It, i. 3, "My father hated his [Orlando's] father dearly," the word need not be understood as implying more than strong or passionate emotion.
349. Here wast thou bayed. — So afterwards, in 498, " We are at the stake, And bayed about with many ene mies." It is not clear, however, in what sense the verb to be bayed is used in these passages. Does it mean to be embayed, or enclosed ? or to be barked at ? or to be made to stand, as it is phrased, at bay ? The bays in these expressions appear to be all different words. According to Home Tooke, to bay, meaning to enclose, undoubtedly
SC. 1.] JULIUS CJESAR. 239
the same with a bay of the sea, is from the ancient "bygan, to bend, and is essentially the same with both boiv and bough. This is also, of course, the bay which we have in bay- window. — Div. of Purley, 464, 465. To bay, meaning to bark, again, Tooke conceives to be the same element which we have in the Greek /3oaw (to call aloud, to roar), as well as in the Italian abbaiare and the French aboyer, and, understood as meaning to cry down, to vilify, to re proach, to express abhorrence, aversion, and defiance, to be the root of bad (quasi bayed}, of bane (bay en), of the verb to 'ban, and of the French bas and its English deriva tive base. — Id. 357. — As for at bay, it is evidently the French aux abois, meaning in extremity, at the last gasp ; and, whatever abois may be, it does not appear how it can have anything to do with aboyer, to bark. There are also to be accounted for the bay, a name for the laurel, and the colour called bay, applied to a horse, to salt, and to woollen thread. A division of a house or other build ing was formerly called a bay ; as in Measure for Measure, ii. 1 : — " If this law hold in Vienna ten years, I'll rent the fairest house in it after threepence a bay." For this, and also Bay-window, see Nares. In Boucher (or rather in the additions by his editors) will be found the further mean ings of a boy, a stake, a berry, the act of baiting with dogs, round, to bend, and to obey. Spenser uses to bay for to bathe. In The Taming of the Shrew, v. 2, we have the unusual form at a bay : — " 'Tis thought your deer does hold you at a bay."
349. Signed in thy spoil, and crimsoned in thy death. — Instead of death the First Folio has Letliee, the others Lethe ; and the passage is explained as meaning marked and distinguished by being arrayed in thy spoils (the power in the commonwealth which was thine), and made crimson by being as it 'were bathed in thy shed blood. But Steevens's note is entirely unsatisfactory: " Lethe" he says, " is used by many of the old translators
2iO PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT III.
of novels for death ; " and then he gives as an example the following sentence from the Second Part of Hey- wood's Iron Age, printed in 1632 : —
" The proudest nation that great Asia nursed Is now extinct in lethe"
Here lethe may plainly be taken in its proper and usual sense of forgetfulness, oblivion. No other example is pro duced either by the commentators or by Nares. Shake speare, too, repeatedly uses lethe, and nowhere, unless it be in this passage, in any other than its proper sense. If, however, lethe and lethum (or letum), — which may, or may not, be connected, — were really sometimes confounded by the popular writers of the early part of the seventeenth century, they are kept in countenance by the commenta tors of the eighteenth. Steevens goes on to notice, as affording another proof that lethe sometimes signified death, the following line from Cupid's Whirligig, printed in 1616:—
" For vengeance' wings bring on thy lethal day ; "
and he adds : — " Dr Farmer observes, that we meet with lethal for deadly in the Information for Mungo Campbell." It is not easy to understand this. "Who ever doubted that deadly was the proper meaning of lethalis (from lethum) ? But what has that to do with the signification of lethe ? I do not know what it is that may have led Nares to imagine that, when lethe meant death, it was pronounced as a monosyllable. Seeing, however, that the notion of its ever having that signification appears to be a mere delusion, I have fpllowed Mr Collier in sup posing it to be here a misprint for death, which was the obvious conjecture of several of the editors of the last century, and is sanctioned by the authority of his MS. annotator.
»349. Strucken by many princes. — It is stroken in the original edition. — In the preceding line, also, " the heart
SO. 1.] JULIUS C^SAE. 241
ofthee"is there misprinted "the hart of thee." But the two words are repeatedly thus confounded in the spelling in that edition. — Mr Collier strangely prefers making this exclamation, " How like a deer," etc., an in terrogatory — as if Antony asked the dead body in how far, or to what precise degree, it resembled a deer, lying as it did stretched out before him.
351. The enemies of Caesar shall say this. — Here again, as in " This shall mark Our purpose necessary " of 187, we have a use of shall, which now only remains with us, if at all, as an imitation of the archaic. Vid. 181. A singular consequence has arisen from the change that has taken place. By " shall say this " in the present passage Shakespeare meant no more than would now be expressed by " will say this ; " yet to us the shall elevates the ex pression beyond its original import, giving it something, if not quite of a prophetic, yet of an impassioned, wrapt, and as it were vision- seeing character.
352. But what compact. — Compact has always, I be lieve, the accent upon the final syllable in Shakespeare, whether used as a substantive, as a verb, or as a parti ciple.
352. Will you I e pricked in number of our friends ? — To prick is to note or mark off. The Sheriffs are still so nominated by a puncture or mark being made at the selected names in the list of qualified persons, and this is the vox signata, or established word, for the operation.
353. Swayed from the point. — Borne away, as by a wave, from the point which I had in view and for which I was making.
353. Friends am 1 with you all. — " This grammatical impropriety," Henley very well remarks, " is still so preva lent, as that the omission of the anomalous s would give some uncouthness to the sound of an otherwise familiar expression." "We could not, indeed, say " Friend am I
242 PHILOLOGICAL COMMEXTABY. [ACT III.
with you all ; " we should have to turn the expression in some other way. In Troilus and Cressida, iv. 4, however, we have "And I'll grow friend with danger." Nor does the pluralism of friends depend upon that of you all : " I am friends with you " is equally the phrase in ad dressing a single person. / with you am is felt to be equivalent to / and you are.
35 A. Our reasons are so full of good regard. — So full of what is entitled to favourable regard. Compare " many of the best respect " in 48.
354. That, were you, Antony, the son of Cce&ar. — By all means to be thus pointed, so as to make Antony the .y_0£ative/ the name addressed ; not, as it sometimes ludicrously is, "were you Antony the son of Ca?sar." Son, of course, is emphatic.
355. Produce his body to the market-place. — We now say " produce to " with a person only.
355. tipeak in the order of his funeral. — In the order is in the course of the ceremonial. — Compare "That Antony speak in his funeral," in 357 ; and " Come I to speak in (1;i>sar's funeral," in 398.
357. The Aside here is not marked in the old copies.
358. By your pardon. — I will explain, by, or with, your pardon, leave, permission. " By your leave " is still oc casionally used.
358. Have all true rites.— This is the reading of all the old copies. For true Pope substituted due, which is also the correction of Mr Collier's MS. annotator.
358. It shall advantage more than do us wony. — This old verb, to advantage, is fast slipping out of our posses sion. — Here again we have, according to the old grammar, simple futurity indicated by shall with the third person. — Vid. 181.
359. J know not ichat may fall. — "We now commonly say to fall out, rather than simply to fall, or to lefaU.
SC. 1.] JULIUS CJESAE. 243
360. You snail not in your funeral speech blame us. — The sense and the prosody concur in demanding an em phasis on us.
360. And say you do '#. — We do not now in serious or elevated writing use this kind of contraction.
362. The original stage direction after this speech is, " Exeunt. Manet Antony"
363. 0 pardon me, tJiou Heeding piece of earth. — So in all the early editions, and also in the greater number of those of the last century ; but unaccountably altered into " thou piece of bleeding earth " in the Variorum edition of Malone and Boswell, the text of which was generally taken as the standard for subsequent reprints, till the true reading was restored by Mr Knight.
363. That ever lived in the tide of times. — This must mean, apparently, in the course or flow of times. Tide and time, however, properly mean the same thing. Tide is only another form of Zeit, the German word answer ing to our English time. Time, again, is the French terns, or temps, a corruption of the Latin tempus (which has also in one of its senses, the part of the head where time is indicated to the touch by the pulsations of the blood, been strangely corrupted, both in French and English, into temple, — distinguished, however, in the former tongue from temple, a church, by a difference of gender, and also otherwise written tempe).
363. A curse shall light upon the loins of men. — This is one of the most remarkable of the new readings for which we are indebted to Mr Collier's MS. annotator. The old printed text, "the limbs of men," was felt by every editor not enslaved to the First Folio to be in the highest degree suspicious. By most of them the limbs of men seems to have been understood to mean no thing more than the bodies or persons of men generally. Steevens, however, says ; — " Antony means that a future curse shall commence in distempers seizing on the limbs E 2
244 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTABY. [ACT III.
of men, and be succeeded by commotion, cruelty, and de solation over Italy." A strangely precise style of pro phecy ! Tor limbs Warburton proposed to substitute line, Hanmer kind, and Johnson lives, — "unless," he adds, "we read these lymmes of men, that is, these blood hounds of men." The lymm, lym, lime, limer, or lime- hound was used in hunting the wild boar. The loins of men means, of course, the generations of men. Even if proposed as nothing more, this would have been one of the most plausible of conjectures, and would probably have at once commanded general acceptance. Warburton hit upon nearly what seems to have been the meaning of Shakespeare with his line of men; but how much less Shakespearian the expression !
363. Quartered with the hands of war. — So afterwards, in 426, " Here is himself, marred, as you see, with trait ors." Vid. 124. We should now rather regard the hands as the agents, and say "by the hands of war."
363. With Ate by his side. —This Homeric goddess had taken a strong hold of Shakespeare's imagination. In Much Ado about Nothing, ii. 1, Benedick, inveighing to Don Pedro against the Lady Beatrice, says, "You shall find her the infernal Ate in good apparel." In King John, iv. 1, John's mother, Queen Elinor, is described by Chatillon as " an Ate stirring him to blood and strife." And in Love's Labour's Lost, v. 2, Biron, at the representa tion of the Nine "Worthies, calls out " More Ates, more Ates ; stir them on! stir them on!" Where did Shake speare get acquainted with this divinity, whose name does not occur, I believe, even in any Latin author ?
363. Cry Havoc ! — Havoc is the Original English hafoc, meaning waste, destruction ; whence the hawk, so called as the bird of waste and ravage. Johnson states on the authority of a learned correspondent (known to be Sir William Blackstone), that, "in the military operations of old times, havoc was the word by which declaration was
SC. 1.] JULIUS C,ESAR. 245
made that no quarter should be given." Milton in one place makes a verb of this substantive : — " To waste and havoc yonder world" (Par. Lost, x. 617).
363. Let slip the dogs of war. — Notwithstanding the apparently considerable difference between schlupfen and schlafen, by which they are severally represented in modern German, slip may possibly have been originally the same word with sleep. In the English of the time be fore the Conquest, although the common form is slccpan for to sleep and slipan for to slip, we find indications of slepan having been used for both. To sleep, or fall asleep, may have been regarded as a gliding, or softly moving, away. — To let slip a dog at a deer, etc., was, as Malone remarks, the technical phrase of Shakespeare's time. Hence the leash, out of which it was thus allowed to escape, was called the slips. The proper meaning, indeed, of leash (in French lesse, or laisse, from laisser) is that which lets go ; and this is probably also the true meaning of the Spanish lasso ; although, that which lets go, or from which we let go, being also necessarily that which has previously de tained, lesse, lasso, leash, and also lease, have all, as well as slip, come to be regarded as involving rather the latter notion (of detention or tenure), that being really the principal or most important office which what is called a slip or leash seems to perform. It was perhaps in this way also that the verb to let acquired the sense (now nearly obsolete) of to hinder, as well as its more ordinary sense of to permit.
It is observed by Steele in The Tatler, No. 137, that by "the dogs of war" Shakespeare probably meant fire, sword, and famine, according to what is said in the Chorus to Act First of King Henry the Fifth :—
" Then should the warlike Harry, like himself, Assume the port of Mars; and, at his heels, Leashed in like hounds, should Famine, Sword, and Fire Crouch for employment."
2i6 PHILOLOGICAL COM3IEXTAET. [ACT III.
To this we might add what Talbot says, in the First Part of King Henry the Sixth, iv. 2, to the Captains of the French forces before Bordeaux : —
"You tempt the fury of my three attendants, Lean Famine, quartering Steel, and climbing Fire."
In illustration of the passage from Henry the Fifth Stee- vens quotes what Holinshed makes that King to have said to the people of Roan (or Rouen): — "He declared that the Goddess of Battle, called Bellona, had three handmaidens ever of necessity attending upon her, as Blood, Fire, and Famine." And at that from Henry the Sixth Malone gives the following extract from Hall's Chronicle :— " The Goddess of War, called Bellona, . . . hath these three handmaids ever of necessity attending on her ; Blood, Fire, and Famine ; which three damosels be of that force and strength that every one of them alone is able and sufficient to torment and afflict a proud prince ; and they all joined together are of puissance to destroy the most populous country and most richest region of the world."
It might, perhaps, be questioned whether the words, " And let slip the dogs of war " ought not to be con sidered as also part of the exclamation of Caesar's spirit.
363. That this foul deed, etc.— So that.
363. With carrion men. — Vid. 177. — The stage direc tion in the original edition is "Enter Octavio's Ser vant."
363. You serve Octavius Caesar. — So called throughout both this Play and that of Antony and Cleopatra. He was properly now Coesar Octavianus.
366. The stage direction, Seeing the Body, is modern.
367. For mine eyes. — This, which is clearly right, is the reading of the Second Folio. The First has " Passion I see is catching from mine eyes."
33D. Tell him what hath chanced.— Vid. 69.
SC. 2.] JULIUS CJESAK. 247
369. No Some of safety.— Vid. 56.
369. Till I have borne this corpse. — Corpse (or corse) here is a modern conjectural substitution for the course of the First and Second Polios and the coarse of the Third and Fourth.
369. The cruel issue of these bloody men. — The result or end which they have brought about.
369. According to the which. — This archaism occurs occasionally in Shakespeare, as it does also in the common translation of the Scriptures : — " Every tree in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed" {Gen. i. 29).
369. Lend me your hand. — We should now rather say a hand. — The stage direction that follows is in the ori ginal edition, " Exeunt. Enter Brutus and goes into the Pulpit, and Cassius with, the Plebeians."
SCENE II.— The same. The Forum.
Enter BKUTUS and CASSIUS, and a throng of CITIZENS.
370. Cit. We will be satisfied ; let us be satisfied.
371. Bru. Then follow me, and give me audience, friends. — Cassius, go you into the other street,
And part the numbers. —
Those that will hear me speak, let 'em stay here ; Those that will follow Cassius, go with him ; And public reasons shall be rendered Of Csosar's death. 1 Cit. I will hear Brutus speak.
373. 2 Cit. I will hear Cassius ; and compare their reasons, "When severally we hear them rendered.
[Exit CASSIUS, with some of the CITIZENS. BRUTUS goes into the Rostrum.
374. 3 Cit. The noble Brutus is ascended : Silence !
375. Bru. Be patient till the last.
Romans, countrymen, and lovers ! hear me for my cause ; and be silent, that you may hear : believe me for mine honour ; and have respect to mine honour, that you may believe : censure me in your wisdom ; and awake your senses, that you may the better judge. If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar's, to him I say, that Brutus' love to Caesar was no less than his. If, then,
248 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTAEY. [ACT III.
that friend demand, why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is ray an swer; — Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. Had you rather Ca3sar were living, and die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live all freemen ? As Caesar loved me, I weep for him ; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honour him : but, as he was ambitious, I slew him. There is tears, for his love; joy, for his fortune; honour, for his valour; and death, for his ambition. Who is here so base, that would be a bond man ? If any, speak ; for him have I offended. "WTio is here so rude, that would not be a Roman ? If any, speak ; for him have I offended. Who is here so vile, that will not love his country ? If any, speak ; for him have I offended. I pause for a reply.
376. CiL None, Brutus, none. [Several speaking at once.
377- Bru. Then none have I offended. I have done no more to Caesar than you shall do to Brutus. The question of his death is enrolled in the Capitol : his glory not extenuated, wherein he was worthy ; nor his offences enforced, for which he suffered death.
Enter ANTONY and others, with CESAR'S Body. Here comes his body, mourned by Mark Antony : who, though he had no hand in his death, shall receive the benefit of his dying, a place in the commonwealth ; as which of you shall not ? With this I depart ; That, as I slew my best lover for the good of Rome, I have the same dagger for myself, when it shall please my country to need my death.
Cit. Live, Brutus, live ! live !
1 Cit. Bring him with triumph home unto his house.
2 Cit. Give him a statue with his ancestors.
3 Cit. Let him be Caesar. 382. 4 Cit. Caesar's better parts
Shall now be crowned in Brutus.
1 Cit. We'll bring him to his house with shouts and clamours. Bru. My countrymen,
2 Cit. Peace ; silence ! Brutus speaks. 1 Cit. Peace, ho !
387- Bru. Good countrymen, let me depart alone, And, for my sake, stay here with Antony : Do grace to Csesar's corpse, and grace his speech Tending to Caesar's glories ; which Mark Antony, By our permission, is allowed to make. I do entreat you, not a man depart,
Save I alone, till Antony have spoke. [Exit.
1 Cit. Stay, ho ! and *et us hear Mark Antony.
SC. 2.] JULIUS CJ5SAK. 249
3 Cit. Let him go up into the public chair ; We' 11 .hear him : — Noble Antony, go up.
390. Ant. For Brutus' sake, I am beholden to you.
4 Cit. What does he say of Brutus ?
3 Cit. He says, for Brutus' sake, He finds himself beholden to us all.
4 Cit. 'Twere best he speak no harm of Brutus here.
1 Cit. This Caesar was a tyrant. 395. 3 Cit. Nay, that's certain :
We are blest that Rome is rid of him.
2 Cit. Peace, let us hear what Antony can say. Ant. You gentle Eomans,
Cit. Peace, ho ! let us hear him.
399. Ant. Friends, Eomans, countrymen, lend me your ears ; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them ; The good is oft interred with their bones : So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus Hath told you, Caesar was ambitious : If it were so, it was a grievous fault ; And grievously hath Caesar answered 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 Caesar'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 Caesar seem ambitious ? When that the poor have cried, Caesar 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. I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, But here I am to speak what I do know. YYou all did love him once, not without cause ;
250
PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT III.
What cause withholds you, then, to mourn for him ?
0 judgment, thou art fled to hrutish beasts. And men have lost their reason ! — Bear with me ; My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
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, Caesar has had great wrong.
3 Cit. Has he not, master ?
1 fear, there will a worse come in his place.
403. 4 Cit. Marked ye his words ? He would not take the crown ; Therefore, 'tis certain he was not ambitious.
404. 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. 408. Ant. But yesterday, the word of Caesar might
Have stood against the world : now lies he there,
And none so poor to do him reverence.
Oh masters ! if I were disposed 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 Ciosar ;
I found it in his closet ; 'tis 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 Caesar'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.
Cit. The will, the will : we will hear Caesar's will.
Ant. Have patience, gentle friends ; I must not read it ; It is not meet you know how Caesar loved you. You are not wood, you are not stones, but men ; And, being men, hearing the will of Caosar, It will inflame you, it will make you mad.
SC. 2.] JULIUS C^ESAE. 251
"Tis good you know not that you are his heirs ; For if you should, 0, what would come of it !
412. 4 Cit. Read the will; we will hear it, Antony; you shall read us the will ; Caesar's will.
413. Ant. Will you be patient ? Will you stay a while ? I have overshot myself, to tell you of it.
I fear, I wrong the honourable men,
Whose daggers have stabbed Caesar : I do fear it.
4 Cit. They were traitors : Honourable men !
Cit. The will ! the testament !
2 Cit. They were villains, murderers : The will, read the will ! Ant. You will compel me, then, to read the will ?
Then make a ring about the corpse of Caesar, And let me show you him that made the will. Shall I descend ? And will you give me leave ?
Cit. Come down. 419. 2 Cit. Descend. [He comes doicn from the pulpit.
3 Cit. You shall have leave.
4 Cit. A ring ; stand round.
422. 1 Cit. Stand from the hearse, stand from the body.
2 Cit. Eoom for Antony ; — most noble Antony.
Ant. Nay, press not so upon me ; stand far off.
Cit. Stand back ! room ! bear back ! 426. Ant. If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. You all do know this mantle : I remember The first time ever Caesar put it on ; 'Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent, That day he overcame the Nervii : — Look ! in this place, ran Cassius' dagger through : See, what a rent the envious Casca made : Through this, the well-beloved Brutus stabbed ; And, as he plucked his cursed steel away, Mark how the blood of Caesar followed it ; As rushing out of doors, to be resolved If Brutus so unkindly knocked, or no ; For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel : Judge, 0 you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him ! This was the most unkindest cut of all : For, when the noble Caesar saw him stab, Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms, Quite vanquished him : then burst his mighty heart ; And, in his mantle muffling up his face, Even at the base of Pompey's statue,
252 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT III.
Which all the while ran blood, great Caesar fell. 0, what a fall was there, my countrymen ! Then I, and you, and all of us fell down, "Whilst bloody treason .flourished over us. 0, now you weep ; and, I perceive, you feel The dint of pity : these are gracious drops. Kind souls, what, weep you, when you but behold Our Caesar's vesture wounded ? Look you here, Here is himself, marred, as you see, with traitors.
1 Cit. 0 piteous spectacle I
2 Cit. 0 noble Caesar !
3 Cit. 0 woeful day !
4 Cit. 0 traitors, villains !
1 Cit. 0 most bloody sight !
2 Cit. "We will be revenged; revenge; about, — seek, — burn, — fire, — kill, — slay ! — let not a traitor live.
433. Ant. Stay, countrymen.
1 Cit. Peace there: —Hear the noble Antony.
2 Cit. "We'll hear him, we'll follow him, we'll die with him. 436. Ant. Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up
To such a sudden flood of mutiny.
They that have done this deed are honourable ;
What private griefs they have, alas, I know not,
That made them do it ; they are wise and honourable,
And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you.
I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts :
I am no orator, as Brutus is ;
But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man,
That love my friend ; and that they know full well
That gave me public leave to speak of him.
For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,
Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech,
To stir men's blood : I only speak right on ;
I tell you that which you yourselves do know ;
Show you sweet Caesar's wounds, poor, poor dumb mouths,
And bid them speak for me : But, were I Brutus,
And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony
Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue
In every wound of Caesar, that should move
The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny.
Cit. We'll mutiny.
1 Cit. We'll burn the house of Brutus.
3 Cit. Away, then, come, seek the conspirators.
SC. 2.] JULIUS CAESAR. 253
Ant. Yet hear me, countrymen ; yet hear me speak.
Cit. Peace, ho ! Hear Antony, most noble Antony.
Ant. Why, friends, you go to do you know not what : "Wherein hath Cscsar thus deserved your loves ? Alas, you know not : — I must tell you, then : — You have forgot the will I told you of.
Cit. Most true ; — the will; — let's stay, and hear the will. 444. Ant. Here is the will, and under Caesar's seal. To every Roman citizen he gives, To every several man, seventy-five drachmas.
2 Cit. Most noble Caesar ! — we'll revenge his death.
3 Cit. 0 royal Caesar !
Ant. Hear me with patience. Cit. Peace, ho !
449. Ant. Moreover, he hath left you all his walks, His private arbours, and new-planted orchards, On this side Tiber ; he hath left them you, And to your heirs for ever ; common pleasures, To walk abroad, and recreate yourselves.
Here was a Caesar : When comes such another ?
450. 1 Cit. Never, never ! — Come, away, away ! We'll burn his body in the holy place,
And with the brands fire the traitors' houses. Take up the body.
2 Cit. Go, fetch fire.
3 Cit. Pluck down benches.
4 Cit. Pluck down forms, windows, anything.
[Exeunt CITIZENS, with the body. 454. Ant. Now let it work : Mischief, thou art afoot, Take thou what course thou wilt ! — How now, fellow ?
Enter a SERVANT.
Serv. Sir, Octavius is already come to Rome.
Ant. Where is he?
Serv. He and Lepidus are at Caesar's house.
458. Ant, And thither will I straight to visit him. He comes upon a wish. Fortune is merry, And in this mood will give us anything.
459. /Serf. I heard them say, Brutus and Cassius Are rid like madmen through the gates of Eome.
460. Ant. Belike they had some notice of the people,
How I had moved them. Bring me to Octavius. [Exeunt.
254 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT III
370. For Cit. here the original edition has Pie. ; and afterwards for 1 Oil., 2 Cit., 3 Cit., it has 1 Pie., 2, 3 ; and for Cit. at 376, etc., it has All.
371. And part the numbers. — Divide the multitude. 371. And public reasons shall be rendered. — To render
is to give back or in return for. Thus in 349, as we have seen, Antony asks Brutus and his confederates to render him their hands in return for his own. Here the act which had been done, the slaughter of Caesar, is that in return or compensation for which, as it were, the reasons are to be given. — For the prosody of the present line see the note on " She dreamt to-night she saw my statue " in 246. It may be observed that in the First Folio, where the elision of the e in the verbal affix -ed is usually marked, the spelling is here rendred; but this may leave it still doubtful whether the word was intended to be represented as of two or of three syllables. It is the same in 373.
373. Exit Cassius, etc. Brutus goes into the Rostrum. — This stage direction is all modern. The Rostrum is the same that is called " the public chair " in 389, and " the pulpit" elsewhere: Vid. 318, 320, 355, 358, 360. Ros trum is not a word which Shakespeare anywhere uses. Nor, indeed, is it a legitimate formation. It ought to be Rostra, in the plural, as it always is in Latin. Neverthe less few persons in their senses will be inclined to go with Dr Webster for the immediate origin of Rostrum, in any of its English applications, to the Welsh rhetgyr, a snout, or rkethern, a pike.
374. The noble Brutus is ascended. — In this form of expression it is plain that we use the verb to ascend in quite a different sense from that which it has when we say " Brutus has ascended the pulpit." According to the one form, it is Brutus that is ascended; according to the other, it is the pulpit that is ascended. In point ot fact, if to ascend be taken in its proper sense of to mount
sc. 2.] JULIUS C^ESAK. 255
or climb up, it is only the pulpit that can be ascended ; in saying that Brutus is ascended we employ the verb as if its meaning were to lift, carry, or bear up. Clear, however, as is the violation of principle, the right of perpetrating it must be held to be one of the estab lished liberties of the language. Even still we commonly say is come, is become, is gone, is arrived, is fled, is escaped, etc. In the freer condition of the language formerly such a mode of expression was carried a good deal farther. Thus, in the present Play, we have in 329 " [Antony is] fled to his house amazed;" in 399, " 0 judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts;" in 459, "Brutus and Cassius Are rid like madmen through the gates of Home;" in 510, "Hark, he is arrived;" in 624, "The deep of night is crept upon our talk ;" in 704, " This morning are they fled away and gone ; " in 722, " Time is come round ; " and " My life is run his compass." This last instance carries the irregularity to its height ; for here the verb to run is actually used at the same time in two senses ; both in the sense in which we say " to run a ship on a rock," or "to run a nail into a door" (that is, to make move rapidly), and also in that in which we say "to run a race" (that is, to move rapidly through or over). In the first sense only can Cassius say that his life is run ;, in the second alone can he speak of it as running his — that is, its (Vid. 54) — compass. In the one case it is the thing moved that is run (the same as when we talk of running a thread through a cloth or a rope over a pulley, or of running a metal, or running off wine) ; in the other case, what is said to be run is the act or process through which the movement is made (the same as when we talk of running a risk, or running the gauntlet, or running a muck) . This latter sense is not to be confounded writh that which we have in "to run a mile ;" there the verb is intransitive, and the noun expresses only the extent, or as it were manner, of the verbal action, and is no
256 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT III.
more governed by the verb than it is in the phrase " to live a year," or than the qualifying adverb is so governed in the phrase " to run fast." If Cassius had said that his life was run its compass halfway, we should have had a combination of all the three senses.
The following are examples of this form of construction from other plays : —
" Is our whole dissembly appeared ?"
(Dogberry, in Mitch Ado about Noth., iv. 2) ;
" Prince John is this morning secretly stolen away."
Sexton, Ibid.} ; " His lordship is walked forth into the orchard."
(Porter, in Second Part of Henry IV., i. 1) ;
" He said mine eyes were hlack, and my hair black, And, now I am remembered, scorned at me."
(Phebe, in As You Like It, Hi. 5} ;
" You being then, if you be remembered, cracking the stones." (Clown, in Meas.for Meas. ii. 1) ; " I telling you then, if you be remembered." — (Ibid.} ;
" But, if you be remembered, "I did not bid you mar it to the time."
(Petrucio, in Tarn, of Shrew, iv. 3) ;
" If your majesty is remembered of it."
• (Fluellen, in Henry V., iv. 7) ; " Now, by my troth, if I had been remembered, I could have given my uncle's grace a flout."
(York, in Rich. III., ii. 4) ; " Be you remembered, Marcus, she's gone, she's fled."
(Titus, in Titus Andronicus, iv. 3).
375. Romans, countrymen, and lovers. — Vid. 260.
375. Have respect to mine honour. — That is, merely, look to (not look up to). We still employ such words as respect and regard in different senses according to cir cumstances. I look with regard, or with respect, upon this man, or upon that institution. "With regard, or with re spect, to another man or institution I have nothing to say but what is condemnatory, or nothing to say at all.
SC. 2.] JULIUS (LESAK. 257
375. Censure me. — That is, merely, pass judgment upon me. Vid. 329.
375. Any dear friend of Casar's, to him I say. — It is "to them I say" in the second Folio.
375. Not that I loved C&sar less. — Less than he (the " dear friend ") loved Caesar.
375. But that I loved Rome more. — More than he (the " dear friend of Caesar ") loved Borne.
375. Had you rather. — Vid. note on Had as lief in 54.
375. To live all freemen. — It is commonly printed " free men," in two words. But the writer cannot have intended that such prominence should be given to the term men, the notion conveyed by which is equally con tained in slaves ; for which, indeed, we might have had bondmen, with no difference of effect. If it ought to be " free men " here, it should be " Who is here so base that would be a bond man ?" a few lines farther on. In the original edition it is "freemen."
375. There is tears, etc. — In many modern editions this is changed into " There are." But the tears, joy, etc., are regarded as making one thing. Instead of " There is," it might have been "This is," or "That is."
376. The stage direction is modern.
377. The question of his death. — The word question is here used in a somewhat peculiar sense. It seems to mean the statement of the reasons. In a note on the expression in Hamlet, it. 2, " Little eyases, that cry out on the top of question," Steevens gives it as his opinion that question " in this place, as in many others, signifies 'conversation, dialogue.'3 And he quotes in corrob oration Antonio's remark, in The Merchant of Venice, iv. 1, " I pray you, think you question with the Jew." But in that passage the meaning of the word is merely the ordin ary one, you debate, argue, hold controversy, with. The following may perhaps be adduced as an instance of the use of the word in a somewhat larger sense, involving
258 PHILOLOGICAL COMMESTABY. [ACT III
little or nothing of the notion of a doubt or dispute : — " Thou shalt accompany us to the place, where we will, not appearing what we are, have some question with the shepherd;" Winter's Tale, iv. 1.
377. Nor his offences enforced. — Dwelt upon and pressed, or more than simply stated. In the same sense in Coriolanus, ii. 3, the tribune Sicinius exhorts the populace touching Marcius : — " Enforce his pride, And his old hate unto you."
377. As which of you shall not ? — We find which in our oldest English in the forms hwilc, hwylc, and hwelc — forms which have been supposed to arise out of the com bination of the relative hwa with lie (like), the annexa tion being designed to give greater generalization or in- definiteness of meaning to the pronoun. At all events, the word is used with reference to nouns of all genders, as is also its representative the whilk, or quhilk, of the old Scottish dialect, and as the English which too formerly was even when an ordinary relative (as we have it in the time-honoured formula " Our Father which art in hea ven"), and still is both whenever it is interrogative and likewise when the antecedent to which it is relative is either suppressed or joined with it in the same concord and government. Thus, we say of persons as well as of things, "Which was it?" and "I do not know which of them it was," as Brutus, addressing his fellow-citizens, has here " Which of you;" and it is even allowable to say " Louis XVI., which king it was in whose reign — or, in the reign of which king it was — that the French Revo lution broke out." — It is one of the many curiosities of Dr Webster's English Dictionary that he refuses to admit which to have anything to do with the ancient hwilc, and suggests that it may be rather the same word with quick !
The stage direction in the original edition is, " Enter Mark Antony, with Ccesar's body"
377. My lest lover.— Vid, 260.
SC. 2.] JULIUS CAESAR. 259
382. Shall now be crowned in Brutus. — The now is not in the old texts, but was supplied by Pope, and has been retained by Malone and Boswell, as well as by Steevens. It may not be the true word, but that some word is wanting is certain. The dialogue here is evidently in tended to be metrical, and " Shall be crowned in Brutus" is not a possible commencement of a verse. Mr Collier also in his regulated text retains the now, although it does not appear to have the sanction of his MS. annotator.
387. Do grace to C&sar's corpse. — We have lost this idiom, though we still say "to do honour to."
390. / am beholden to you. — Both here and also in 392 the first three Folios have all beholding, which may possibly have been the way in which Shakespeare wrote the word (as it is that in which it was often written in his day), but may nevertheless be rectified on the same principle as other similar improprieties with which all modern editors have taken that liberty. Yet beholding is, I believe, always Bacon's word ; as in his Tenth Essay : — " The stage is more beholding to love than the life of man." Even in Clarendon, reporting the words of Queen Henrietta to himself, we have: — "Her old confessor, Father Philips, . . . always told her, that, as she ought to continue firm and constant to her own religion, so she was to live well towards the Protestants who deserved well from her, and to whom she was beholding" (Hist., Book xiii.). The initial syllable of the word is of more interest than its termination.
The complete disappearance from the modern form of the English language of the verbal prefix ge is a remark able fact, and one which has not attracted the notice which it deserves. This augment may be said to have been the favourite and most distinguishing peculiarity of the language in the period preceding the Norman Con quest. In the inflection of the verb it was not merely, as in modern German, the sign of the past participle s 2
260 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT III.
passive, but might be prefixed to any other part ; and the words of all kinds which commenced with it, and in which it was not inflexional, amounted to several thousands. Yet now there is no native English word having ge for its initial syllable in existence; nor, indeed, has there been for many centuries: there are not only no such words in Chaucer, whose age (the fourteenth century) is reckoned the commencement of the period of what is denominated Middle English ; there are none even in Eobert de Brunne, and very few, if any, in Eobert of Gloucester, who belong to the thirteenth century, or to the age of what is commonly designated Early English. The inflexional ge is found at a comparatively late date only in the reduced or softened form of y, and even so scarcely after the middle of the sixteenth century (which may be taken as the date of the commencement of Modern English) except in a few antique words preserved or revived by Spenser. If two or three such words as yclad and yclept are to be found in Shakespeare, they are introduced with a view to a burlesque or grotesque effect, as they might be by a writer of the present day. They did not belong to the language of his age any more than they did to that of Thomson, who in the last century has sprinkled his Castle of Indolence with words of this de scription the better to keep up his imitation of Spenser. As for the "star-ypointing pyramid " attributed to Milton (in his lines on Shakespeare), it is in all probability a mistake of his modern editors : " ypoinW " might have been credible, but "ypoint^y" scarcely is. The true reading probably is " starry-pointing." It has commonly been assumed that, with such rare and insignificant ex ceptions (if exceptions they are to be considered), the old prefix ge has entirely passed away or been ejected from the language in its present state, — that it has dropped off, like a decayed member, without anything being substi tuted in its place. But the fact is not so. It is certain,
SC. 2.] JULIUS OESAK. 261
that, both in its inflexional and in its non-inflexional character, it still exists in a good many words in a dis guised form, — in that namely of be. Many of our words beginning with be cannot be otherwise accounted for. Our modern beloved, for example, is undoubtedly the ancient gelufed. Another remarkable instance is that of the familiar word 'belief or believe. The Original English has no such verb as belyfan ; its form for our believe is gelyfan (the same with the modern German glauberi). Again, to become (at least in the sense of to suit) is the Original English gecweman : there is no becweman. Be come, in this sense, it ought to be noticed, has apparently no connexion with to come (from coman, or cuman) ; we have its root cweman in the old English to quern, meaning to please, used by Chaucer. And the German also, like our modern English, has in this instance lost or re jected both the simple form and the ge- form, retaining, or substituting, only beqruem and bequemen. Nor is there any belang or belong ; our modern belong is from the ancient gelang. In like manner there is no such Original English verb as besecan ; there is only gesecan, from which we have formed our beseelc and beseech. So tacn, or tacen, is a token, from which is getacnian, to denote by a token or sign ; there is no betacnian ; yet we say to betoken. And there are probably other examples of the same thing among the words now in use having be for the commenc ing syllable (of which the common dictionaries give us about a couple of hundreds), although the generality of them are only modern fabrications constructed in imita tion of one another, and upon no other principle than the as sumption that the syllable in question may be prefixed to almost any verb whatever. Such are bepraise, bepowder, bespatter, betliump, and many more. Only between thirty and forty seem to be traceable to Original English verbs beginning with be.
262 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTABY. [ACT III.
The facts that have been mentioned sufficiently explain the word beholden. It has nothing to do with the modern behold, or the ancient behealdan (which, like its modern representative, signified to see or look on), but is another form, according to the corruption which we have seen to take place in so many other instances, of gehealden, the past participle passive of healdan, to hold ; whence its meaning, here and always, of held, bound, obliged. It cor responds to the modern German gehalten, of the same signification, and is quite distinct from behalten, the past participle passive of the verb behalten, which signifies kept, preserved.
One word, which repeatedly occurs in Shakespeare, con taining the prefix ge, has been generally misunderstood by his editors. What they all, I believe without ex ception, print I wis, or / iviss, as if it were a verb with its nominative, is undoubtedly one word, and that an adverb, signifying certainly, probably. It ought to be written ywis, or ywiss, corresponding as it does exactly to the modern German gewiss. It is true, indeed, that Sir Frederic Madden in the Glossary to his edition of Syr Gawayne (printed, for the Eoxburgh Club, in 1839) expresses a doubt whether it were " not regarded as a pronoun and verb by the writers of the fifteenth cen tury." But this supposition Dr Guest (Phil. Proc. II. 160) regards as wholly gratuitous. He believes there is not a single instance to be found in which wiss, or wisse, has been used in the sense of to know, " till our modern glossarists and editors chose to give it that signification." Johnson in his Dictionary enters wis as a verb, meaning to think, to imagine. "Webster does the same. So also Nares in his Glossary. It is the only explanation which any of these authorities give of the form in question. " The preterite," adds Nares, " is wist. The present tense is seldom found but in the first person ; the pre-
SC. 2.] JULIUS C^ESAE. 263
terite was common in all the persons." In a note on the passage in The Merchant of Venice, ii. 9, " There be fools, alive, / wis [as they all print it], Silvered o'er," Steevens writes (Variorum edition, V. 71) : — " I wis, I know. Wissen, German. So in King Henry the Sixth, : 1 1 wis your grandam had no worser match.' Again, in the Comedy of King Cambyses : ' Tea, I wis, shall you, and that with all speed.' Sydney, Ascham, and Waller use the word." The line here quoted from Shakespeare is not in King Henry the Sixth, but in Richard the Third, i. 3, and runs, " I wis [ Twis] your grandam had a worser match." So in the Taming of the Shrew, i. 1, " Twis, it is not half way to her heart." Chaucer, though his adverb is commonly ywis, has at least in one instance simply ivis : —
" Nay, nay, quod she, God help me so, as wis This is to much, and it were Goddes wil."
C. T. 11,781.
The syllable wis is no doubt the same element that we have both in the Grerman wissen and in our English guess.
395. We are blest that Home is rid of him.— The Se cond Folio has " We areyW." But Mr Collier in his one volume restores blest, although it does not appear to be one of the corrections of his MS. annotator.
399. Here, under leave of Brutus, and the rest. — Com pare " By your pardon " of 358.
399. When that the poor have cried. — The that in such cases as this is merely a summary or compendious expres sion of what follows, which was convenient, perhaps, in a ruder condition of the language, as more distinctly mark ing out the clause to be comprehended under the when. We still commonly use it with now, when it serves to dis criminate the conjunction from the adverb, although not with other conjunctions which are never adverbs. Chau cer often introduces with a that even the clause that fol lows a relative pronoun ; as (C. T. 982) : — " The Minotaur
2G4 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTAEY. [ACT III.
which that he slew in Crete;" or (C. T. 988) "With Creon, which that was of Thebes king."
399. You all did see, that on the Lupercal. — Vid. 17.
399. What cause withholds you, then, to mourn for him ? "We should now say, " Withholds you from mourning." We could not use withhold followed by the infinitive.
403. Has he not, masters ? — The common reading is "Has he, masters ?" The prosody clearly demands the insertion of some monosyllable; Capell accordingly in serted my before masters ; but the word required by the sense and the connexion evidently is not. The correction, though conjectural, is therefore one which may be re garded as of nearly absolute necessity and certainty. — Masters was the common term of address to a miscellane ous assembly formerly. So again in 408 ; where, however, the word is Maisters in both the First and Second Folios, although not usually so elsewhere.
404. Some will dear abide it.— Fid. 327.
408. And none so poor to do him reverence. — The omission of one of two correlative words (such as the as answering to the so here) is, when no ambiguity is there by occasioned, allowable in almost all circumstances. — The manner in which the clause is hung on to what pre cedes by the conjunction is such as to preclude the ne cessity of a new copula or affirmative term. It is as if it were " with none so poor," etc. And and is logically (whatever it may be etymological ly) equivalent to with. So in 164, " Yes every man of them ; and no man here But honours you."
408. Let but the commons hear this testament. — The commonalty, the common people.
408. And dip their .napkins in his sacred Hood. — A napkin (connected with napery, from the French nappe, a cloth, which, again, appears to be a corruption of the Latin mappa, of the same signification, the original also
SC. 2.] JULIUS CJ3SAE. 265
of our map, and of the mappe of the French mappemonde, that is mappa mundi) is still the common name for a pocket handkerchief in Scotland. It is also that com monly employed by» Shakespeare; See the Third Act of Othello, and the Fourth Act of As you Like It. — Com pare 247.
412. Read the will', etc. — This and most of the subse quent exclamations of the populace need not be considered as verse.
413. I have overshot myself, to tell you of it. — That is, I have overshot myself (done more than I had intended) by telling you of it.
419. He comes down, etc. — This stage direction is not in the older copies.
422. Stand from the hearse. — The hearse was the frame or stand on which the body lay. It is the French herse or fierce, meaning a portcullis or harrow; whence the English term seems to have been applied to whatever was constructed of bars or beams laid crosswise.
426. That day he overcame the Nervii. — These words certainly ought not to be made a direct statement, as they are by the punctuation of the Variorum and of most other modern editions, though not by that of Mr Collier's regulated text.
426. As rushing out of doors, to be resolved. — Vid. 339.
426. This was the most unkindest cut of all. — Vid. 337.
426. For Brutus, as you know, was Ccesar's angel. — I cannot think that the meaning can be, as Boswell sug gests, his guardian angel. It is much more natural to understand it as being simply his best beloved, his darling.
426. For when the nolle Ccesar saw him stab. — The him is here strongly emphatic, notwithstanding its occupation of one of the places assigned by the common rule to short or unaccented syllables. Vid. 436.
426. Even at the base of Pornpetfs statue.— Vid. 246. The measure, Malone remarks, will be defective (unless
2G6 PHILOLOGICAL COHMENTABY. [ACT III.
we read statua) if even be a monosyllable, which he says it usually is in Shakespeare. He thinks that it would be all right with the prosody if even could be taken as a dis syllable ! •
426. Which all the while ran Hood. — This is almost in the words of North's Plutarch : — " Against the very base whereon Pompey's statue stood, which ran all a gore of blood." Gore is an Original English word meaning any thing muddy, possibly connected with the German gdhren, to ferment, and other German words.
426. Whilst bloody treason flourished over us. — Surely this can mean nothing more than that treason triumphed, — put forth, as it were, its flowers, — shot up into vigorous efflorescence, — -.over us. Yet the only interpretation the Variorum commentators supply is that of Steevens, who says that flourishes means nourishes its sword, and quotes from Romeo and Juliet, i. 1, the line, " And nourishes his blade in spite of me," — as if that would prove that to flourish used absolutely meant or could mean to flourish a sword.
426. TJie dint of pity. — Dint seems to be the same word with dent, or indentation, that is, the impression made as by a tooth. It is commonly dent in the old writers.
426. These are gracious drops. — Falling, the thought seems to be, like the bountiful and refreshing rain from heaven.
426. Marred, as you see, with traitors. — Vid. 363.
432. We will be revenged, etc. — This speech is printed in the First Folio as if it were verse, thus : —
" We will be revenged : revenge ; About, — seek, — burn, — fire, — kill, — slay! Let not a traitor live."
433. Stay, countrymen. — To this speech Mr Collier's MS. annotator appends the stage direction, " They are rushing out."
SC. 2.] JULITJS C^ESAE. 267
436. What private griefsthey have.— Vid. 129.— Griefs with Shakespeare involves the notion rather of to aggrieve than that expressed by to grieve. So again in 519 : " Speak your griefs softly ;" and " Enlarge your griefs."
436. That gave me public leave to speak of him. — The Second Folio has " That give me." Mr Collier restores gave.
436. For I have neither wit, etc. — This is the reading of the Second Folio. The First has writ, which Malone actually adopts and defends ! Here is a most animated and admirable enumeration of the various powers, faculties, and arts by which a great orator is enabled " to stir men's blood," beginning, naturally, with that gift of imagination and invention which is at once the highest of them all and the fountain of most of the others ; and this editor, rather than admit the probability of the misprint of a single letter in a volume swarming with undeniable typo graphical errata, would make Antony substitute the ridiculous remark that the first requisite for his purpose, and that in which he was chiefly deficient, was what he calls a writ, meaning a written speech ! Is it possible that such a critic can have had the smallest feeling of anything in Shakespeare above the level of the merest prose ? " "Wit," he goes on to tell us, " in our author's time had not its present signification, but meant under standing." The fact is, that there are numerous passages in Shakespeare in which the word has exactly its present signification. " Sir Thurio," says Valentine to Silvia, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona (ii. 4), "borrows his wit from your ladyship's looks, and spends what he borrows, kindly, in your company." "Sir," replies Thurio, "if you spend word for word with me, I shall make your wit bankrupt." So in Much Ado About Nothing, i. ] , " There is a kind of merry war," says Leonato, speaking of his niece Beatrice, " betwixt Signior Benedick and her : they never meet but there is a skirmish of wit between them."
268 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENT AEY. [ACT III.
Or, to go no further, how would Malone, or those who think with him (if there be any), explain the conversation about Benedick's wit in the First Scene of the Fifth Act of the last-mentioned Play without taking the word as there used in the sense which it now ordinarily bears ? In the passage before us, to be sure, its meaning is more comprehensive, corresponding nearly to what it still con veys in the expression " the wit of man."
We have the same natural conjunction of terms that we have here in Measure for Measure, v. 1, where the Duke addresses the discomfited Angelo :—
" Hast them or word, or wit, or impudence, That yet can do thee office ? "
436. And bid them speak for me. — The them here, em phatic and yet occupying a place in the verse in which it is commonly laid down that only a short or unaccented syllable can properly stand, is in precisely the same pre dicament with the Mm of " When the noble Caesar saw 1dm stab " of 426. Vid. 537.
444. To every several man. — Several is connected with the verb sever, which is from the Latin separo, through the French sevrer (though that language has also separer, as we too have separate). " Every several man " is every man by himself or in his individual capacity. The phrase may be illustrated by the legal distinction between estates in severalty and in joint-tenancy or in common. So in 449 we have "common pleasures." "These properties of arts or policy, and dissimulation or closeness," says Bacon, in his 6th Essay, " are, indeed, habits and faculties several, and to be distinguished."
449. He Tiaih left them you. — The emphasis is on you.
450. And with the brands fire the traitors' houses. — This is the reading of the First Folio: the Second has " all the traitors' houses," which may be right ; for the prolongation of fire into a dissyllable, though it will give us the requisite number of syllables (which satisfies both
sc. 2.] JULIUS CJ:SAK. 269
Malone and Steevens), will not make a very musical verse. Yet the harshness and dissonance produced by the irregular fall of the accent, in addition to the diuresis, in the case of the word^re, may be thought to add to the force and expressiveness of the line. Mr Collier omits the "all."
454. Take ihou what course thou wilt! — How now, fellow? — It is impossible not to suspect that Shake speare must have written " Take now what course thou wilt." The emphatic pronoun* or even a pronoun at all, is unaccountable here. The abruptness, or unexpectedness, of the appearance of the Servant is vividly expressed by the unusual construction of this verse, in which we have an example of the extreme licence, or deviation from the normal form, consisting in the reversal of the regular accentuation in the last foot. Thus we have in Milton, Paradise Lost, x. 840,
"Beyond all past example and future;" and again, xi. 683,
" To whom thus Michael : These are the product."
At least, future, which is common in his verse, has every where else the accent on the first syllable. Product occurs nowhere else in Milton, and nowhere in Shake speare. — The stage directions before and after this speech are in the original edition ; — " Exit Plebeians" and " Enter Servant"
458. He comes upon a wish. — Coincidently with, as it were upon the back of, my wish for him. Vid. 589.
459. I heard them say. — In all the old copies it is " I heard him say;" which Jennens explains thus: — " Him evidently refers to Octavius, who, as he was coming into Rome, had seen Brutus and Cassius riding like madmen through the gates, and had related the same in the pre sence of the servant." The conjectural emendation of them, however, which appears to have been first proposed by Capell had been long generally received, and is con-
'270 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT III.
firmed by the authority of Mr Collier's manuscript an- notator.
459. Are rid like madmen. — Vid. 374.
460. Belike they had some notice of the people. — This now obsolete word belike (probably) is commonly held to be a compound of by and like. But it may perhaps be rather the ancient gelice (in like manner), with a slight change of meaning. Vid. 390.—" Some notice of the people " is some notice respecting the people.
SCENE II L— The same. A Street. Enter CINNA the Poet.
461. Cin. I dreamt to-night, that I did feast with Csesar, And things unlikely charge my fantasy : I have no will to wander forth of doors, Yet something leads me forth.
Enter CITIZENS. 1. Cit. What is your name ?
2 Cit. Whither are you going ?
3 Cit. Where do you dwell ?
4 Cit. Are you a married man, or a bachelor ? 2 Cit. Answer every man directly.
1 Cit. Ay, and briefly. 4 Cit. Ay, and wisely.
469. 3 Cit. Ay, and truly, you were best.
470. Cin. What is my name ? Whither am I going ? Where do I dwell ? Am I a married man, or a bachelor ? Then to answer every man directly and briefly, wisely and truly. Wisely, I say, I am a bachelor.
471. Cit. That's as much as to say, they are fools that marry : — You'll bear me a bang for that, I fear. Proceed ; directly.
Cin. Directly, I am going to Caesar's funeral.
1 Cit. As a friend, or an enemy ? Cin. As a friend.
2 Cit. That matter is answered directly. 4 Cit. For your dwelling, — briefly. Cin. Briefly, I dweU by the Capitol.
3 Cit. Your name, Sir, truly. Cin. Truly, my name is Cinna.
1 Cit. Tear him to pieces, he's a conspirator.
SC. 3.] JULIUS (LESAK. 271
Cin. I am Cinna the poet, I am Cinna the poet.
4 Cit. Tear him for his bad verses, tear him for his bad verses.
483. Cin. I am not Cinna the conspirator.
484. 2 Cit. It is no matter, -his name's Cinna ; pluck but his name out of his heart, and turn him going.
3 Cit. Tear him, tear him. Come, brands, ho ! fire-brands. To Brutus', to Cassius' ; burn all. Some to Decius' house, and some to Casca's : some to Ligarius' : away ; go. [Exeunt.
46L And things unlikely charge my fantasy. — Instead of unlikely the old text has unluckily. Unlikely, which appears for the first time in Mr Collier's one volume edition, is the restoration of his MS. annotator. It at once, and in the most satisfactory manner, turns nonsense into sense.
461. / have no will, etc. — - Very well illustrated by Steevens in a quotation from The Merchant of Venice, ii. 5, where Shylock says : —
" I have no mind of feasting forth to night : But I will go."
The only stage direction here in the original edition is before this speech : — " Enter Cinna the Poet, and after him the Plebeians."
469. Ay, and truly, you were lest. — This is strictly equivalent to " You would be best," and might perhaps be more easily resolved than the more common idiom, " You had best." But all languages have phraseologies coming under the same head with this, which are not to be explained upon strictly logical principles. Witness the various applications of the Greek e^et, the French il y a, etc. In the following sentence from As You Like It, i. 1, we have both the idioms that have been referred to : — " I had as lief thou didst break his neck as his finger and thou wert best look to it."
470. Wisely, 1 say, I am a bachelor. — China's meaning evidently is, "Wisely I am a bachelor. But that is not
272 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTABY. [ACT IV.
conveyed by the way in which the passage has hitherto been always pointed — " Wisely I say."
471. You'll bear me a bang for that. — You'll get a bang for that (from some one). The me goes for nothing. Vid. 89 and 205.
483. Cin. 1 am not, etc. — This speech was carelessly omitted in the generality of the modern texts, including that of the standard edition of Malone and Boswell, till restored by Mr Knight. It is given, however, in Jen- nens's collation (1774), and he does not note its omission by any preceding editor.
484. Turn him going. — Turn him off; let him go. The expression occurs also in As You Like It, Hi. 1 : — " Do this expediently, and turnvhim going." So in Sir Thomas Urquhart's translation of Rabelais, B. i. ch. 35 ; " Avoid hence, and get thee going." — This story of Cinna is told by Plutarch in his Life of Caesar. He says, the people, falling upon him in their rage, slew him outright in the market-place.
The stage direction with which the Act terminates in the original edition is, " Exeunt all the Plebeians."
\
ACT IV.
SCENE L—The same. A Room in ANTONY'S House. ANTONY, OCTAVIUS, and LEPIDUS, seated at a Table.
486. Ant. These many, then, shall die ; their names are pricked. Oct. Your brother too must die. Consent you, Lepidus ? Lep. I do consent. Oct. Prick him down, Antony.
490. Lep. Upon condition Publius shall not live, Who is your sister's son, Mark Antony.
491. Ant. He shall not live ; look, with a spot I damn him. But, Lepidus, go you to Caesar's house ;
' Fetch the will hither, and we shall determine How to cut off some charge in legacies.
SC. 1.] JTTLIUS CJESAE. 273
Lep. What, shall I find you here ?
Oct. Or here, or at
The Capitol. [Exit LEPIDUS.
494. Ant. This is a slight unmeritahle man, Meet to he sent on errands : Is it fit, The three-fold world divided, he should stand One of the three to share it ?
Oct. So you thought him ; And took his voice who should he pricked to die In our hlack sentence and proscription. 496. Ant. Octavius, I have seen more days than you ; And though we lay these honours on this man, To ease ourselves of divers slanderous loads, He shall hut bear them as the ass hears gold ; To groan and sweat under the business, Either led or driven, as we point the way ; And, having brought our treasure where we will, Then take we down his load, and turn him off, Like to the empty ass, to shake his ears, And graze on commons. *
Oct. You may do your will ; But he's a tried and valiant soldier.
498. Ant. So is my horse, Octavius ; and, for that, I do appoint him store of provender.
It is a creature that I teach to fight,
To wind, to stop, to run directly on ;
His corporal motion governed by my spirit.
And, in some taste, is Lepidus but so ;
He must be taught, and trained, and bid go forth :
A barren-spirited fellow ; one that feeds
On objects, arts, and imitations,
Which, out of use, and staled by othei men,.
Begin his fashion : Do not talk of him,
But as a property.
And now, Octavius,
Listen great things. — Brutus and Cassius Are levying powers ; we must straight make head : Therefore let our alliance be combined, Our best friends made, and our best means stretched out ; And let us presently go sit in counsel How covert matters may be best disclosed, And open perils surest answered.
499. Oct. Let us do so : for we are at the stake,
T
271 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTABY. [ACT IT.
And bayed about with many enemies ;
And some, that smile, have in their hearts, I fear,
Millions of mischiefs. [Exeunt.
The Same. A Room in Antony's House. — The original heading is only, "Enter Antony, Octavius, and Lepidus." The Same, meaning at Rome, was supplied by Eowe. It is evident (especially from 492 and 493) that the scene is placed at Borne, although in point of fact the triumvirs held their meeting in a small island in the river Ehenus (now the Reno) near Bononia {Bologna), where, Plutarch says, they remained three days together.
486. These many. — An archaic form for so many, this number.
486. Their names are pricked.— Vid. 352.
490. Who is your sister's son, Mark Antony. — This is a mistake. The person meant is Lucius Caesar, who was Mark Antony's «uncle, the brother of his mother.
491. Look, with a spot I damn him. — Note him as con demned, by a mark or stigma (called pricking his name in 486, and pricking him down in 489, and pricking him in 495).
491. Fetch the will hither, and we shall determine. — This is the reading of all the old copies, and is properly retained by Mr Knight. In the Variorum edition we have (and without warning) will substituted for shall ; and this alteration Mr Collier also adopts in his regu lated text, although it does not appear to be one of the corrections of his manuscript annotator.
494. Thi-s is a slight unmeritdble man. — So afterwards in 535, "Away, slight man!" said by Brutus, in mo mentary anger, to Cassius. Vid. 522. — Unmeritdble should mean incapable of deserving.
494. Meet to be sent on errands. — Errand is an Original English word, cerend (perhaps from cer, or ar, before, whence also ere and early). It has no connexion with errant, wandering (from the Latin erro, whence also err, and error, and erroneous).
SC. 1.] JULIUS CvESAE. 275
496. To groan and sweat under the business. — Business is commonly only a dissyllable with. Shakespeare ; and it may be no more here upon the principle explained in the note on " She dreamt to-night she saw my statue " in 246. There are a good many more instances of lines con cluding with business, in which either it is a trisyllable (although commonly only a dissyllable in the middle of a line) or the verse must be regarded as a hemistich, or truncated verse, of nine syllables.
496. Either led or driven, etc. — The three last Folios, and also Rowe, have "print the way." The we of this line, and the our and the we of the next, are all emphatic. There is the common irregularity of a single short super fluous syllable (the er Neither).
496. And graze on commons. — In is the reading of all the old copies. On is the correction of Mr Collier's MS. annotator.
498. Store of provender. — Provender, which Johnson explains to mean " dry food for brutes," and which also appears in the forms provand and provant, is immediately from the French provende, having the same signification ; but the origin of the French word is not so clear. The Italian, indeed, has provianda, a feminine substantive in the singular; but this signifies victuals in general, or flesh-meat in particular, and is the same word with the French viande and the English viands, which are com monly traced to the Latin vivere (quasi vivenda), an etymology which receives some support from the exist ence of vivanda in the Italian as apparently only another form of provianda. Another derivation of the French provende brings it from provenire and proventus, in which case it would signify properly increase, growth, crop ; and another would bring it from provideo, making it only a variation or corruption of provision. The parentage of the word, therefore, may be said to be contested between vivo, venio, and video. Possibly vendo might also put in T 2
276 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT IT.
a claim. "Webster has : — " It is said that provend, pro vender, originally signified a vessel containing a measure of corn daily given to a horse or other beast." By whom this is stated, or in what language the words are said to have this meaning, he does not inform us. He also ad duces the Norman provender, a prebendary, and provendre, a prebend, and the Dutch prove, a prebend. The Latin prcebenda (from prcebeo), the undoubted original of pre bend, may have got confounded with provende in the ob scurity enveloping the origin and proper meaning of the latter term.
498. And, in some taste. — It might seem at first that this phrase, as it may be said to be equivalent in effect to our common " in some sense," so is only another word ing of the same conception or figure, what is called a sense in the one form being called a taste in the other. But, although taste is reckoned one of the senses, this would certainly be a wrong explanation. The expression "in some sense" has nothing to do with the powers of sensation or perception ; sense here is signification, meaning, import. Neither does taste stand for the sense of taste in the other expression. The taste which is here referred to is a taste in contradistinction to a more full enjoyment or participa tion, a taste merely. " In some taste" is another way of saying, not " in some sense," but " in some measure, or degree."
498. On objects, arts, and imitations, etc. — This passage, as it stands in the Polios, with the sentence terminating at " imitations," has much perplexed the commentators, and, indeed, may be said to have proved quite inexpli cable, till a comma was substituted for the full point by Mr Knight, which slight change makes everything plain and easy. Antony's assertion is, that Lepidus feeds, not on objects, arts, and imitations generally, but on such of them as are out of use and staled (or worn out : Vid. 50) by other people, which, notwithstanding, begin his fashion
SO. 1.] JULIUS CyESAB. 277
(or with which his following the fashion begins) . Theo bald reduces the full point to a comma, as other editors do to a colon or a semicolon ; but it is evident, neverthe less, from his note that he did not regard the relative clause as a qualification or limitation of what precedes it.
498. Listen great things. — Listen has now ceased to be used as an active verb.
498. Our lest friends made, and our lest means stretched out. — This is the reading of the Second Folio. It seems to me, I confess, to be sufficiently in Shakespeare's manner. The First Folio has " Our best Friends made, our meanes stretcht," — which, at any rate, it is quite impossible to believe to be what he wrote.
498. And let us presently go sit in counsel, etc. — The more ordinary phraseology would be " Let us sit in con sultation how," or " Let us consult how." The word in the First Folio is " Councell," and most, if not all, modern editions have "sit in council." But Vid. 263.
499. And bayed about with many enemies. — Vid. 349 (for bayed), and 363 (for with).
499. Millions of mischiefs. — This is the reading of all the old editions. Mr Knight has "mischief," no doubt by an error of the press. In the Winter's Tale, w. 2, however, we have, in a speech of the Clown, " A million of beating may come to a great matter."
SCENE II. — Before BRUTUS' s Tent, in the Camp near Sardis.
Drum.— Enter BRUTUS, LUCILIUS, TITINIUS, and Soldiers : PINDARUS meeting them : Lucius at a distance.
Bru. Stand, ho !
Lucil. Give the word, ho ! and stand.
502. Bru. What now, Lucilius ? is Cassius near ?
503. Lucil. He is at hand; and Pindarus is come To do you salutation from his master.
[PINDARUS gives a letter to BRUTUS.
504. Bru. He greets me well. — Your master, Pindarus,
278 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT IV.
In his own change, or by ill officers, Hath given me some worthy cause to wish Things done undone : _but, if he be at hand, I shall be satisfied.
Pin. I do not doubt But that my noble master will appear Such as he is, full of regard and honour.
506. Bru. He is not doubted. —
A word, Lucilius : How he received you, let me be resolved.
507. Lucil. "With courtesy, and with respect enough ; But not with such familiar instances,
Nor with such free and friendly conference, As he hath used of old.
508. Bru. Thou hast described
A hot friend cooling: Ever note, Lucilius, "WTien love begins to sicken and decay, It useth an enforced ceremony. There are no tricks in plain and simple faith : But hollow men, like horses hot at hand, Make gallant show and promise of their mettle ; But, when they should endure the bloody spur, They fall their crests, and, like deceitful jades, Sink in the trial. Comes his army on ?
509. Lucil. They mean this night in Sardis to be quartered ; The greater part, the horse in general,
Are come with Cassius. [ March within.
510. Bru. Hark, he is arrived : — March gently on to meet him.
Enter CASSIUS and Soldiers.
Cas. Stand, ho!
Bru. Stand, ho ! Speak the word along.
513. Within. Stand.
514. Within. Stand. 615. Within. Stand.
Cas. Most noble brother, you have done me wrong.
Bru. Judge me, you gods ! Wrong I mine enemies ? And, if not so, how should I wrong a brother ?
Cas. Brutus, this sober form of yours hides wrongs ;
And when you do them
519. Bru. Cassius, be content :
Speak your griefs softly;— I do know you well
SC. 2.] JULIUS C^SAR. 279
Before the eyes of both our armies here, "Which should perceive nothing hut love from us, Let us not wrangle : Bid them move away ; Then in my tent, Cassius, enlarge your griefs, And I will give you audience.
Cas. Pindarus,
Bid our commanders lead their charges off A little from this ground.
521. Bru. Lucius, do you the like; and let no man Come to our tent, till we have done our conference. Lucilius and Titinius, guard our door. f Exeunt
Scene II. — The original heading here is "Drum. Enter Brutus, Lucillius, and the Army. Titinius and Pindarus meete them" The modern editors after the name of Lucilius introduce that of Lucius. See the note on 521.
502. What now, Lucilius ? is Cassius near ? — Here the ius is dissyllabic in Lucilius and monosyllabic in Cassius.
503. To do you salutation Another of the old applica tions of do which we have now lost. Vid. 147. The stage direction about the Letter is modern.
504. He greets me well. — The meaning seems to be, He salutes me in a friendly manner. Yet this can hardly be regarded as a legitimate employment of well. For greet see 242.
504. In his own change, etc — The meaning seems to be, either through a change that has taken place in his own feelings and conduct, or through the misconduct of his officers.
504. Some worthy cause. — Some reasonable or sufficient cause, some cause of worth, value, or power to justify the wish. Our modern worth is the ancient weorth, wurth, or ivyrth, connected with which are weorscipe, worship, and iveorthian, to hold in esteem or honour. But there may also perhaps be a connexion with weorthan, or wur- than, to become, or to be, the same word with the modern German werden, and ( still in a single fragment remaining in use among ourselves in the phrase woe worth, that is,
280 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT IV.
woe be. If this be so, either what we call worth is that which anything emphatically is, or, when we say that a thing is, we are only saying that it is worth in a broad or vague sense, according to a common manner of forming a term of general out of one of particular import. In the latter case worth may be connected with vir, and virtus, and vireo. Vid. 209.
506. He is not doubted. — A word, etc. — Brutus here, it will be observed, makes two speeches ; first he addresses himself to Pindarus, then to Lucilius. Even if the pros ody did not admonish us to the same effect, it would, in these circumstances, be better to print the passage as I have given it, with two hemistichs or broken lines.
506. Let me be resolved.— Vid. 339.
507. But not with such familiar instances. — The word still in use that most nearly expresses this obsolete sense of instances is, perhaps, assiduities. As instance should mean standing upon, so assiduity should mean sitting upon. Assiduitas is used by Cicero ; instantia, I believe, is not found in the best age of the Latin tongue. The English word is employed by Shakespeare in other senses besides this that are now obsolete. " To comfort you the more," says the Earl of Warwick to the King, in the Second Part of King Henry the Fourth, Hi. 1,
" I have received A certain instance that Glendower is dead ; " —
that is, a certain assurance. Again, in King Richard the Third, " Tell him," says Lord Hastings in reply to the message from Lord Stanley, Hi. 2,
" Tell him his fears are shallow, without instance ; " —
that is, apparently, without any fact to support or justify them. Again, in Hamlet, Hi. 2, in the Play acted before the King and Queen we have
sc. 2.] JULIUS C^SAE. 281
" The instances that second marriage move Are base respects of thrift, but none of love ; " —
that is, the inducements, as we should now say, are base considerations of thrift, or pecuniary advantage. We now use instance in something like its proper sense only in the phrase " at the instance of," and even there the notion of pressure or urgency is nearly lost ; the word is understood as meaning little, if anything, more than merely so much of application, request, or suggestion as the mere mention of what is wanted might carry with it. In another phrase in which it has come to be used, " in the first instance," it is not very obvious what its mean ing really is, or how, at least, it has got the meaning which it appears to have. Do we, or can we, say " in the second, or third, instance ? " By instance as commonly used, for a particular fact, we ought to understand a fact bearing upon the matter in hand ; and this seems to be still always kept in mind in the familiar expression " for instance."
Shakespeare's use of the word may be further illustrated by the following passages : — " They will scarcely believe this without trial : offer them instances ; which shall bear no less likelihood than to see me at her chamber window ; hear me call Margaret, Hero ; hear Margaret term me Claudio ; " etc. {Much Ado About Noth., ii. 2) ; — •
" Instance ! 0 instance ! strong as Pluto's gates; Cressid is mine, tied with the bonds of heaven : Instance ! 0 instance ! strong as heaven itself ; The bonds of heaven are slipped, dissolved, and loosed ; And with another knot, five-finger-tied, The fractions of her faith, orts of her love, The fragments, scraps, the bits and greasy reliques Of her o'ereaten faith, are bound to Diomed."
Trail, and Cress., v. 2.
508. Like horses hot at hand. — That is, apparently,
282 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT IV.
when held by the hand, or led. Or rather, perhaps, when acted upon only by the rein. So in Harington's Ariosto, vii. 67, Melyssa says that she will try to make Eogero's griffith horse "gentle to the spur and hand." But has not " at hand " always meant, as it always does now, only near or hard by ? That meaning will not do here. The commentators afford us no light or help. Perhaps Shakespeare wrote " in hand." The two expressions in hand and at hand are commonly distinguished in the Plays as they are in our present usage ; and we also have on hand and at the hands o/" in the modern senses, as well as to bear in hand (" to keep in expectation, to amuse with false pretences " — Nares) and at any hand (that is, in any case), which are now obsolete. In The Comedy of Errors, it. 1, at hand, used by his mistress Adriana in the common sense, furnishes matter for the word-catching wit of Dromio of Ephesus after he has been beaten, as he thinks, by his master : — " Adr. Say, is your tardy master now at hand ? Dro. E. Nay, he's at two hands with me, and that my two ears can witness." In King John, v. 2, however, we have "like a lion fostered up at hand," that is, as we should now say, by hand. In another similar phrase, we may remark, at has now taken the place of the in or into of a former age. We now say To march at the head of, and also To place at the head of, and we use in the head and into the head in quite other senses ; but here is the way in which Clarendon expresses himself : — " They said . . . that there should be an army of thirty thousand men immediately transported into England with the Prince of Wales in the head of them " (Hist., Book #.) ; " The King was only expected to be nearer England, how disguised soever, that he might quickly put himself into the head of the army, that would be ready to receive him " (Id.. Book xiv.) ; " These cashiered officers . . . found so much encouragement, that, at a time appointed, they put themselves into the heads of their regiments, and
SC. 2.] JULIUS CjESAB. 283
marched with them into the field " (Id., Book xvi.) ; " That Lord [Fairfax] had called together some of his old disbanded officers and soldiers, and many principal men of the country, and marched in the head of them into York " (Ibid) ; " Upon that very day they [the Parliament] received a petition, which they had fomented, presented ... by a man notorious in those times, . . . Praise-God Barebone, in the head of a crowd of sectaries" (Ibid.) ; " He [the Chancellor] informed him [Admiral Montague] of Sir George Booth's being possessed of Chester, and in the head of an army" (Hid.).
508. They fall their crests.— -This use of fall, as an active verb, is not common in Shakespeare ; but it may be found in writers of considerably later date.
508. Sink in the trial. — One may suspect that it should be shrink.
509. Instead of the stage direction " March within '* at the end of this speech, the original text has " Low March within " in the middle of 508. And instead of " Enter Cassius and Soldiers" it is there "Enter Cassius and his powers."
513, 514, 515.— The Within prefixed to these- three speeches is the insertion of the modern editors. In the First Folio the three repetitions of the " Stand " are on so many distinct lines, but all as if they formed part of the speech of Brutus. Mr Collier has at 515 the Stage Direction, " One after the other, and fainter"
519. Cassius, be content. — That is, be continent ; con tain, or restrain, yourself.
519. Speak your griefs softly.— Tid. 129 and 436.
519. Nothing but love from us. — From each of us to the other.
519. Enlarge your griefs. — State them with all fulness of eloquent exposition ; as we still say Enlarge upon. — Vid. 129 and 436. Clarendon uses the verb to enlarge
234 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTABY. [ACT IV.
differently both from Shakespeare "and from the modern language ; thus : — " As soon as his lordship [the Earl of Manchester] had finished his oration, which was received with marvellous acclamations, Mr Pym enlarged himself, in a speech then printed, upon the several parts of the King's answer" (Hist., Book vi.).
521. Lucius, do you the like ; etc. — The original text is —
" Lucillius, do you the like, and let no man Come to our tent, till we have done our Conference. Let Lucius and Titinius guard our doore."
To cure the prosody in the first line, Steevens and other modern editors strike out the you. It is strange that no one should have been struck with the absurdity of such an association as Lucius and Titinius for the guard ing of the door — an officer of rank and a servant boy — the boy, too, being named first. The function of Lucius was to carry messages. As Cassius sends his servant Pindarus with a message to his division of the force, Brutus sends his servant Lucius with a similar message to his division. Nothing can be clearer than that Lucilius in the first line is a misprint for Lucius, and Lucius in the third a misprint for Lucilius. Or the error may have been in the copy ; and the insertion of the Let was pro bably an attempt of the printer, or editor, to save the prosody of that line, as the omission of the you is of the modern editors to save that of the other. The present restoration sets everything to rights. At the close of the conference we have Brutus, in 580, again addressing him self to Lucilius and Titinius, who had evidently kept to gether all the time it lasted. Lucius (who in the original text is commonly called the Boy) and Titinius are no where mentioned together. In the heading of Scene III., indeed, the modern editors have again " Lucius and
SO. 3.] JULIUS CJESAE. 285
Titinius at some distance ; " but this is their own manu facture. All that we have in the old copies is, " Manet Brutus and Cassius." See also 571.
SCENE III. — Within the Tent of BRUTUS. LUCILIUS and TITINIUS at some distance from it.
Enter BRUTUS and CASSIUS.
522. Cas. That you have wronged me doth appear in this : You have condemned and noted Lucius Pella For taking bribes here of the Sardians ; "Wherein my letters, praying on his side, Because I knew the man, were slighted off. £ru. You wronged yourself, to write in such a case.
524. Cas. In such a time as this, it is not meet That every nice offence should bear his comment..
525. JBru. Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself Are much condemned to have an itching palm, To sell and mart your offices for gold
To undeservers.
Cas. I an itching palm ?
You know, that you are Brutus that speaks this, Or, by the gods, this speech were else your last. 527. Bru. The name of Cassius honours this corruption, And chastisement doth therefore hide his head. Cas. Chastisement !
529. Eru. Kemember March, the ides of March remember ! Did not great Julius bleed for justice sake ?
What villain touched his body, that did stab, And not for justice ? What, shall one of us, That struck the foremost man of all this world, But for supporting robbers, shall we now Contaminate our fingers with base bribes ? And sell the mighty space of our large honours For so much trash as may be grasped thus ? — I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon, Than such a Roman.
530. Cas. Brutus, bay not me ;
I'll not endure it : you forget yourself, To hedge me in : I am a soldier, I, Older in practice, abler than yourself To make conditions.
286 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT IV.
531. Bru. Go to ; you are not, Cassius. Cas. I am. Bru. I say, you are not.
534. Cas. Urge me no more, I shall forget myself; Have mind upon your health, tempt me no further.
535. Bru. Away, slight man ! Cas. Is't possible ?
537. Bru. Hear me, for I will speak.
Must I give way and room to your rash choler ?
Shall I be frighted, when a madman stares ?
Cas. 0 ye gods ! ye gods ! Must I endure all this ? 539. Bru. All this ? Ay, more : Fret till your proud heart break ;
Go, show your slaves how choleric you are,
And make your bondmen tremble. Must I budge ?
Must I observe you ? Must I stand and crouch
Under your testy humour ? By the gods,
You shall digest the venom of your spleen.
Though it do split you : for, from this day forth,
I'll use you for my mirth, yea, for my laughter,
When you are waspish. Cas. Is it come to this ?
541. Bru. You say you are a better soldier: Let it appear so ; make your vaunting true, And it shall please me well : For mine own part, I shall be glad to learn of abler men.
542. Ca*. You wrong me every way, you wrong me, Brutus ; I said an elder soldier, not a better :
Did I say, better ?
Bru. If you did, I care not.
Cas. When Caesar lived he durst not thus have moved me.
Bru. Peace, peace ; you durst not so have tempted him.
Cas. I durst not ?
Bru. No.
Cas. What ? durst not tempt him ?
Bru. For your life you durst not.
Cas. Do not presume too much upon my love : I may do that I shall be sorry for. 651. Bru. You have done that you should be sorry for. There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats : For I am armed so strong in honesty, That they pass by me as the idle wind, Which I respect not. I did send to you For certain sums of gold, which you denied me ; —
SC. 3.] JULIUS CJESAR. 287
For I can raise no money by vile means :
By heaven, I had rather coin my heart,
And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wring
From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash
By any indirection. I did send
To you for gold to pay my legions,
"Which you denied me : Was that done like Cassius ?
Should I have answered Caius Cassius so ?
When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous,
To lock such rascal counters from his friends,
Be ready, gods, with all your thunderbolts ;
Dash him to pieces !
Cas. I denied you not.
JBru. You did. 554. Cas. I did not : — he was but a fool
That brought my answer back.— Brutus hath rived my heart : A friend should bear his friend's infirmities, But Brutus makes mine greater than they are.
Bru. I do not, till you practise them on me.
Cas. You love me not.
Bru. I do not like your faults.
Cas. A friendly eye could never see such faults.
559. Bru. A flatterer's would not, though they do appear As huge as high Olympus.
560. Cas. Come, Antony, and young Octavius, come, Revenge yourselves alone on Cassius !
For Cassius is aweary of the world :
Hated by one he loves ; braved by his brother ;
Checked like a bondman ; all his faults observed,
Set in a note-book, learned and conned by rote,
To cast into my teeth. 0, I could weep
My spirit from mine eyes ! — There is my dagger,
And here my naked breast ; within, a heart
Dearer than Plutus' mine, richer than gold :
If that thou beest a Roman, take it forth ;
I, that denied thee gold, will give my heart :
Strike, as thou didst at Ca3sar ; for, I know,
When thou didst hate him worst, thou loved'st him better
Than ever thou loved'st Cassius.
561. Bru. Sheath your dagger :
Be angry when you will, it shall have scope ; Eo what you will, dishonour shall be humour. 0 Cassius, you are yoked with a lamb,
288
PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTAEY. [ACT IT.
That carries anger as the flint bears fire ; Who, much enforced, shows a hasty spark, And straight is cold again. 562. Cos. Hath Cassius lived
To be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus, When grief, and blood ill-tempered, vexeth him ?
Bru. When I spoke that, I was ill-tempered too.
Cas. Do you confess so much ? Give me your hand.
Bni. And my heart too.
Cas. 0 Brutus !—
Bru. What's the matter ?
668. Cas. Have not you love enough to bear with me, When that rash humour which my mother gave me Makes me forgetful ?
669. Bru. Yes, Cassius; and from henceforth, When you are over-earnest with your Brutus,
He'll think your mother chides, and leave you so. [Noise within.
670. Poet, [within]. Let me go in to see the generals : There is some grudge between 'em ; 'tis not meet They be alone.
671. LuciL [within"]. You shall not come to them. Poet, [within]. Nothing but death shall stay me.
Enter POET.
Cas. How now ? What's the matter ? 674. Poet. For shame, you generals ; What do you mean ? Love, and be friends, as two such men should be ; For I have seen more years, I'm sure, than ye. 575. Cas. Ha, ha ; how vilely doth this Cynic rhyme ! Bru. Get you hence, sirrah ; saucy fellow, hence ! Cas. Bear with him, Brutus ; 'tis his fashion. 578. Bru. I'll know his humour when he knows his time : What should the wars do with these jigging fools ? Companion, hence !
Cas. Away, away, be gone ! [Exit POET.
Enter LUCILIUS and TITINIUS.
680. Bru. Lucilius and Titinius, bid the commanders Prepare to lodge their companies to-night.
681. Cas. And come yourselves, and bring Messala with you, Immediately to us. [Exeunt LUCILIUS and TITINIUS. Bru. Lucius, a bowl of wine.
Cas. I did not think you could have been so angry. Bru. 0 Cassius, I am sick of many griefs.
SC. 3.] JULIUS CJESAR. 289
Cas. Of your philosophy you make no use, If you give place to accidental evils.
Bru. No man bears sorrow better :— Portia is dead. Cas. Ha! Portia? Bru. She is dead.
589. Cas. How 'scaped I killing, when I crossed you so ? —
0 insupportable and touching loss ! — Upon what sickness ?
590. Bru. Impatient of my absence ;
And grief, that young Octavius with Mark Antony Have made themselves so strong ; — for with her death That tidings came ; — with this she fell distract, And, her attendants absent, swallowed fire. Cas. And died so ? Bru. Even so. 593. Cas. 0 ye immortal gods !
Enter Lucius, with wine and tapers,
Bru. Speak no more of her. — Give me a bowl of wine : — In this I bury all unkindness, Cassius. [Drinks.
Cas. My heart is thirsty for that noble pledge : — Fill, Lucius, till the wine o'erswell the cup;
1 cannot drink too much of Brutus' love. [Drinks.
Re-enter TITINIUS, with MESSALA.
596. Bru. Come in, Titinius : — "Welcome, good Messala. — Now sit we close about this taper here, And call in question our necessities. Cas. Portia, art thou gone ?
598. Bru. No more, I pray you. — Messala, I have here received letters, That young Octavius, and Mark Antony, Come down upon us with a mighty power, Bending their expedition toward Philippi.
599. Mess. Myself have letters of the self-same tenour. Bru. With what addition ?
601. Mess. That by proscription, and bills of outlawry, Octavius, Antony, and Lepidus Have put to death an hundred senators.
Bru. Therein our letters do not well agree : Mine speak of seventy senators that died By their proscriptions, Cicero being one.
Cas.. Cicero one ? 604. Mess. Cicero is dead,
290 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTABY. [ACT IV
And by that order of proscription. —
Had you your letters from your wife, my lord ?
Bru. No, Messala.
Mess. Nor nothing in your letters writ of her ?
Bru. Nothing, Messala.
Mess. That, methinks, is strange.
Bru. Why ask you ? hear you aught of her in yours ?
Mess. No, my lord.
Bru. Now, as you are a Roman, tell me true.
Mess. Then like a Roman bear the truth I tell : For certain she is dead, and by strange manner. 613. Bru. Why, farewell, Portia.— We must die, Messala : With meditating that she must die once, I have the patience to endure it now.
Mess. Even so great men great losses should endure.
615. Cos. I have as much of this in art as you, But yet my nature could not bear it so.
616. Bru. Well, to our work alive. What do you think Of marching to Philippi presently ?
Cas. I do not think it good. Bru. Your reason ?
619. Cas. This it is :
'Tis better that the enemy seek us : So shall he waste his means, weary his soldiers, Doing himself offence ; whilst we, lying still, Are full of rest, defence, and nimbleness.
620. Bru. Good reasons must, of force, give place to better. The people 'twixt Philippi and this ground
Do stand but in a forced affection ;
For they have grudged us contribution :
The enemy, marching along by them,
By them shall make a fuller number up,
Come on refreshed, new-hearted, and encouraged;
From which advantage shall we cut him off
If at Philippi we do face him there,
These people at our back.
Cas. Hear me, good brother.
622. Bru. Under your pardon. — You must note beside, That we have tried the utmost of our friends : Our legions are brim -full, our cause is ripe ; The enemy increaseth every day ; We, at the height, are ready to decline. There is a tide in the affairs of men,
SC. 3.] JULIUS C^ISAK. 291
"Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune ;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows, and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat ;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
623. Cas. Then, with your will, go on ;
We'll along ourselves, and meet them at Philippi.
624. Bru. The deep of night is crept upon our talk, And nature must obey necessity ;
Which we will niggard with a little rest. There is no more to say ?
625. Cas. No more. Good night ;
Early to-morrow will we rise, and hence.
626. Bru. Lucius, my gown. [Exit Lucius.
Farewell, good Messala ;— Good night, Titinius -.—Noble, noble Cassius, Good night, and good repose.
Cas. 0 my dear brother, This was an ill beginning of the night : Never come such division 'tween our souls ! Let it not, Brutus.
Bru. Everything is well.
Cas. Good night, my lord.
Bru. Good night, good brother.
Tit. Mes. Good night, lord Brutus.
Bru. Farewell, every one.
[Exeunt CASSIUS, TITINIUS, and MESSALA.
Re-enter Lucius, with the Gown. Give me the gown. Where is thy instrument ? Luc. Here, in the tent
634. Bru. What, thou speak'st drowsily ?
Poor knave, I blame thee not; thou art o'erwatched. Call Claudius, and some other of my men ; I'll have them sleep on cushions in my tent.
635. Luc. Yarro and Claudius !
Enter VAKKO and CLAUDIUS.
Var. Calls my lord?
637. Bru. I pray you, sirs, lie in my twit, and sleep ; It may be, I shall raise you by and by On business to my brother Cassius. u 2
292 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT IV.
Far. So please you, we will stand, and watch your pleasure. 639. Bru. I will not have it so: lie down, good sirs; It may be 1 shall otherwise bethink me. Look, Lucius, here's the book I sought for so ; I put it in the pocket of my gown. [SERVANTS lie down.
Luc. I was sure your lordship did not give it me. 641. Bru. Bear with me, good boy, I am much forgetful. Canst thou hold up thy heavy eyes awhile, And touch thy instrument a strain or two ?
Luc. Ay, my lord, an't please you.
Bru. It does, my boy : I trouble thee too much, but th'ou art willing.
Luc. It is my duty, Sir.
645. Bru. I should not urge thy duty past thy might ; I know young bloods look for a time of rest.
Luc. I bave slept, my lord, already.
647. Bru. It was well done ; and thou shalt sleep again ; I will not hold thee long : if I do live,
I will be good to thee. [Music and a sony.
'Hiis is a sleepy tune :— 0 murderous slumber
Lay'st thou thy leaden mace upon my boy,
That plays thee music ?— Gentle knave, good night ;
I will not do thee so much wrong to wake thee.
If thou dost nod, thou break' st thy instrument;
I'll take it from thee ; and, good boy, good night.
Let me see, let me see; — Is not the leaf turned down,
Where I left reading? Here it is, I think. [He sits down.
Enter the GHOST of CJESAR.
How ill this taper burns ! — Ha ! who comes here ? I think, it is the weakness of mine eyes That shapes this monstrous apparition. It comes upon me : — Art thou anything ? Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil, That mak'st my blood cold, and my hair to stare ? Speak to me what thou art.
648. Ghost. Thy evil spirit, Brutus.
649. Bru. Why com' st thou?
Ghost. To tell thee, thou shalt see me at Philippi.
651. Bru. Well ; then I shall see thee again ?
652. Ghost. Ay, at Philippi. [GHOST vanishes 853. Bru. Why, I will see thee at Philippi then.—
Now I have taken heart, thou vanishest :
SC. 3.] JULIUS (LESAR. 293
111 spirit, I would hold more talk with thee. — Boy ! Lucius ! — Varro ! Claudius ! Sirs, awake ! — Claudius !
Luc. The strings, my lord, are false.
Bru. He thinks, he still is at his inr,trument. — Lucius, awake.
Luc. My lord !
Bru. Didst thou dream, Lucius, that thou so cried'st out ?
Luc. My lord, I do not know that I did cry.
Bru. Yes, that thou didst : Didst thou see anything?
Luc. Nothing, my lord.
661. Bru. Sleep again, Lucius. — Sirrah, Claudius ! Fellow thou ! awake.
Var. My lord.
Clau. My lord.
Bru. Why did you so cry out, Sirs, in your sleep ?
Var. Clau. Did we, my lord ?
Bru. Ay : Saw you anything ?
Var. No, my lord, I saw nothing.
Clau. Nor I, my lord.
669. Bru. Go, and commend me to my brother Cassius ; Bid him set on his powers betimes before, And we will follow.
Var. Clau. It shall be done, my lord. [Exeunt.
522. Wherein my letters . . . were slighted off. — The printer of the First Folio, evidently misunderstanding the. passage, gives us —
" Wherein my Letters, praying on his side, Because I knew the man was slighted off."
The Second Folio has —
'"Wherein my Letter, praying on his side, Because I knew the man, was slighted off."
The received reading, therefore, though probably right, is only conjectural ; unless we are to suppose, from its being adopted by Mr Collier, that it has the sanction of his manuscript annotator. Some of the modern editors print "slighted of." At a date considerably later than Shakespeare we have still slighted over (for to treat or
294 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTAEY. [ACT IV.
perform carelessly). It is used by Dry den in the end of the seventeenth century, as it had been by Bacon in the beginning. The connexion of the various modifications of the term slight is sufficiently obvious. They all involve the notion of quickly and easily escaping or being dis patched and got rid of. Perhaps not only slight and sly, but even slide, and slink, and sleek ought to be referred to the same root. In that case the modern German schlau (sly) may be connected not only with schleichen (to move softly), but also with schlecht (plain, simple, honest) ; strange as it may be thought that the same element should denote slyness or cunning in one modifi cation, and simplicity or straightforwardness in another.
524. That every nice offence, etc — Nice is the ancient native nesc or hnesc, tender, soft, gentle. In modern English the word always implies smallness or pettiness, though not always in a disparaging sense, but rather most usually in the contrary. So a pet, literally some thing small, is the common name for anything that is loved and cherished — For "his comment" see 54.
525. Let me tell you, Cassius, etc. Here we have a line with the first syllable wanting, which may be regarded as the converse of those wanting only the last syllable noticed in the note on 246. So, lower down, in 541, we have an other speech of Brutus commencing, with like abruptness, with a line which wants the two first syllables : — " You say you are a better soldier." — For the true nature of the hemistich see the note on " Made in her concave shores" in 15.
525. Are much condemned to have an itching palm. — To condemn to is now used only in the sense of sentencing to the endurance of. In the present passage the to intro duces the cause, not the consequence, of the condemna tion. " You are condemned" is used as a stronger ex pression for you are said, you are alleged, you are charged. — An itching palm is a covetous palm ; as we say an itch
SO. 3.] JULIUS C-ESAB. 295
for praise, an itch for scribbling, etc., or as in the trans lation of the Bible we read, in 2 Tim. iv. 3, of people "having itching ears" (being exactly after the original,
525. To sell and mart your offices. — To make merchan dise, or matter of bargain and sale, of your appointments and commissions. Mart is held to be a contraction of market, which is connected with the Latin merx and mercor, and so with merchant, mercantile, commerce, etc.
525. To undeservers.—'We have lost both this sub stantive and the verb to disserve (to do an injury to), which Clarendon uses ; though we still retain the ad jective undeserving.
527. And chastisement doth therefore. — All the old copies have doth. Mr Collier, however, in his one volume edition substitutes does.
529, 530. And lay the moon. . . . Brutus, lay not me. — In the First Folio we have " lay the moon," and " I ait not me ;" in all the others, " lait the moon" and " bait not me." Theobald suggested " lay the moon" and " lay not me ;" and it is a remarkable confirmation of this conjecture that it exactly accords with the reading given by Mr Collier's MS. annotator, who in 529 restores in the Second Folio the lay of the First, and in 530 corrects the lait of all the Folios into lay. To lay the moon is to bark at the moon ; and lay not me would, of course, be equivalent to bark not, like an infuriated dog, at me. Vid. 349. To lait, again, from the French lattre, might be understood to mean to attack with violence. So in Macbeth, v. 7, we have "to be baited with the rabble's curse." It is possible that there may have been some degree of confusion in the minds of our ancestors between lait and lay, and that both words, imperfectly conceived in their import and origin, were apt to call up a more or less distinct notion of encompassing or closing in. Perhaps something of this is what runs in Cassius's head when he
296 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTABY. [ACT IV.
subjoins, "You forget yourself, To hedge me in" — although Johnson interprets these words as meaning " to limit my authority by your direction or censure." — The present passage may be compared with one in A Winter's Tale, ii. 3 :—
" Who late hath beat her husband, And now baits me."
A third Anglicized form of battre, in addition to beat and bait, is probably bate, explained by Nares as " a term in falconry ; to nutter the wings as preparing for flight, particularly at the sight of prey." Thus Petrucio, in The Taming of the Shrew, iv. 1, speaking of his wife, after observing that his " falcon now is sharp, and passing empty" (that is, very empty, or hungry), goes on to say that he has another way to man his haggard (that is, apparently, to reduce his wild hawk under subjection to man),
" That is, to watch her, as we watch those kites That bate, and beat, and will not be obedient.
Nares quotes the following passage from a letter of Bacon's as beautifully exemplifying the true meaning of the word : — " Wherein [viz. in matters of business] I would to God that I were hooded, that I saw less ; or that I could perform more : for now I am like a hawk that bates, when I see occasion of service ; but cannot fly, because I am tied to another's fist." The letter, which was first printed by Eawley in the First Part of the Re- suscitatio (1657), is without date, and is merely entitled " A Letter to Queen Elizabeth, upon the sending of a New-year's Gift."
530. 1 am a soldier, I. — It is impossible to be quite certain whether the second / here be the pronoun or the adverb which we now write Ay. See the note on " I, as jEneas," in 54.
530. To make conditions. — To arrange the terms on which offices should be conferred.
SO. 3.] JULIUS C^ESAE. 297
531. Go to. — Johnson, in his Dictionary, explains this expression as equivalent to " Come, come, take the right course" (meaning, contemptuously or sarcastically). He adds, that, "besides being thus used as " a scornful exhort ation," it is also sometimes " a phrase of exhortation or encouragement ;" as in Gen. xi. 4, where the people, after the flood, are represented as saying, " Go to, let us build us a city and a tower," etc. But it must be under stood to be used, again, in the scornful sense three verses lower down, where the Lord is made to say " Gro to, let us go down, and there confound their language," etc. • 534. Have mind upon your health. — Mind, is here re membrance, and health is welfare, or safety, generally ; senses which are both now obsolete.
535. Away, slight man l—Vid. 494 and 522.
537. Hear me, for I will speak. — The emphasis is not to be denied to the will here, although it stands in the place commonly stated to require an unaccented syllable. rid. 426, 436, and 613.
539. Must I observe you? — Pay you observance, or reverential attention.
541. You say you are a better soldier. — "Vid. 525.
541. I shall be glad to learn of abler men. — The old reading is " noble men ;" abler is the* correction of Mr Collier's MS. annotator. Even if this were a mere con jecture, its claim to be accepted would be nearly irre sistible. Noble here is altogether inappropriate. Cassius, as Mr Collier remarks, had said nothing about " noble men," whereas abler is the very expression that he had used (in 530) :—
"I am a soldier, I, Older in practice, abler than yourself To make conditions."
542. I said, an elder soldier. — This is the reading of all the old copies. Bat Mr Collier prints older.
551. You have done that you should be sorry for. — The
298 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTABY. [ACT IV.
emphasis, of course, is on should. The common meaning of shall, as used by Cassius, is turned, in Brutus's quick and unsparing replication, into the secondary meaning of should (ought to be). Vid. 181.
551. Which I respect not. — Which I heed not. Here respect has rather less force of meaning than it has now acquired ; whereas observe in 539 has more than it now conveys. Respect in Shakespeare means commonly no more than what we now call regard or mew. Thus, in The Midsummer Night's Dream, i. 1, Lysander says of his aunt, " She respects me as her only son ;" and, in ii. 1, Helena says to Demetrius, " You, in my respect, are all the world." So, in The Merchant of Venice, v. 1, when Portia, on hearing the music from the lighted house as she approaches Belmont at night in company with Nerissa, says, —
" Nothing is good, I see, without respect ; Methinks it sounds much sweeter than hy day," —
she means merely that nothing is good without reference to circumstances, or that it is only when it is in accordance with the place and the time that any good thing can be really or fully enjoyed. As she immediately subjoins : —
"How many things by season seasoned are To their right praise and true perfection ! "
So afterwards Nerissa to G-ratiano, — " Ton should have been respective, and. have kept it" (the ring), — that is, you should have been mindful (of your promise or oath) .
551. And drop my blood. — Expend my blood in drops.
551. Than to wring. — Although had rather (Vid. 54 and 57), being regarded as of the nature of an auxiliary verb, does not in modern English take a to with the verb that follows it (Vid. 1), it does so here in virtue of being equivalent in sense to would or should prefer.
551. By any indirection — Indirectness, as we should now say.
SO. 3.] JULIUS CJESAE. 299
551. To lock such rascal counters. — As to lock. Vid. 408. Rascal means despicable. It is an Original English word, properly signifying a lean worthless deer.
551. JBe ready, gods, etc. — I cannot think that Mr Collier has improved this passage by removing the comma which we find in the old copies at the end of the first line, and so connecting the words " with all your thunderbolts," not with " Be ready," but with " Dash him to pieces."
551. Dash Mm to pieces. — This is probably to be under stood as the infinitive (governed by the preceding verb le ready) with the customary to omitted. Vid. 1.
554. Brutus hath rived my heart. — Vid. 107.
559. A flatterer's would not, though they do appear. — This is the reading of all the old copies. Mr Collier's MS. annotator gives " did appear."
560. Revenge yourselves alone on Cassius. - In this line and the next we have Cassius used first as a trisyllable and immediately after as a dissyllable.
560. For Cassius is aweary of the world. — "Whatever may be its origin or proper meaning, many words were in the habit of occasionally taking a as a prefix in the earliest period of the language. Thence we have our modern English, arise, arouse, abide, await, awake, aweary, etc. Some of the words which are thus lengthened, how ever, do not appear to have existed in the Original English ; while, on the other hand, many ancient forms of this kind are now lost. More or less of additional ex pressiveness seems usually to be given by this prefix, in the case at least of such words as can be said to have in them anything of an emotional character. Shakespeare has used the present word in another of his most pathetic lines,— Macbeth's "I 'gin to be aweary of the sun." — The a here seems to be the same element that we have in the " Tom's-«-coW of Lear, in. 4, and iv. 7, and also with the an that we have in the " "When I was an-hungered" of the
300 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT IV.
New Testament, and Shakespeare's " They said they were an-hunqry" (Coriol. i. 4).
560. Conned by rote. — The Original English connan, or cunnan, signifying to know, and also to be able, — its pro bable modification cunnian, to inquire, — and cennan, to beget or bring forth, appear to have all come to be con founded in the breaking up of the old form of the lan guage, and then to have given rise to our modern ken, and can, and con, and cunning, with meanings not at all corresponding to those of the terms with which they severally stand in phonetic connexion. Can is now used only as an auxiliary verb with the sense of to be able, though formerly it was sometimes employed with the same sense as a common verb. " In evil," says Bacon, in his llth Essay (Of Great Place), " the best condition is not to will ; the second, not to can." Ken is still in use both as a verb and as a substantive. The verb Nares interprets as meaning to see, the substantive as meaning sight ; and he adds, " These words, though not current in common usage, have been so preserved in poetic language that they cannot properly be called obsolete. Instances are numerous in writers of very modern date. ... In Scotland these words are still in full currency." But the meaning of to ken in the Scottish dialect is not to see, but to know. And formerly it had also in English the one meaning as well as the other, as may be seen both in Spenser and in Shakespeare. The case is similar to that of the Greek e'iSw (olSa) and etSe'w. Cunning, again, instead of being the wisdom resulting from in vestigation and experience, or the skill acquired by practice, as in the earlier states of the language, has now come to be understood as involving always at least some thing concealed and mysterious, if not something of abso lute deceit or falsehood.
As for con its common meaning seems to be, not to
SC. 3.] JULIUS C2ESAE. 301
know, but to get by heart, that is, to acquire a knowledge of in the most complete manner possible. And to con by rote is to commit to memory by an operation of mind similar to the turning of a wheel (rota), or by frequent repetition. Rote is the same word with routine.
It is more difficult to explain the expression to con thanks, which is of frequent occurrence in our old writers and is several times used by Shakespeare. Nares explains it as meaning to study expressions of gratitude. But it really seems, in most instances at least, to signify no more than to give or return thanks. See a note on Gammer Gurtorfs Needle in Collier's edition of Dodslcy's Old Plays, II. 30. Con in the present passage may perhaps mean to utter or repeat ; such a sense might come not unnaturally out of the common use of the word in the sense of tto' get by heart. The case would be somewhat like that of the two senses assigned to the same word in the expressions "to construct a sentence" and "to con strue a sentence." It is remarkable that in German also they say Dank ivissen (literally to know thanks) for to give thanks.
Our common know is not from any of the Original English verbs above enumerated, but is the modernized form of cnawan, which may or may not be related to all or to some of them.
Corresponding to cennan and connan, it may finally be added, we have the modern German kennen, to know, and kdnnen, to be able or to know. But, whatever may be the case with the German Konig (a king), it is impossible to admit that our English king, the representative of the ancient cyng, cyncg, or cyning, can have anything to do with either cennan or connan. It is apparently of quite another family, that of which the head is cyn, nation, off spring, whence our present kin, and kindred, and kind (both the substantive and the adjective).
560. Dearer than Plutus1 mine*. — Dear must here be
302 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTAEY. [ACT IV.
understood, not in the derived sense of beloved, but in its literal sense of precious or of value. Vid. 349. It is " Pluto"1 's mine" in all the Folios, and also in Howe ; nor does it appear that the mistake is corrected by Mr Collier's MS. annotator, although it is, of course, in Mr Collier's regulated text.
560. If thai thou beest a Roman. — Our modern sub stantive verb, as it is called, is made up of fragments of several verbs, of which, at the least, am, was, and be are distinguishable, even if we hold is, as well as are and art, to belong to the same root with am (upon this point see Latham's Eng. Lang. 3rd edit. 346). In the original form of the language we have eom (sometimes am), ivaes (with waere and waeron, and wesan, and gewesen), beo (with list or byst, beodh, bedn, etc.), earl (or eardh), is (or ys) ; and also sy, seo, sig, synd, and syndon (related to the Latin sum, sunt, sim, sis, etc.), of which forms there is no trace in our existing English. On the other hand, there is no representative in the written English of the times before the Conquest of our modern plural are. Beest, which we have here, is not to be confounded with the subjunctive be; it is list, tyst, the 2nd pers. sing, pres. indie, of beon, to be. It is now obsolete, but is also used by Milton in a famous passage: — " Ifthou beest he ; but oh how fallen ! how changed," etc. P. L. i. 84.
561. Dishonour shall be humour. — Vid. 205. — Any in dignity you offer shall be regarded as a mere caprice of the moment. Humour here probably means nearly the same thing as in Cassius's " that rash humour which my mother gave me" in 568. The word had scarcely acquired in Shakespeare's age the sense in which it is now com monly used as a name for a certain mental faculty or quality ; though its companion wit had already, as we have seen, come to be so employed. Vid. 436. But what if the true reading should be " dishonour shall be honour?"
561. 0 Cassius, you are yoked with a lamb. — Pope prints,
SC. 3.] JULIUS C^ESAE. 303
on conjecture, "with a man;" and " a, lamb" at any rate, can hardly be right.
562. Blood ill-tempered. — We have now lost the power of characterizing the blood as ill-tempered (except in imita- tation of the antique), although we might perhaps speak of it as ill-attempered. The epithet ill-tempered, now only applied to the sentient individual, and with reference rather to the actual habit of the mind or nature than to that of which it is supposed to be the result, was formerly employed, in accordance with its proper etymological im port, to characterize anything the various component in gredients of which were not so mixed as duly to qualify each other.
568. Have not you love enough to bear with me ? — This is the reading of all the old copies, and is that adopted by Mr Knight. Both the Variorum text, which is generally followed, and also Mr Collier in his regulated text give us " Have you not."
5G9. Yes, Cassius; and from henceforth. — All the irregu larity that we have in this line is the slight and common one of a superfluous short syllable (the ius of Cassius). Steevens, in his dislike to even this much of freedom of versification, and his precise grammatical spirit, would strike out the from, as redundant in respect both of the sense and of the measure.
569. He'll think your mother chides. — To chide is from the ancient cid or cyd, signifying strife or contention. It is now scarcely in use except as an active verb with the sense of to reprove with sharpness; but it was formerly used also absolutely or intransitively, as here, for to em ploy chiding or angry expressions. Shakespeare has both to chide and to chide at.
Instead of the stage direction " Noise within," the original edition has " Enter a Poet"
570. Poet [zuithin~\. — The ivithin is inserted here and before the next two speeches by the modern editors. — •
304 PHILOLOGICAL COililENTAET. [ACT IV.
The present incident (as well as the hint of the preceding great scene) is taken from Plutarch's life of Brutus. The intruder, however, is not a Poet in Plutarch, but one Marcus Favonius, who affected to be a follower of Cato, and to pass for a Cynic philosopher. And it will be ob served that he is called a Cynic in the dialogue. There was probably no other authority than the Prompter's book for designating him a Poet.
571. Lucil. [within]. You shall not come to them. — In the Variorum and the other modern editions, although they commonly make no distinction between the abbrevi ation for Lucilius and that for Lucius, this speech must be understood to be assigned to Lucius, whose presence alone is noted by them in the heading of the scene. But in the old text the speaker is distinctly marked Lucil. This is a conclusive confirmation, if any were wanting, of the restoration in 521. How is it that the modern editors have one and all of them omitted to acknowledge the uni versal deviation here from the authority which they all profess to follow ? Not even Jennens notices it.
574. For I have seen more years, Pm sure, than ye. — Plutarch makes Favonius exclaim, in the words of Nestor in the First Book of the Iliad : —
'A\\d 7ri0«<r0'- d^itptii £e vuDTipta iarbv ifitto' —
which North translates,
" My Lords, I pray you hearken both to me ; For I have seen more years than such ye three."
But this last line can hardly be correctly printed. — The Poet's quotation, it may be noted, is almost a repetition of what Antony has said to Octavius in 496.
575. Ha, ha; how vilely doth this Cynic rhyme! — The form of the word in all the Folios is vildely, or vildly ; and that is the form which it generally, if not always, has in Shakespeare. The modern editors, however, have universally substituted the form now in use, as with then
SC. 3.] JULITJS C^ISAE. 305
(for than), and (for an), and other words similarly circum stanced.
578. Pll know his humour when he knows his time. — In this line we have what the rule as commonly laid down would make to be necessarily a short or unaccented syl lable carrying a strong emphasis no fewer than four times : — /' // — h is — he — his .
578. With these jigging fools.-—" That is," Malone notes, " with these silly poets. A jig signified, in our author's time, a metrical composition, as well as a dance." Capell had proposed jingling.
578. Companion, hence ! — The term companion was formerly used contemptuously, in the same way in which we still use its synonyme fellow. The notion originally involved in companionship, or accompaniment, would ap pear to have been rather that of inferiority than of equality. A companion (or comes) was an attendant. The Comites of the imperial court, whence our modern Counts or Earls, and other nobility, were certainly not regarded as being the equals of the Emperor, any more than a Companion to a lady is now looked upon as the equal of her mistress. "We have our modern fellow from the ancient native felaw ; companion (with company) immediately from the French compagnon and the Italian compagno, which have been variously deduced from com-panis, com-paganus, corn- lino (Low Latin, from binus), com-benno (one of two or more riders in the same lenna, or cart), etc. See Menage, Die. JEfym. de la Langue Franc. But, after all, Dr Webster may be right in what he says under the word Company : — "From cumsmdpannus, cloth, Teutonic fahne, or vaan, a flag. The word denotes a band or number of men under one flag or standard. What de cides this question is, the Spanish mode of writing the word with n tilde, titled n, compania, for this is the manner of writing pano, cloth ; whereas pants, bread, is written pan. The orthography of the word in the other
303 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT IT.
languages is confirmatory of this opinion " — "We have an instance of the use of Companion in the same sense in which we still commonly employ fellow even in so late a work as Smollett's Roderick Random, published in 1748 : — "The young ladies [Roderick's cousins], who thought themselves too much concerned to contain themselves any longer, set up their throats all together against my protector [his uncle, Lieutenant Bowling]. 'Scurvy companion ! Saucy tarpaulin ! Eude impertinent fellow ! Did he think to prescribe to grandpapa!' " Vol. I. en. 3. In considering this meaning of the terms companion and fellow we may also remember the proverb which tells us that " Familiarity breeds Contempt."
Neither the entry nor the exit of Lucilius and Titinius is noticed in the old copies.
580. Lucilius and Titinius, lid the commanders. — The only irregularity in the prosody of this line is the common one of the one superfluous short syllable, the ius of Titinius.
581. Immediately to us, etc. — If this, as may be the case, is to form a complete line with the words of Brutus that follow, two of the six syllables must be regarded as superabundant. But there might perhaps be a question as to the accentuation of the us.
589. Upon what sickness? — That is, after or in con sequence of what sickness. It is the same use of upon which we have in 458, and which is still familiar to us in such phrases as " upon this," "upon that," "upon his return," etc., though we no longer speak of a person dying upon a particular sickness or disease.
590. Impatient of my absence; etc. — This speech is throughout a striking exemplification of the tendency of strong emotion to break through the logical forms of grammar, and of how possible it is for language to be perfectly intelligible and highly expressive, sometimes, with the grammar in a more or less chaotic or uncertain
sc. 3.] JULIUS CAESAR. 307
state. It does not matter much whether we take grief to be a nominative, or a second genitive governed by im patient. In principle, though not perhaps according to rule and established usage, "OctaviuswttVAMark Antony" is as much entitled to a plural verb as " Octavius and Mark Antony." Tidings, which is a frequent word with Shakespeare, is commonly used by him as a plural noun ; in this same Play we have afterwards "these tidings" in 729 ; but there are other instances besides the present in which it is treated as singular. It is remarkable that we should have exactly the same state of things in the case of the almost synonymous term news (the final s of which, however, has been sometimes attempted to be accounted for as a remnant of -ess or -ness, though its exact corre spondence in form with the French nouvelles, of the same signification, would seem conclusively enough to indicate what it really is) . At any rate tiding and new (as a sub stantive) are both alike unknown to the language.
590. She fell distract.— In Shakespeare's day the language possessed the three forms distracted, distract, and distraught ; he uses them all. We have now only the first.
593. The original stage direction here is, " Enter Soy with Wine and Tapers." The second "Drinks" at the end of 595 is modern ; and the "Re-enter Titinius" etc., is " Enter" in the original.
596. And call in question. — Here we have probably rather a figurative expression of the poet than a common idiom of his time. Then as well as now, we may suppose, it was not things, but only persons, that were spoken of in ordinary language as called in question.
598. Sending their expedition. — Eather what we should now call their march (or movement) — though perhaps im plying that they were pressing on — than their expedi tion (or enterprise).
599. Myself have letters. — "We have now lost the right
x 2
308
PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT IT.
of using such forms as either myself or himself as sufficient nominatives, though they still remain perfectly unobjec tionable accusatives. We can say " He struck myself," and "I saw himself;" but it must be "I myself struck him," and " He himself saw it." Here, as everywhere else, in the original text the myself is in two words, " My selfe." And tenour in all the Folios, and also in both Howe's edition and Pope's, is tenure, a form of the word which we now reserve for another sense.
601. That by proscription, and bills of outlawry. — The word outlawry taking the accent on the first syllable, this line will be most naturally read by being regarded as characterised by the common peculiarity of a super numerary short syllable — the tion or the and — to be dis posed of, as iisual, by the two being rapidly enunciated as one. It will in this way be exactly of the same prosody with another that we have presently : — " Struck Caesar on the neck.— O you flatterers" (690) . It might, indeed, be reduced to perfect regularity by the tion being dis tributed into a dissyllable — ti-on — , in which case the prosody would be completed at out, and the two follow ing unaccented syllables would count for nothing (or be what is called hypercatalectic), — unless, indeed, any one should insist upon taking them for an additional foot, and so holding the verse to be an Alexandrine. But taste and probability alike protest against either of these ways of managing the matter. (See what is said in re gard to the dissyllabication of the tion or sion by Shake speare in the note on 246. She dreamt to-night she saw my statue). Nay, even the running together of the tion and the and is not necessary, nor the way that would be taken by a good reader; that is not how the line would be read, but only how it might be scanned : in reading it, the and would be rather combined with the bills, and a short pause would, in fact, be made after the tion, as the pointing and the sense require. So entirely unfounded is the notion
SC. 3.] JULIUS C-ESAB. 309
that a pause, of whatever length, occurring in the course of a verse can ever have anything of the prosodical effect of a word or syllable.
604. Cicero is dead. — In the original printed text these words are run into one line with " and by that order of proscription." The text of the Variorum edi tion presents the same arrangement, with the addition of Ay as a prefix to the whole. " For the insertion of the affirmative adverb, to complete the verse," says Steevens in a note, " I am answerable." According to Jennens, however, this addition was also made by Capell. In any case, it is plain that, if we receive the Ay, we must make two lines, the first ending with the word dead. But we are not entitled to exact or to expect a perfect observance of the punctilios of regular prosody in such brief expres sions of strong emotion as the dialogue is here broken up into. "What do the followers of Steevens profess to be able to make, in the way of prosody, of the very next utterance that we have from Brutus, — the " No, Messala" of 605 ? The best thing -we can do is to regard Cassius's " Cicero one ? " and Messala's responsive " Cicero is dead " either as hemistichs (the one the commencement, the other the conclusion, of a line), or, if that view be preferred, as having no distinct or precise prosodical cha racter whatever. Every sense of harmony and propriety, however, revolts against running " Cicero is dead " into the same line with " And by that order," etc.
613. With meditating that she must die once. — For this use of with see 363. — Once has here the same meaning which it has in such common forms of expression as " Once, when I was in London," " Once upon a time," etc.— that is to say it means once without, as in other cases, restriction to that particular number. Steevens, correctly enough, interprets it as equivalent to " at some time or other ;" and quotes in illustration, from The Merry Wives of Windsor, Hi. 4, " I pray thee, once to-
310 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT IV.
night Give my sweet Nan this ring." — The prosody of the line is the same that has been noted in 426, 436, and 537.
615. / have as much of this in art as you, etc. — In art Malone interprets to mean " in theory." It rather signifies by acquired knowledge, or learning, as dis tinguished from natural disposition. The passage is one of the many in our old poets, more especially Shakespeare and Spenser, running upon the relation between nature and art.
616. Well, to our work alive. — This must mean, ap parently, let us proceed to our living business, to that which concerns the living, not the dead. The commen tators say nothing, though the expression is certainly one that needs explanation.
619. This it is.—" The overflow of the metre," Steevens observes, " and the disagreeable clash of it is with ' Tis at the beginning of the next line, are almost proofs that our author only wrote, with a common ellipsis, This." He may very possibly be right. The expression " This it is" sounds awkward otherwise, as well as prosodically ; and the superfluous, or rather encumbering, it is would be accounted for by supposing the commencement of the following line to have been first so written and then altered to 'Tis.
620. Good reasons must, of force. — We scarcely now say of force (for of necessity, or necessarily) ; although perforce continues to be sometimes still employed in poetry. It may even be doubted if this be Milton's meaning in
" — our conqueror (whom I no\v Of force believe almighty, since no less Than such could have o'erpowered such force as ours)." —
P. L. i. 145.
620. The enemy, marching along ~by them. — This line, with the two weak syllables in the last places of two continuous feet (the second and third) might seem at first to be of the same kind with the one noted in 601.
SC. 3.] JULIUS CJESAE. 311
But the important distinction is, that the first of the two weak syllables here, the -y of enemy, would in any cir cumstances be entitled to occupy the place it does in our heroic verse, in virtue of the principle that in English prosody every syllable of a polysyllabic word acquires the privilege or character of a strong syllable when it is as far removed from the accented syllable of the word as the nature of the verse requires. See Prolegomena, Sect. vi. The dissonance here, accordingly, is very slight in com parison with what we have in 601. — For " Along by them" see 200.
620. JBy them shall make a fuller number up. — For this use of shall see the note on Ccesar should be a beast in 238. —The " along by them" followed by the " by them" is an artifice of expression, which may be compared with the " by Csesar and by you" of 345.
620. Come on refreshed, new-hearted, and encouraged. — " New-hearted" is the correction of Mr Collier's MS. annotator ; the old reading is new-added, which is not English or sense, and the only meaning that can be forced out of which, besides, gives us merely a repetition of what has been already said in the preceding line, a repetition which is not only unnecessary but would be introduced in the most unnatural way and place pos sible, whereas new-hearted is the very sort of word that one would expect to find where it stands, in association with refreshed and encouraged.
«/ •/
620. From which advantage shall we cut him off. — Shake speare most probably wrote we shall.
622. Under your pardon. — Vid. 358.
622. We, at the height, etc. — Being at the height, are in consequence ready to decline — as the tide begins to recede as soon as it has attained the point of full flood.
622. Omitted.— The full resolution will be— which tide being omitted to be taken at the flood.
623. Then, with your will, etc. — In the original edition
312 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENT ABY. [ACT IT.
" "We'll along" is made part of the first line. Mr Collier prints, it does not appear on what, or whether on any, authority, " we will along," as had been done on con jecture by Eowe, Pope, and others. The " We'll along" gives us merely the very common slight irregularity of a single superabundant syllable. — " With your will" is equivalent to With your consent ; " We'll along " to We will onward. But the passage is probably corrupt.
624. The deep of night is crept.— Vid. 374. This is the reading of all the old copies. But Mr Collier prints " has crept."
624. Which we will niggard. — Niggard is common both as a substantive and as an adjective ; but this is probably the only passage in the language in which it is employed as a verb. Its obvious meaning is, as John son gives it in his Dictionary, " to stint, to supply spar ingly."
624. There is no more to say. — There is no more for us to say. So, " I have work to do," " He has a house to let," etc. In Ireland it is thought more correct to an nounce a house as to be let ; but that would rather mean that it is going to be let.
625. Early to-morrow will we rise, and hence. — It might almost be said that the adverb hence is here turned into a verb ; it is construed exactly as rise is : — " Will we rise," — " will we hence." So, both with hence and home, in the opening line of the Play : —
" Hence ; home, you idle creatures."
626. Lucius, my gown, etc. — The best way of treating the commencement of this speech of Brutus is to regard the words addressed to Lucius as one hemistich and "Farewell, good Messala" as another. There are, in fact, two speeches. It is the same case that we have in 506. — In the old editions the stage directions are ; after 625, " Enter Lucius," and then, again, after 627, "Enter
SC. 3.] JULIUS <LESAE.
Lucius with the gown" After 632 there is merely "Exeunt."
634. Poor knave, I blame tliee not; tJiou art o'er- watched, — For knave see 647. — C? er-watched, or over watched, is used in this sense, of worn out with watching, by other old writers as well as by Shakespeare, however irreconcilable such an application of it may be with the meaning of the verb to watch. We have it again in Lear, ii. 2 : —
"All weary and o'erwatched, Take vantage, heavy eyes, not to behold This shameful lodging."
634. Some other of my men. — By some other we should now mean some of a different sort. For some more we say some others. But, although other thus used as a sub stantive, with the plural of the ordinary form, is older than the time of Shakespeare, I do not recollect that he anywhere has others. Nor does it occur, I believe, even in Clarendon. On the other hand, it is frequent in Milton.
634. Pll have them sleep. — Such expressions as this, which are still familiar, show that have ought to be added to the verbs enumerated in the note on " You ought not walk," in 1, which may be folio wed by another verb with out the prefix to.
635. Varro and Claudius ! — In the old copies it is " Varrus and Claudio," both in the speech and in the stage direction that follows.
637. I pray you, Sirs. — Common as the word Sir still is, we have nearly lost the form Sirs. It survives, how ever, in the Scottish dialect, with the pronunciation of Sirce, as the usual address to a number of persons, much as Masters was formerly in English, only that it is ap plied to women as well as to men.
639. Servants lie down. — This stage direction is modern.
314 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT IT.
641. Canst fhou hold up, etc. — This and the next line are given in the Second Polio in the following blunder ing fashion, the result no doubt of an accidental displace ment of the types : —
" Canst thou hold up thy instrument a straine or two. And touch thy heavy eyes a- while."
The transposition is corrected by Mr Collier's MS. an- notator.
645. I know young Hoods look. — Vid. 56.
647. It was well done. — So in the old copies ; but the Variorum edition has " It is" in which it has been follow ed by other modern editors, — though not by either Mr Knight or Mr Collier.
647. Gentle knave, good night. — Knave, from the ancient cnafa, or cnapa, having meant originally only a boy, and meaning now only a rogue, was in Shakespeare's time in current use with either signification. It was in its state of transition from the one to the other, and con sequently of fluctuation between the two. The German Knabe still retains the original sense.
647. I will not do ihee so much wrong to wake thee. — Vid. 408.
The stage direction " He sits down" is modern.
647. It comes upon me. — It advances upon me.
647. Speak to me what thou art. — We scarcely now use speak thus, for to announce or declare generally.
648, 649. Thy evil spirit, JBrutm, etc.— It is absurd to attempt, as the modern editors do, to make a complete verse out of these two speeches. It cannot be supposed that Brutus laid his emphasis on thou. The regularities of prosody are of necessity neglected in such brief utter ances, amounting in some cases to mere ejaculations or little more, as make up the greater part of the remainder of this scene.
651. Well ; then I shall see ihee again ? — So the words
SC. 3.] JULIUS (LESAR. 315
stand in the old copies. Nothing whatever is gained by printing the words in two lines, the first consisting only of the word Well, as is done by the generality of the modern editors.
652. Ghost vanishes. — This stage direction is not in the old editions. — Steevens has objected that the appa rition could not be at once the shade of Caesar and the evil genius of Brutus. Shakespeare's expression is the evil spirit of Brutus, by which apparently is meant no thing more than a supernatural visitant of evil omen. At any rate, the present apparition is afterwards, in 774, distinctly stated by Brutus himself to have been the ghost of the murdered Dictator : —
" The ghost of Csesar hath appeared to me Two several times by night : at Sardis, once ; " etc.
So, also, in Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 6, —
" Since Julius Caesar, "Who at Philippi the good Brutus ghosted."
Perhaps we might also refer to 744 : —
" 0 Julius Csesar, thou art mighty yet Thy spirit walks abroad," etc. ;
and to " Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge," in 363.
It may be well to append the two accounts of the inci dent given by Plutarch, as translated by North. In the life of Brutus the apparition is described merely as " a wonderful strange and monstruous shape of a body," and the narrative proceeds : — " Brutus boldly asked what he was, a god or a man, and what cause brought him thither. The spirit answered him, I am thy evil spirit, Brutus ; and thou shalt see me by the city of Philippi. Brutus, being no otherwise afraid, replied again unto it, "Well,
316 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTABY. [ACT IT.
then, I shall see thee again. The spirit presently vanish ed away ; and Brutus called his men unto him, who told him that they heard no noise nor saw anything at all." In the life of Caesar the account is as follows : — " Above all, the ghost that appeared unto Brutus showed plainly that the gods were offended with the murder of Caesar. The vision was thus. Brutus, being ready to pass over his army from the city of Abydos to the other coast lying directly against it, slept every night (as his man ner was) in his tent, and, being yet awake, thinking of his affairs, ... he thought he heard a noise at his tent door, and, looking toward the light of the lamp that waxed very dim, he saw a horrible vision of a man, of a wonderful greatness and dreadful look, which at the first made him marvellously afraid. But when he saw that it did him no hurt, but stood at his bed-side and said nothing, at length he asked him what he was. The image answer ed him, I am thy ill angel, Brutus, and thou shalt see me by the city of Philippi. Then Brutus replied again, and said, Well, I shall see thee then. Therewithal the spirit presently vanished from him."
It is evident that Shakespeare had both passages in his recollection, though . the present scene is chiefly founded upon the first. Plutarch, however, it will be observed, nowhere makes the apparition to have been the ghost of Caesar.
653. Why, I will see thee. — This is an addition by Shakespeare to the dialogue as given by Plutarch in both lives. 4nd even Plutarch's simple affirmative / shall see thee appears to be converted into an interrogation in 651. It is remarkable that in our next English Plutarch, which passes as having been superintended by Dryden, we have " I will see thee " in both lives. The Greek is, in both passages, merely "Ovpo/zat (I shall see thee).
653. Boy! Lucius! — Varro! Claudius! — Here again,
SC. 3.J JULIUS CJSSAE. 317
as in 635, all the Polios, in this and the next line, have Varrus and Claudio. So also in 661.
661. Sleep again, Lucius, etc. — It is hardly necessary to attempt to make verse of this. In the original text Fellow is made to stand as part of the first line.
669. Go, and commend me to my brother Cassius. — Vid. 279.
669. Bid him set on his powers betimes before. — The only sense which 'the expression to set on now retains is to excite or instigate to make an attack. The other senses which it had in Shakespeare's day may be seen from 27 (" Set on ; and leave no ceremony out ") ; from the passage before us, in which it means to lead forward or set out with ; from 714 (" Let them set on at once ") ; from 746 (" Labeo and Elavius, set our battles on"). — Betimes (meaning early) is commonly supposed to be a corruption of ~by times, that is, it is said, by the proper time. But this is far from satisfactory. Shakespeare has occasionally betime.
ACT V.
SCENE I.— The Plains of Philippi. Enter OCTAVIUS, ANTONY, and their Army.
671. Oct. Now, Antony, our hopes are answered : You said, the enemy would not come down, But keep the hills and upper regions :
It pi*>ves not so ; their battles are at hand ; They mean to warn us at Philippi here, Answering before we do demand of them.
672. Ant. Tut, I am in their bosoms, and I know Wherefore they do it : they could be content
31S PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT V.
To visit other places ; and come down "With fearful bravery, thinking, by this face, To fasten in our thoughts that they have courage ; But 'tis not so.
Enter a MESSENGER. Mess. Prepare you, generals : The enemy comes on in gallant show ; Their bloody sign of battle is hung out, And something to be done immediately.
674. Ant. Octavius, lead your battle softly on,. Upon the left hand of the even field.
675. Oct. Upon the right hand I ; keep thou the left.
676. Ant. Why do you cross me in this exigent ?
Oct. I do not cross you ; but I will do so. [March.
Drum. Enter BRUTUS, CASSIUS, and their Army ; LUCILIUS, TITINIUS, MESSALA, and others.
678. Bru. They stand, and would have parley.
Cos. Stand fast, Titinius : We must out and talk.
680. Oct. Mark Antony, shall we give sign of battle ?
681. Ant. No, CsDsar, we will answer on their charge. Make forth ; the generals would have some words.
Oct. Stir not until the signal.
Bru. Words before blows : Is it so, countrymen ?
Oct. Not that we love words better, as you do.
Bru. Good words are better than bad strokes, Octavius.
Ant. In your bad strokes, Brutus, you give good words : Witness the hole you made in Caesar's heart, Crying, Long live ! hail, Ccesar ! 687. Cas. Antony,
The posture of your blows are yet unknown ; But for your words, they rob the Hybla bees, And leave them honeyless.
Ant. Not stingless too.
Bru. 0, yes, and soundless too ; For you have stolen their buzzing, Antony, And, very wisely, threat before you sting. 690. Ant. Villains, you did not so, when your vile daggers Hacked one another in the sides of Caesar : '
You showed your teeth like apes, and fawned like hou:ids, And bowed like bondmen, kissing Caesar's feet ; Whilst damned Casca, like a cur, behind, Struck Caesar on the neck. 0 you flatterers !
SC. 1.] JTJLITJS C-ESAB. 319
691. Cas. Flatterers !— Now, Brutus, thank yourself: This tongue had not offended so to-day,
If Cassius might have ruled.
692. Oct. Come, come, the cause : If arguing make us sweat, The proof of it will turn to redder drops.
Look;
I draw a sword against conspirators ;
When think you that the sword goes up again ? —
Never, till Caesar's three and thirty wounds
Be well avenged ; or till another Caesar
Have added slaughter to the sword of traitors.
693. Bru. Caesar, thou canst not die by traitors' hands, Unless thou bring' st them with thee.
Oct. So I hope ;
I was not born to die on Brutus' sword. 695. Bru. 0, if thou wert the noblest of thy strain, Young man, thou could' st not die more honourable.
Cas. A peevish schoolboy, worthless of such honour, Joined with a masker and a reveller.
Antf Old Cassius still ! 698. Oct. Come, Antony; away. —
Defiance, traitors, hurl we in your teeth ; If you dare fight to-day, come to the field ; If not, when you have stomachs.
[Exeunt OCTAVIUS, ANTONY, and their Army. Cas. Why now, blow, wind ; swell, billow ; and swim, bark ! The storm is up, and all is on the hazard. 700. Bru. Ho ! Lucilius ; hark, a word with you.
Lucil. My lord. [BKUTUS and LUCILIUS converse apart.
Cas. Messala, — Mes. What says my general ? 704. Cas. Messala,
This is my birth-day ; as this very day
Was Cassius born. Give me thy hand, Messala :
Be thou my witness, that, against my will,
As Pompey was, am I compelled to set
Upon one battle all our liberties.
You know, that I held Epicurus strong,
And his opinion : now I change my mind,
And partly credit things that do presage.
Coming from Sardis, on our former ensign
Two mighty eagles fell, and there they perched,
Gorging and feeding from our soldiers' hands ;
320
PHILOLOGICAL COMMKNTABY.
[ACT v.
Who to Philippi here consorted us ;
This morning are they fled away, and gone ;
And in their steads, do ravens, crows, and kites
Fly o'er our heads, and downward look on us,
As we were sickly prey ; their shadows seem
A canopy most fatal, under which
Our army lies, ready to give up the ghost.
Ales. Believe not so. 706. Cas. I hut believe it partly ;
For I am fresh of spirit, and resolved To meet all perils very constantly.
Bru. Even so, Lucilius.
708. Cas. Now, most noble Brutus,
The gods to-day stand friendly ; that we may,
Lovers in peace, lead on our days to age !
But, since the affairs of men rest still uncertain,
Let's reason with the worst that may befall.
If we do lose this battle, then is this
The very last time we shall speak together :
What are you then determined to do ?
709. Bru. Even by the rule of that philosophy, By which I did blame Cato for the death Which he did give himself, I know not how, But I do find it cowardly and vile,
For fear of what might fall, so to prevent The term of life;— arming myself with patience, To stay the providence of those high powers That govern us below.
Gas. Then, if we lose this battle, You are contented to be led in triumph Thorough the streets of Rome ?
711. Bru. No, Cassius, no : think not, thou noble Roman, That ever Brutus will go bound to Rome ; He bears too great a mind. But this same day Must end that work, the ides of March begun ; And whether we shall meet again, I know not. Therefore our everlasting fare well take : — For ever, ant for ever, farewell, Cassius ! If we do meet again, why we shall smile ; If not, why theft this parting was well made.
Cas. For ever, and for ever, farewell, Brutus If we do meet again, we'll smile indeed ; If not, 'tis true, this parting was well made.
SC. 1.] JULIUS (LESAB. 321
Bru. "Why then, lead on.— 0, that a man might know The end of this day's business, ere it come ! But it sufficeth, that the day will end, And then the end is known.— Come, ho ! away ! [Exeunt.
The heading,—" Scene I. The plains of Philippi"— is modern, as usual.
671. Their battles are at hand. — Battle is common in our old writers with the sense of a division of an army, or what might now be called a battalion. So again in 674. When employed more precisely the word means the central or main division.
671. They mean to warn us. — To warn was formerly the common word for what we now call to summon. Persons charged with offences, or against whom com plaints were made, were warned to appear to make their answers ; members were1 warned to attend the meetings of the companies or other associations to which they be longed ; and in war either of the hostile parties, as here, was said to be warned when in any way called upon or appealed to by the other. Thus in King John, ii. 1, the citizens of Angiers, making their appearance in answer to the French and English trumpets, exclaim, ""Who is it that hath warned us to the walls?'' The word, which is connected with ware and wary, is from the Original English warnian. But the Anglo-Norman dia lect of the French has also garner and garnisher with the same meaning.
672. With fearful bravery. — Malone's notion is, that "fearful is used here, as in many other places, in an active sense, — producing fear — intimidating" But the utmost, surely, that Antony can be understood to admit is that their show of bravery was intended to intimidate. It seems more consonant to the context to take fearful bravery for bravery in show or appearance, which yet is full of real fear or apprehension. Steevens suggests that the expression is probably to be interpreted by the fol-
322 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT Y.
lowing passage from the Second Book of Sidney's Arca dia : — " Her horse, fair and lusty ; which she rid so as might show a fearful boldness, daring to do that which she knew that she knew not how to do." The meaning is only so as showed (not so as should show}. In like manner a few pages before we have ; " But his father had so deeply engraved the suspicion in his heart, that he thought his flight rather to proceed of a fearful guiltiness, than of an humble faithfulness."
672. By this face. — By this show or pretence of courage.
672. To fasten in our thoughts that they have courage. — We have now lost the power of construing to fasten in this way, as if it belonged to the same class of verbs with to think, to believe, to suppose, to imagine, to say, to as sert, to affirm, to declare, to swear, to convince, to inform, to remember, to forget, etc., the distinction of which seems to be that they are all significant either of an operation performed by, or at least with the aid of, or of an effect produced upon, the mind.
674. Octavius, lead your battle softly on. — Vid. 671.
674. Upon the left hand of the even field. — Does this mean the smooth or level ground ? Or is not " the even field" rather to be understood as meaning the even ranks, the army as it stands before any part of it has be gun to advance, presenting one long unbroken line of front ? I am not aware, however, of any other instance of such an application of the term field, unless it may be thought that we have one afterwards in the last line but one of the present Play : — " So, call the field to rest."
675. Keep thou the left.— Eitson remarks ;—" The tenor of the conversation evidently requires us to read you" He means, apparently, that you and your are the words used elsewhere throughout the conversation. But he forgets that the singular pronoun is peculiarly em phatic in this line, as being placed in contrast or opposi-
SC. 1.] JULIUS (LESAR. 323
tion to the I. It is true, however, that tTiou and you were apt to be mistaken for one another in old handwrit ing from the similarity of the characters used for th and y, which is such that the printers have in many cases been led to represent the one by the other, giving us, for instance, ye for the, yereof, or yrof, for thereof, etc.*
676. Why do you cross me in this exigent. — This is Shakespeare's word for what we now call an exigence, or exigency. Both forms, however, were already in use in his day. Exigent, too, as Nares observes, appears to have then sometimes borne the sense of extremity or end, which is a very slight extension of its proper import of great or extreme pressure.
678. Drum, etc. — " Lucilius, Titinius, Messala, and Others " is a modern addition to the heading here.
680. Shall we give sign of battle ? — "We should now say " give signal"
681. W^e will answer on their charge. — We will wait till they begin to make their advance.
681. Make forth. — To make, a word which is still used
* This confusion in writing between the th and the y is, I have little doubt, what has given rise to such forms of expression as " The more one has, the more he would have," "The more haste, the less speed," etc. It is admitted that the the here cannot be the common definite article. Vid. Latham, Eng. Lang. 239, 264, 282. Neither in French nor in Italian is any article used in such cases. But it is the German that shows us what the word really is. " Jc mehr einer hat, je mehr will er haben" is literally " Ever more one has, ever more he would have." And je represented according to the English system of spelling is ye. This is apparently what the pedantry of the book language, misled by the ignorance of transcribers, has perverted into our modern the. Je (or ye) is in fact the same word with our still not unfamiliar aye, always. Very probably it is also the same with yea, the adverb of affirmation. Always, or an equivalent term, would be in most cases a natural enough expression of affirmation or assent. In the word every, again, or everye, as it was anciently spelled, we have perhaps the opposite process of the conversion of the into ye ; for the English "ever-y man" is, apparently, in form as well as in sense, the German "je-der mann."
y 2
324 PHILOLOGICAL COMME1TTABY, [ACT T.
with perhaps as much latitude and variety of application as any other in the language, was, like to do, employed formerly in a number of ways in which it has now ceased to serve us. Nares arranges its obsolete senses under seven heads, no one of which, however, exactly comprehends the sense it bears in the present expression. To make forth is to step forward. In preceding editions I had hastily assumed that Antony's " Make forth ; the generals would have some words " was addressed to the troops, in which case Make forth would be a command to them to advance against the enemy. Yet Antony, it was observed, had just opposed the proposition of Octavius to give the signal of battle, and declared his determination not to move till the enemy should make their charge. I have to thank the writer of a communication dated from Victoria, in New South Wales, for calling my attention to what is probably, after all, the sense in which the passage is commonly understood, and at any rate approves itself to be the true sense as soon as it is suggested. "What Antony says is addressed, not to the troops, but to Octavius; his meaning is, Let us go forward; the generals — Brutus and Cassius — would hold some parley with us.
687. The posture of your Hows are yet unknown. — This is the reading of all the old copies. The grammatical irregularity is still common. " Is yet " is the correction of Mr Collier's MS. annotator. One would be inclined rather to suspect the word posture. It seems a strange word for what it is evidently intended to express.
690. Whilst damned Casca. — This is the reading of all the Folios. Mr Collier has While.
690. Struck Casar on the neck. — 0 you flatterers ! — The word in the old text is strook (as in 348). There is the common prosodical irregularity of a superfluous short syllable. Vid. 601.
691. Flatterers !—Now, Brutus, thank yourself— The
SC. 1.] JULIUS CJ2SAB. 325
prosodical imperfection of this line consists in the want of the first syllable. It is a hemistich consisting of four feet and a half.
692. The proof of it. — That is, the proof of our argu ing. And by the proof must here be meant the arbitre- ment of the sword to which it is the prologue or prelude. It is by that that they are to prove what they have been arguing or asserting.
692. Look ; I draw a sword, etc. — It is perhaps as well to regard the Loolc as a hemistich (of half a foot) ; but ,in the original edition it is printed in the same line with what follows.
692. Never, till C&sar's three and thirty wounds. — Theo bald changed this to "three and twenty" — "from the joint authorities," as he says, " of Appian, Plutarch, and Suetonius." And he may be right in believing that the error was not Shakespeare's. The "thirty," however, escapes the condemnation of Mr Collier's MS. annotator.
692. Save added slaughter to the sword of traitors. — This is not very satisfactory ; but it is better, upon the whole, than the amendment adopted by Mr Collier on the authority of his MS. annotator — " Have added slaughter to the word of traitor ;" — which would seem to be an ad mission on the part of Octavius (impossible in the cir cumstances) that Brutus and Cassius were as yet free from actual treasonable slaughter, and traitors only in word or name.
693. CcBsar, thou canst not die ly traitors' hands. — In the standard Variorum edition, which is followed by many modern reprints, this line is strangely given as " Caesar, thou canst not die by traitors." It is right in all Mr Knight's and Mr Collier's editions.
695. 0, if thou wert the noblest of thy strain. — Strain, or strene, is stock or race. The word is used several times by Shakespeare in this sense, and not only by Chaucer and Spenser, but even by Dryden, Waller, and
320 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT V.
Prior. The radical meaning seems to be anything stretched out or extended, hence a series either of progenitors, or of words or musical notes or sentiments.
695. Tftou could' 'st not die more honorable. — This is not Shakespeare's usual form of expression, and we may be allowed to suspect that he actually wrote honorably (or honour dblie) .
608. The original stage direction is, "Exit Octavius, Antony, and Army."
700. Ho! Lucilius ; etc. — This is given as one verse in the original, and nothing is gained by printing the Ho ! in another line by itself, as the modern editors do. The verse is complete except that it wants the first syllable, — a natural peculiarity of an abrupt commence ment or rejoinder. So in 691. — In the original edition this speech is followed by the stage direction " Lucillius and Messala stand forth ; " and there is no other after 701.
704. As this very day. — "We are still familiar with this form of expression, at least in speaking. We may under stand it to mean As is, or as falls, this very day; or rather, perhaps, as if, or as it were, this very day.
704. On our former ensign. — Former is altered to •forward, it seems, by Mr Collier's MS. annotator ; and the correction ought probably to be accepted. Former would hardly be the natural word unless it were intend ed to be implied that there were only two ensigns or standards.
704. Who to Philippi here consorted us. — Shakespeare's usual syntax is to consort with ; but he has consort as an active verb in other passages as well as here.
70-4. This morning are they fled away, and gone. — Vid. 374.
704. As we were sickly prey. — As if we were. — Vid. 57.
706. To meet all perils.— So in the First Folio. The other Folios have peril.
SC. 1.] JULIUS CJESAE. 327
708. Lovers in peace.— Vid. 260.
708. But, since the affairs of men rest still uncertain.— u Rests still incertaine" is the reading in the original edition.
708. Let's reason with the worst that may befall. — The abbreviation let's had not formerly the vulgar or slovenly air which is conceived to unfit it now for dignified composi tion. We have had it twice in Brutus' s impressive ad dress, 187. Shakespeare, however, does not frequently resort to it, — rather, one would say, avoids it. — To befall as a neuter or intransitive verb is nearly gone out both in prose and verse; as is also to fall in the same sense, as used by Brutus in the next speech.
709. Even by the rule, etc. — The pointing of this passage in the early editions is amusing : —
"Even by the rule of that Philosophy, By which 1 did blame Cato, for the death Which he did give himselfe, I know not how : But I do find it," etc.
The construction plainly is, I know not how it is, but I do find it, by the rule of that philosophy, etc., cowardly and vile. The common pointing of the modern editors, which completely separates "I know not how," etc., from what precedes, leaves the " by the rule " without connexion or meaning. It is impossible to suppose that Brutus can mean " I am determined to do by the rule of that philsophy," etc.
709. The term of life. — That is, the termination, the end, of life. The common reading is " the time of life," which is simply nonsense ; term is the emendation of Mr Collier's MS. annotator, and the same emendation had also been made conjecturally by Capell, though it failed to obtain the acquiescence of subsequent editors. For to prevent see 147 and 161. " To prevent the term of life" says Mr Collier (Notes and Emendations, 403), " means, as
328 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT T.
Malone states, to anticipate the end of life ; but still he strangely persevered in printing time for term." Did not Mr Collier himself do the same thing ?
709. To stay the providence of those high powers. — To stay is here to await, not, as the word more commonly means, to hinder or delay. — " Some high powers " is the common reading ; those is the correction of Mr Collier's MS. annotator, and might almost have been assumed on conjecture to be the true word.
711. No, Cassius, no : etc. — There has been some con troversy about the reasoning of Brutus in this dialogue. Both Steevens and Malone conceive that there is an in consistency between what he here says and his previous declaration of his determination not to follow the example of Cato. But how did Cato act ? He slew himself that he might not witness and outlive the fall of Utica. This was, merely " for fear of what might fall," to anticipate the end of life. It did not follow that it would be wrong, in the opinion of Brutus, to commit suicide in order to escape any certain and otherwise inevitable calamity or degradation, such as being led in triumph through the streets of B/ome by Octavius and Antony.
It is proper to remark, however, that Plutarch, upon whose narrative the conversation is founded, makes Brutus confess to a change of opinion. Here is the passage, in the Life of Brutus, as translated by Sir Thomas North : — " Then Cassius began to speak first, and said : The gods grant us, O Brutus, that this day we may win the field, and ever after to live all the rest of our . life quietly, one with another. But, sith the gods have so ordained it, that the greatest and chiefest [things] amongst men are most uncertain, and that, if the battle fall out otherwise to-day than we wish or look for, we shall hardly meet again, what art thou then determined to do ? to fly ? or die ? Brutus answered him : Being yet but a young man, and not over greatly experienced
SC. 2.] JULIUS dESAK. 329
in the world, I trust [trusted] (I know not how) a certain rule of philosophy, by the which I did greatly blame and reprove Cato for killing of himself, as being no lawful nor godly act touching the gods, nor, concerning men, valiant ; not to give place and yield to divine Provi dence, and not constantly and patiently to take what soever it pleaseth him to send us, but to draw back and fly. But, being now in the midst of the danger, I am of a contrary mind. For, if it be not the will of Grod that this battle fall out fortunate for us, I will look no more for hope, neither seek to make any new supply for war again, but will rid me of this miserable world, and content me with my fortune. For I gave up my life for my country in the Ides of March ; for the which I shall live in another more glorious world."
This compared with the scene in the Play affords a most interesting and instructive illustration of the manner in which the great dramatist worked in such cases, appropriating, rejecting, adding, as suited his purpose, but refining or elevating everything, though sometimes by the slightest touch, and so transmuting all into the gold of poetry.
711. Must end that work the ides of March begun. — Begun is the word in the old editions. Mr Collier has legan. The three last Folios all have " that Ides of March begun."
SCENE IL— The same. The Field of Battle. Alarum. — Enter BKUTUS and MESSALA.
714. ~Bru. Ride, ride, Messala, ride, and give these bills
Unto the legions on the other side : [Loud Alarum.
Let them set on at once : for I perceive
But cold demeanour in Octavius' wing,
And sudden push gives them the overthrow.
Ride, ride, Messala : let them all come down. Exeunt.
330 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT V.
714. Give these bills. — These billets, as we should now say.; but Shakespeare takes the word which he found in North's Plutarch : — " In the meantime Brutus, that led the right wing, sent little bills to the colonels' and captains of private bands, in which he wrote the word of the battle."
As in all other cases throughout the Play, the notices of the locality of what are here called the Second and Third Scenes are modern additions to the old text, in which there is no division into scenes. The stage direc tions in regard to alarums, entries, etc., are all in the First Folio.
714. But cold demeanour in Octavius* wing. — The ori ginal text has " Octavid's wing." In 716, however, it is Octamus.
SCENE III. — The same. Another part of the field. Alarums. — Enter CASSIUS and TITINIUS.
715. Cos. 0, look, Titinius, look, the villains fly! Myself have to mine own turned enemy : This ensign here of mine was turning back ;
I slew the coward, and did take it from him.
716. Tit. 0 Cassius, Brutus gave the word too early ; Who, having some advantage on Octavius,
Took it too eagerly ; his soldiers fell to spoil, Whilst we by Antony are all enclosed.
Enter PINDARUS.
717. Pin. Fly further off, my lord, fly further off; Mark Antony is in your tents, my lord !
Fly therefore, noble Cassius, fly far off.
Cas. This hill is far enough. Look, look, Titinius ; Are those my tents, where I perceive the fire ?
Tit. They are, my lord. 720. Cas. Titinius, if thou lov'st me,
Mount thou my horse, and hide thy spurs in him, Till he have brought thee up to yonder troops And here again ; that I may rest assured, Whether yond troops are friend or enemy.
SC. 3.] JULIUS OESAE. 331
Tit. I will be here again even with a thought. [Exit.
722. Gas. Go, Pindarus, get higher on that hill; My sight was ever thick ; regard Titinius, And tell me what thou not'st about the field. —
[Exit PINDAEUS.
This day I breathed first : time is come round, And, where I did begin, there shall I end ; My life is run his compass.— Sirrah, what news ?
Pin. [Above]. 0 my lord!
Cos. What news?
725. Pin. Titinius is enclosed round about
"With horsemen, that make to him on the spur ; —
Yet he spurs on. — Now they are almost on him.
Now, Titinius! —
Now some light : — 0, he lights too : —
He's ta'en ; — and, hark ! [Shout.
They shout for joy.
726. Cas. Come down ; behold no more. 0, coward that I am, to live so long,
To see my best friend ta'en before my face
Enter PINDAKUS.
Come hither, sirrah :
In Parthia did I take thee prisoner ;
And then I swore thee, saving of thy life,
That, whatsoever I did bid thee do,
Thou should'st attempt it. Come now, keep thine oath !
Now be a freeman : and with this good sword,
That ran through Caesar's bowels, search this bosom.
Stand not to answer : Here, take thou the hilts;
And when my face is covered, as 'tis now,
Guide thou the sword. — Caesar, thou art revenged,
Even with the sword that killed thee. [Dies.
Pin. So, I am free ; yet would not so have been, Durst I have done my will. 0 Cassius ! Far from this country Pindarus shall run, "Where never Eoman shall take note of him. [Exit.
Re-enter TITINIUS, with MESSALA.
728. Mes. It is but change, Titinius ; for Octavius Is overthrown by noble Brutus' power, As Cassius' legions are by Antony. Tit. These tidings will well comfort Cassius.
332 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT V
Mes. Where did you leave him ? Tit. All disconsolate, With Pindarus his hondman, on this hill. Mes. Is not that he, that lies upon the ground ? Tit. He lies not like the living. 0 my heart l Mes, Is not that he ?
735. Tit. No, this was he, Messala ;
But Cassius is no more. — 0 setting sun !
As in thy red rays thou dost sink to night,
So in his red blood Cassius' day is set ;
The sun of Rome is set ! Our day is gone ;
Clouds, dews, and dangers come ; our deeds are done !
Mistrust of my success hath done this deed.
736. Mes. Mistrust of good success hath done this deed. 0 hateful Error ! Melancholy's child !
Why dost thou show to the apt thoughts of men The things that are not ? 0 Error, soon conceived, Thou never com'st unto a happy birth, But kilTst the mother that engendered thee. Tit. What, Pindarus ! Where art thou, Pindarus ? Mes. Seek him, Titinius : whilst I go to meet The noble Brutus, thrusting this report Into his ears : I may say, thrusting it ; For piercing steel, and darts envenomed, Shall be as welcome to the ears of Brutus As tidings of this sight. 739. Tit. Hie you, Messala,
And I will seek for Pindarus the while. [Exit MESSALA.
Why didst thou send me forth, brave Cassius ?
Did I not meet thy friends ? and did not they
Put on my brows this wreath of victory,
And bid me give it thee ? Didst thou not hear their shouts ?
Alas, thou hast misconstrued everything.
But hold thee, take this garland on thy brow ;
Thy Brutus bid me give it thee, and I
Will do his bidding. — Brutus, come apace,
And see how I regarded Caius Cassius.—
By your leave, gods :— This is a Roman's part :
Come, Cassius' sword, and find Titinius' heart. [Dies.
. Alarum.— Re-enter MESSALA, with BRUTUS, young CATO, STBATO, VOLUMNIUS, and LUCILIUS.
Bru. Where, where, Messala, doth his body lie ?
SC. 3.] JULIUS C-ESAB. 333
741. Mes. Lo, yonder ; and Titinius mourning^it Bru. Titinius' face is upward. Cato. He is slain.
744. Bru. 0 Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet ! Thy spirit walks abroad, and turns our swords
In our own proper entrails. \Low alarums.
745. Cato. Brave Titinius !
Look, whe'r he have not crowned dead Cassius !
746. Bru. Are yet two Eomans living such as these ? — The last of all the Romans, fare thee well !
It is impossible that ever Rome
Should breed thy fellow.— Friends, I owe moe tears
To this dead man, than you shall see me pay. —
I shall find time, Cassius, I shall find time. —
Come, therefore, and to Thassos send his body ;
His funerals shall not be in our camp,
Lest it discomfort us. — Lucilius, come ; —
And come, young Cato ; let us to the field. —
Labeo, and Flavius, set our battles on : —
'Tis three o'clock ; and, Romans, yet e'er night
We shall try fortune in a second fight. [Exeunt.
715. This ensign here of mine was turning lack. — Here tlie term ensign may almost be said to be used with the double meaning of both the standard and the standard- bearer.
716. Took it too eagerly. — Followed his advantage too eagerly. — The prosody of this line, with its two super fluous syllables, well expresses the hurry and impetuosity of the speaker.
717. My farther off, etc.— This is the reading of the old editions. Mr Collier, as usual, has farther. Further and. farther correspond to forth and far, which, however, ( Vid. 45) are only diverse forms of the same original word,
feor or forth. Accordingly here, in the next line but one, we have " Cassius, fly far off."
720. Whether yond troops.— Vid. 65.
722. Go, PindaruSy get higher on that hill. — This is the reading of the First Folio ; all the others have " get hither" The stage direction "Exit Pindarus" is modern.
334 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT Y.
722. This day I breathed first. — Compare this expres sion with what we have in 704 : — " As this very day Was Cassius born."
722. Time is come round. . . . My life is run his com pass.— Vid. 374.
722. Sirrah, what news ? — The expressive effect of the break in the even flow of the rhythm produced by the superfluous syllable here, and the vividness with which it brings before us the sudden awakening of Cassius from his reverie, startled, we may suppose, by some sign of agitation on the part of Pindarus, will be felt if we will try how the line would read with " Sir, what news ? "
725. Titinius is enclosed round about, etc. — The me trical arrangement here' given is the same that we have in the First Folio. In many modern editions the follow ing new disposition of the lines is substituted, the contri vance of Steevens or some one of the other editors of the latter part of the last century :—
" Titinius is
Enclosed round about with horsemen, that Make to him on the spur ; — yet he spurs on. — Now they are almost on him : now, Titinius ! Now some light : — 0, he lights too : — he's ta'en ; and, hark ! They shout for joy."
This alteration (made without notice) improves nothing, but seriously injures nearly every line over which it extends. And it also gives us a different prosodical manner from that which prevails throughout the present Play.
725. With horsemen that make to him on the spur. — One of the applications of the verb to make which we have now lost.— Vid. 681.
725. Now, Titinius! Now some light : 0, he lights too. — It may be doubted whether the verb to light or alight have any connexion with either the substantive or the
sc. 3.] JULIUS C^SAE. 335
adjective light. There evidently was, however, in that marvellous array in which the whole world of words was marshalled in the mind of Milton : —
" So, besides
Mine own that bide upon me, all from me Shall with a fierce reflux on me redound ; On me, as on their natural centre, light Heavy" — Par. Lost, x. 741.
The prosodical irregularity of the present line is not greater than that of the " Now some light : 0, he lights too : — he's ta'en ; and, hark !" of the other arrangement. In the original text, " He's ta'en " stands in a line by itself, as frequently happens in that edition with words that really belong to the preceding verse, and possibly, not withstanding their detached position, were intended to be represented as belonging to it.
726. Take ihou the hilts.— Formerly the hilts was rather more common than the hilt. Shakespeare uses both forms. Hilt is an Original English word, and is connected, apparently, with healdan, to hold.
726. Even with the sword that Ulled thee. — Vid. 363. — The stage directions, Dies and Exit, are modern; and for " Re-enter Titinius, with Messala" the old copies have "Enter" etc.
728. It is but change. — The battle is only a succession of alternations or vicissitudes.
735. No, this was he, Messala. — With the emphasis on was.
735. As in thy red rays ihou dost sink to night. — The to night here seems to be generally understood as mean ing this night. Both Mr Collier and Mr Knight print " to-night." But surely a far nobler sense is given to the words by taking sink to night to be an expression of the same kind with sink to rest or sink to sleep. The
336 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTABY. [ACT V.
colourless dulness of the coming night is contrasted with the red glow in which the luminary is descending. " O setting sun, Thou dost sink" meaning simply thou dost set, is not much in Shakespeare's manner. Besides, we hardly say, absolutely, that the sun sinks, whether we mean that it is setting or only that it is descending. And the emphasis given by the to-night to the mere expression of the time seems uncalled-for and unnatural. There is no trace of a hyphen in the old copies.
735, 736. Mistrust of my success, etc. — These two lines may show us that the word success was not yet when Shakespeare wrote quite fixed in the sense which it now bears. It is plain that success simply was not understood to imply all that was conveyed by the ex pression good success. By " mistrust of my success " Titinius must be interpreted as meaning no more than mistrust, doubt, or apprehension of what I had met with ; in conformity with what he afterwards says in apostro phizing Cassius, " Alas, thou hast misconstrued every thing."— Vid. 229.
736. 0 hateful Error ! Melancholy's child /—Error and Melancholy are personages, and the words are proper names, here.
736. To the apt thoughts of men. — Vid. 345.
739. Hie you, Messala.— Tid. 139.
739. And I will seek for Pindarus the while. — AYe are still familiar enough with the while, for meanwhile, or in the meantime, in poetry, in which so many phrases not of the day are preserved; but the expression no longer forms part of what can properly be called our living English.
The stage direction, " Exit Messala" is modern.
739. And bid me give it thee ? etc. — This is no Alex andrine, but only a common heroic verse with two super numerary short syllables.
SO. 3.] JTJLIUS CJESAB. 337
739. But hold tliee. — Equivalent to our modern But. hold, or but stop.
739. Brutus, come apace. — Apace is literally at, or rather on, pace ; that is, by the exertion of all your power of pacing. Vid. 65.
739. By your leave, gods.— Vid. 358. The stage di rection that follows this speech in the original edition is ; — " Alarum. Enter Brutus, Messala,yong Cato, Strata, Volumnius, and Lucillius."
741. Titinius mourning it. An unusual construction of the verb to mourn in this sense. ~WV speak commonly enough of mourning the death of a person, or any other thing that may have happened ; we might even perhaps speak of mourning the person who is dead or the thing that is lost ; but we only mourn over the dead body. So with lament. "We lament the death or the loss, the man or the thing ; but not the body out of which the spirit is gone.
744. In our own proper entrails. — That is, into, as we should- now say. Vid. 122.
745. Look whe*r he have not. — That is, " whether he have not." Vid. 16. The word is here again printed "where " in the original edition.
746. The last of all the Romans. — This is the reading of all the Folios ; and it is left untouched by Mr Collier's MS. corrector. " Thou last " is the conjectural emenda tion of Eowe.
749. / owe moe tears. — Moe (or mo) is the word as it stands in both the First and the Second Folio. Vid. 158.
746. To Thassos send his body .—Thassos is misprinted Tharsus in all the Folios, and the error escaped both Howe and Pope. Nor does Mr Collier state that it is cor rected by his MS. annotator. Thassos was first substi tuted by Theobald, who reasons thus : — " Tharsus was a town of Cilicia in Asia Minor ; and is it probable that Brutus could think of sending Cassius's body thither out
338 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTABY. [ACT T.
of Thrace, where they were now encamped ? Tkassos, on the contrary, was a little isle lying close upon Thrace, and at but a small distance from Philippi, to which the body might very commodiously be transported. Vid. Plutarch, Appian, Dion Cassius, etc." It is sufficient to say -that Thassos is the place mentioned by Plutarch (in his life of Brutus) as that to which the body was sent to be interred, and that the name, as Steevens has noted, is correctly given in North's translation, which Shake speare had before him.
746. His funerals. — As we still say nuptials, so they formerly often said funerals. So funerailles in French nu&fiinera in Latin. On the other hand, Shakespeare's word is always nuptial. Nuptials occurs only in one passage of the very corrupt text of Pericles : — " We'll celebrate their nuptials " (v. 3), and in one other passage of Othello as it stands in the Quarto, — " It is the celebra tion of his nuptials («. 2) — where, however, all the other old copies have nuptial, as elsewhere.
746. Labeo and Flavius, etc. — In the First Folio, " Labio and Flavio ; " in the others, " Labio and Flavius."
For " set our battles on " see 669.
746. 'Tis three o'clock. — In the original edition, " three a clocke." Vid. 85.
SCENE IV.— Another part of the Field.
Alarum. — Enter, fighting, Soldiers of both Armies ; then BRUTUS, CATO, LUCILIUS, and others.
Bru. Yet, countrymen, 0, yet hold up your heads ! 748. Cato. What bastard doth not ? Who will go with me ? I will proclaim my name about the field : — I am the sou of Marcus Cato, ho ! A foe to tyrants, and my country's friend. I am the son of Marcus Cato, ho ! [Charges the enemy.
Bru. And I am Brutus, Marcus Brutus, I ;
SC. 4.] JULIUS C^ESAE. 339
Brutus, my country's friend ; know me for Brutus.
[Exit, charging the enemy. CATO is overpowered, and falls Lucil. 0 young and noble Cato, art thou down ? "Why, now thou diest as bravely as Titinius ; And may'st be honoured being Cato's son.
1 Sold. Yield, or thou diest.
752. Lucil. Only I yield to die :
There is so much, that thou wilt kill me straight ;
[Offering money. Kill Brutus, and be honoured in his death.
753. 1 Sold. "We must not. — A noble prisoner !
2 Sold. Eoom, ho ! Tell Antony, Brutus is ta'en. 755. 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 ?
Lucil. Safe, Antony ; Brutus is safe enough : I dare assure thee, that no enemy Shall ever take alive the noble Brutus : The gods defend him from so great a shame ! "When you do find him, or alive or dead, He will be found like Brutus, like himself. 758. Ant. This is not Brutus, friend ; but, I assure you, A prize no less in worth : keep this man safe ; Give him all kindness : I had rather have Such men my friends than enemies. Go on, And see whe'r Brutus be alive or dead : And bring us word unto Octavius' tent How everything is chanced. [Exeunt.
All that we have in the Polios for the heading of this Scene is, " Alarum. Enter Brutus, Messala, Cato, Lu- cilius, and Flavins" And the only stage directions that we have throughout the Scene are " Enter Soldiers, and fight" immediately before the speech of Brutus (747), and the " Exeunt " at the end.
748. What lastard doth not?—Vid. 177.
752. There is so much, that thou wilt kill me straight. The evident meaning of these words has z 2
340 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT Y.
strangely escaped the acuteness of "Warburton, whose interpretation (1747) is : — " So much resistance still on foot, that thou wilt choose to rid me out of the way, that thou mayst go, without the embarras of prisoners, to the assistance of thy friends who still want it." The true explanation is very well given by Heath in replying to this (in his Eevisal of Shakespeare' s Text, 1765) :— " There is so much money for thee, on condition that thou wilt kill me straight."
753. We must not. — A nolle prisoner ! — The original edition places the entry of Antony immediately after this speech.
755. Pll tell the news.— This is the conjectural emend ation of Theobald. All the Folios, and also both Eowe and Pope, have thee for the. Mr Collier adopts the emendation.
758. And see whe'r Brutus be alive or dead. — Vid. 16 and 745. It is " where " again in the original text.
758. Hoio everything is chanced. — Vid. 69 and 374.
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 showed the torch-light ; but, my lord, He came not back ; he is or ta'en, or slain. 761. 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.
Bru. Peace, then ; no words.
Cli. I'll rather kill myself.
Bru. Hark thee, Dardanius! [Whispers him.
Dar. Shall I do such a deed?
Cli. 0, Dardanius!
Dar. 0, Clitus !
Cli. What ill request did Brutus make to thee ?
Dar. To kill him, Clitus. Look, he meditates. 771. Cli. Now is that noble vessel full of grief, That it runs over even at his eyes.
SC. 5.] JULIUS C^ESAK. 341
Bru. Come hither, good Volunmius ; list a word.
Vol. What says my lord ? 774. Bru. Why, this, Volunmius :
The ghost of Csesar hath appeared to me Two several times hy night : at Sardis, once ; And, this last night, here in Philippi fields. I know my hour is come.
Vol. Not so, my lord. 776. Bru. Nay, I am sure it is, Volunmius.
Thou see'st the world, Volunmius, how it goes ;
Our enemies have heat us to the pit : [Low Alarums.
It is more worthy to leap in ourselves
Then 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 pr*ythee,
Hold thou my sword hilts, whilst I run on it.
Vol. That's not an office for a friend, my lord. [Alarum still.
778. Cli. Fly, fly, my lord ; there is no tarrying here.
779. Bru. Farewell to you ; — and you ; — and you, Volumnius. — Strato, thou hast heen all this while asleep ;
Farewell to thee too, Strato. — Countrymen,
My heart doth joy, that yet, in all my life,
I found no man but he was true to me.
I shall have glory by this losing day,
More than Octavius, and Mark Antony,
By this vile conquest shall attain unto.
So, fare you well at once : for Brutus' tongue
Hath almost ended his life's history:
Night hangs upon mine eyes ; my bones would rest,
That have but laboured to attain this hour.
[Alarum. Cry within; Fly, fly, fly.
Cli. Fly, my lord, fly. 781. Bru. Hence ; I will follow.
[Exeunt CLITUS, DAEDANIUS, and VOLUMNIUS. I pr'ythee, Strato, stay thou by thy lord : Thou art a fellow of a good respect ; Thy life hath had some smatch of honour in it: Hold, then, my sword, and turn away thy face While I do run upon it. Wilt thou, Strato ?
Stra. Give me your hand first : Fare you well, my lord.
Bru. Farewell, good Strato. — Caesar, now be still : I killed not thee with half so good a will.
[Re runs on his sword and dies
342 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT V.
Alarum. — Retreat. Enter OCTAVIUS, ANTONY, MESSALA, LUCILICS, 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.
Lucil. So Brutus should be found. — I thank thee, Brutus, That thou hast proved Lucilius' saying true.
788. Oct. All that served Brutus, I will entertain them. Fellow, wilt thou bestow thy time with me ?
789. Stra. Ay, if Messala will prefer me to you. Oct. Do so, good Messala.
791. Mes. How died my master, Strato ?
Stra. I held the sword, and he did run on it.
793. Mes. Octavius, then take him to follow thee, That did the latest service to my master.
794. Ant. This was the noblest Roman of them all : All the conspirators, save only he,
Did that they did in envy of great Caesar;
He only, in a generous honest thought
Of common good to all, made one of them.
His life was gentle ; and the elements
So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up,
And say to all the world, This was a man !
795. Oct. According to his virtue let us use him, With all respect and rites of burial. Within my tent his bones to-night shall lie, Most like a soldier, ordered honourably.— So, call the field to rest ; and let's away,
To part the glories of this happy day. [Exeunt.
The heading of Scene V., with the locality, is, as usual, modern.
761. Sit thee down. — In this common phrase, appar ently, the neuter verb to sit has taken the place of the active to seat. Or perhaps we ought rather to say that both in Sit thee and in Hark thee, which we have in the next line and again in 765, thee has usurped the function
SC. 5.] JTJLITJS OESAE. 343
of thou. We have a similar irregularity in Fare (that is, go) tJiee well. — The marginal " Whispering" at this speech is modern ; and so is the " Whispers him " at 765.
771. That it runs over. — So that, as in 15.
774. Here in Philippi fields. — A common enough form of expression ; as Chelsea Fields, Kensington Gardens. There is no need of an apostrophe to Philippi,
776. Hold ihou my sword hilts.— Vid. 726.
778. There is no tarrying here. — So in Macbeth, v. 5, " There is nor flying hence, nor tarrying here." The ex pression is from North's Plutarch : — " Volumnius denied his request, and so did many others. And, amongst the rest, one of them said, there was no tarrying for them there, but that they must needs fly.*'
779. Farewell to you; — etc. — Mr Collier appends the stage direction, " Shaking hands severally"
779. Farewell to thee too, Strato. — In all the Folios this stands ; — " Farewell to thee, to Strato." The correction is one of the many made by Theobald which have been universally acquiesced in. It appears to have escaped Mr Collier's MS. annotator.
781. Hence; I will follow. — This is the reading of all the old copies. Pope added thee, in order to make a com plete line of the two hemistichs. — The " Exeunt Clitus" etc., is modern.
781. Thou art a fellow of a good respect. — Vid. 48.
781. Thy life hath had some smatch of honour in it. — Smatch is only another form of smack, meaning taste. Smack is the word which Shakespeare commonly uses, both as noun and verb.
In the early editions, the stage direction after the last speech of Brutus (783) is, simply, "Dies;" and in the Entry that follows Antony is placed before Octavius, and "their Army" is " the Army."
788. / will entertain them. — Receive them into my service.
344 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY. [ACT Y.
788. Wilt thou bestow thy time with me ? — Here is another sense of bestow, in addition to that in 139, which is now lost. Bestow thy time with me means give up thy time to me.
789. IfMessala will prefer me to you.— "To prefer" Heed observes, "seems to have been the established phrase for recommending a servant" And he quotes from The Merchant of Venice, ii. 2, what Bassanio says to Launce- lot,—
" Shylock, thy master, spoke with me this day, And hath preferred thee."
But to prefer was more than merely to recommend. It was rather to transfer, or hand over ; as might be inferred even from what Octavius here rejoins, " Do so, good Messala." That it had come usually to imply also some thing of promotion may be seen from what Bassanio goes on to say :
— " if it be preferment To leave a rich Jew's service, to become The follower of so poor a gentleman."
The sense of the verb to prefer that we have in Shake speare continued current down to a considerably later date. Thus, Clarendon writes of Lord Cottington : — " His mother was a Stafford, nearly allied to Sir Edward Stafford ; . . . by whom this gentleman was brought up, . . . and by him recommended to Sir Robert Cecil . . . ; who preferred him to Sir Charles Cornwallis, when he went ambassador into Spain ; where he remained for the space of eleven or twelve years in the condition of Secre tary or Agent, without ever returning into England in all that time" (Hist,, Book xiii.).
At an earlier date, again, we have Bacon, in the Dedica tion of the first edition of his Essays to his brother An thony, thus writing: — Since they would not stay with their master, but would needs travail abroad, I have pre-
sc. 5.] JULIUS CJESAE. 345
ferred them to you, that are next myself, dedicating them, such as they are, to our love," &c.
791. How died my master, Strata ? — So the First Folio. The Second, by a misprint, omits master. The Third and Fourth have "my lord."
793. Octavius, then take him, etc. — That is, accept or receive him from me. It is not, I request you to allow him to enter your service ; but I give him to you. Vid. 789.
794. Tie only, in a generous nonest thought Of common good, etc. — We are indebted for this reading to Mr Collier's MS. annotator. It is surely a great improve ment upon the old text —
" He only in a general honest thought, And common good to all, made one of them."
To act " in a general honest thought " is perhaps in telligible, though barely so ; but, besides the tautology which must be admitted on the common interpretation, what is to act in " a common good to all ? "
794. Made one of them. — In this still familiar idiom made is equivalent to formed, constituted, and one must be con sidered as the accusative governed by it. Fecit unum ex eis, or eorum (by joining himself to them).
Here is the prose of Plutarch, as translated by North, out of which this poetry has been wrought : — " For it was said that Antonius spake it openly divers times, that he thought, that, of all them that had slain Caesar, there was none but Brutus only that was moved to it as think ing the act commendable of itself; but that all the other conspirators did conspire his death for some private malice or envy that they otherwise did bear unto him."
794. If is life was gentle; and the elements, etc.-— This passage is remarkable from its resemblance to a passage in Drayton's poem of The Barons' Wars. Dray ton's poem was originally published some years before the close
346 PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY [ACT T.
of the sixteenth century (according to Eitson, Bibl. Poet., under the title of " Mortemeriados. . . . Printed by J. E-. for Matthew Lownes, 1596," 4to) ; but there is, it seems, no trace of the passage in question in that edition. The first edition in which it is found is that of 1608, in whicli it stands thus : —
" Such one he was (of him we boldly say) In whose rich soul all sovereign powers did suit, In whom in peace the elements all lay So mixt, as none could sovereignty impute ; As all did govern, yet all did obey : His lively temper was so absolute, That 't seemed, when heaven his model first began, In him it showed perfection in a man."
In a subsequent edition published in 1619 it is re modelled as follows : —
" He was a man (then boldly dare to say) In whose rich soul the virtues well did suit ; In whom so mixt the elements all lay That none to one could sovereignty impute ; As all did govern, so did all obey : He of a temper was so absolute, As that it seemed, when nature him began, She meant to show all that might be in man."
Malone, who holds that Shakespeare's play of Julius Casar was probably produced about 1607, is inclined to think that Drayton was the copyist, even as his verses originally stood. " In the altered stanza," he adds, " he certainly was." Steevens, in the mistaken notion that Drayton' s stanza as found in the edition of his JSarons* Wars published in 1619 had appeared in the original poem, published, as he conceives, in 1598, had supposed that Shakespeare had in this instance deigned to imitate or borrow from his contemporary.
795. To part the glories of this happy day. — That is, to distribute to each man his due share 'in its glories. — The original stage direction is "Exeunt omnes."
INDEX.
a-, an-, 560. |
base, 147, 349. |
censorship, 329. |
abide, 327. |
bastard, 177. |
censure, 329, 375. |
aboard, 65. |
bate, 529, 530. |
census, 329. |
aby, 327. |
battle, 671. |
ceremonies, 16, 194 |
addressed, 300. |
bay, 349, 529, 530. |
chance, 69. |
advantage, 358. afeard, 244. |
be, 560. be (are), 67. |
charactery, 214. charm, 209. |
aim, 57. |
be-, 390, 460. |
chew, 57. |
alderliefest, 54. |
bear hard, 105. |
chide, 569. |
alight, 725. |
become, 390. |
clean, 110. |
alive, 65. |
been, 269. |
clever, 348. |
all over, 175. |
beest, 560. |
colour, 147 |
aloft, 65. |
befall, 69, 708. |
come home, 104. |
along by, 200. |
behaviours, 45. |
comfort, 211. |
an, 15. |
beholden, 390. |
command, 279, |
and (an), 89, 575. |
believe, 390. |
commend, 279. |
apace, 739. |
belike, 460. |
commerce, 525. |
apparent, 194. |
belong, 390. |
compact, 352. |
approve, 147. |
beloved, 390. |
companion, 578. |
apt, 345. |
beseech, 390. |
cqmpany, 578. |
aptitude, 345. |
beshrew, 186. |
con, 560. |
are, 129, 560. |
beside, 348. |
conceit, 142. |
arrive, 54. |
bestow, 139, 783. |
conclude, 249. |
art (s.), 615. |
betimes, 669. |
condemn to, 525. |
art (v.), 560. |
betoken, 390. |
condition, 205. |
as, 44, 57, 177, 329, |
bid, 1. |
consort, 704. |
408, 704. |
bills, 714. |
constant, 263, 310 |
as well, 56. |
bloods, 56. |
construct, 560. |
ascended (is), 324. |
bough, 349. |
construe, 560. |
aside, 65. |
bow, 349. |
content, 519. |
assembly, 246. |
break with, 182 |
continence, 54. |
astir, 252. |
bring, 106. |
contrite, 260. |
at, 508. |
brook, 56. |
contrive, 260. |
Ate, 363. |
business, 496. |
council, 263, 498. |
attempered, 562. |
bustle, 267. |
counsel, 263, 498. |
augurer, 194, |
busy, 267. |
countenance, 54. |
aweary, etc., 560. |
by, 124, 345. |
court, 305. |
ay, 54, 530. |
courteous, 305. |
|
ay me !, 279. |
can, 1, 560. |
courtesies, 305. |
aye, 675. |
carrion, 177. |
creature, 181. |
cast, 122. |
cunning, 560. |
|
bad, 349. |
cause, 1. |
curse, 186. |
bait, 529, 530. |
caxitel, 177. |
curst, 186. |
ban, 349. |
cautelous, 177. |
curt'sies, 305. |
bane, 349. |
censor, 329. |
348
INDEX.
damage, 147. |
fall, 177, 359, 508, 708. |
hail, 241. |
danger, 147. |
fantasy, 194. |
hale, 241. |
dare, 1. |
far, 48, 717. |
hand (at, in, on), 508. |
dear, 349, 560. |
fare thee, 761. |
handkerchief, 218. |
dearth, 349. |
farther, 45, 717. |
hap, 69. |
decent, 16. deck, 16. |
fasten, 672. fault, 120, 143. |
happen, 69. happy, 69. |
decorate, 16. |
favour, 54, 130, 160. |
hark thee, 761. |
deem, 329. |
favoured, 54. |
have, 634. |
degrees, 147. |
fear, 190, 244. |
havoc, 363. |
deliberate, 348. |
fearful, 672. |
he, 54. |
deliver, 348. |
fellow, 578. |
health, 534. |
dent, 426. |
feverous, 130. |
heap, 109. |
desire, 307. |
field, 674. |
hear, 1. |
die, 16. |
fire, 346. |
hearse, 422. |
difference, 45. |
firm, 107. |
heart's ease, 67. |
dint, 426. |
fleer, 129. |
heir, 194. |
direct, 300. |
flourish, 283. |
help, 1. |
disserve, 525. |
fond, 305. |
hence, 625. |
distract, 590. |
fondling, 305. |
her, 54. |
distraught, 590. |
forbid, 1. |
herd, 128. |
do, 1, 16, 147, 229, |
force, 209. |
herself, 56. |
387, 503. |
force (of), 620. |
hie, 139. |
doom, 329. |
fore, 45. |
hilts, 726, 776. |
dotage, 305. |
foreign-built, 110. |
hind, 128. |
dote, 305. |
forth, 45, 717. |
hinder, 161. |
dress, 300. |
fray, 267. |
himself, 56, 599. |
drizzle, 233, |
freedom, 307. |
his, 54. |
drown, 128. |
friend (to, at), 342. |
hit (it), 54. |
friends (friend), 353. |
home, 625. |
|
early, 494. |
from, 110, 194. |
home-, 110. |
earn, 259. |
funerals, 746. |
hour, 256. |
earnest, 259. |
further, 45, 717. |
however, 103. |
•ed, 16, 246. |
hug, 139. [561. |
|
either, 227. |
garden, 143. |
humour, 105, 205, 240, |
element, 130. |
ge-, 390. |
hurl, 233. |
emulation, 260. |
general, 147. |
hurtle, 233. |
endure, 1. |
genius, 155. |
|
enforce, 377. |
get me, 278. |
I, 54. |
enlarge, 519. |
get thee gone, 261. |
I (me), 122. |
ensign, 715. |
give sign, 680. |
idle, 177. |
entertain, 788. |
give way, 260. |
-ile, 25. |
envy, 187. |
given, 66. |
improve, 186. |
ere, 494. |
glare, 109. |
in, 65, 122, 744. |
errand, 494. errant, 494. |
go along by, 200. go to, 531, |
incorporate, 134. indirection, 551. |
erroneous, 494. |
gore, 426. |
-ing, 1. |
error, 494. |
greet, 242. |
instance, 507 |
esteem, 57. every, 675. |
griefs, 129, 436. grievances, 129. |
insuppressive, 177. intend, 1. |
exigent, 676. |
guess, 390 |
is, 560. |
exorcise, 221. |
it, 54. |
|
expedition, 598. |
had best, 469. |
-ite, 25. |
had like, 57. |
i' the, 53. |
|
factious, 129. |
had rather, 57, 551. |
itching, 525. |
349
its, 54. |
! napery, 408. |
prick, 352, 491. |
itself, 54, 56. |
1 napkin, 408. |
proceed, 60. |
-ius, 61, 502, 560. |
; neckerchief, 218. |
proceeding, 249. |
news, 590. |
produce to, 355. |
|
jealous, 50, 57. |
nice, 524. |
promised forth, 97. |
jig, 578. |
niggard, 624. |
proof, 147, 692. |
justle, 233. |
nor, 227. |
proper, 12, 45. |
not, 181. |
provender, 498. |
|
keep, 211. |
nuptial, 746, |
puissant, 304. |
ken, 560. |
||
kerchief, 218. |
observe, 539. |
question, 377, 596. |
kin, 560. |
occupation, 89. |
quick, 267- |
kind, 560. |
o'clock, 65. |
quite from, 194. |
kindred. 560. |
of, 50, 129. |
|
king, 560. |
on, 50, 65. |
rascal, 551. |
knave, 647. |
once, 613. |
rathe, 54. |
know, 560. |
o' nights, 65. |
rather, 54. |
only, 56. |
recension, 329. |
|
lament, 741. |
ope, 89. |
redress, 300. |
lease, 363. |
or, 227. |
regard, 37-5. |
leash, 363. |
orchard, 143. |
remorse, 147- |
let, 1, 363. |
order, 355. |
render, 249, 349, 371. |
let's, 708. |
o' the, 53. |
repeal, 306. |
liable, 67, 249. |
other, 78. |
reprove, 186. |
lief, 54. |
others, 634. |
resolved, 339. |
light, 725. |
ought, 1. |
respect, 48, 375, 551. |
like, 57, 85, 259. |
ourself, 56, |
retentive, 126. |
likely, 57. |
out, 8. |
rived, 107. |
likes, 105. |
over, 283. |
Rome, 56. |
listen, 498. |
overwatched, 634. |
rostrum, 373. |
lover, 186, 260. |
owe, 1. |
rote, 560. |
owed, 1. |
round, 147. |
|
main, 194. |
own, 1. |
ruminate, 57. |
make, 1, 681, 725, 794. |
rumour, 267. |
|
make for, 295. |
palter, 177. |
|
make to, 295. |
paramour, 186. |
scandal, 50. |
manner, 45 |
pass, 15. |
scandalize, 50. |
mass, 408. • |
passion, 46. |
see, 1. |
market, 525. |
path, 161. |
self, 54, 56. |
marry, 78. |
patience, 46. |
sennet, 39. |
mart, 525. |
perfoi'ce, 620. |
sense, 498. |
masters, 403, 637. |
piety, 346. |
separate, 444. |
may, 1. |
pious, 346. |
set on, 225, 669. |
me, 89, 471. |
piteous, 346. |
sever, 444. |
mercantile, 25, 525. |
pitiful, 346. |
several, 444. |
merchant, 525. |
pity, 346. |
shake, 349. |
merely, 45. |
plucked, 160. |
shall, 1, 181, 238, 249, |
mettle, 102. |
portent, 246. |
351, 358, 491, 620. |
mind, 534. |
power, 127. |
she, 54. |
mistook, 46. |
prebend, 498. |
shew, 186. |
moe, 158, 746. |
prefer, 789. |
should, 56, 181, 238, |
mourn, 741. |
prepare, 256. |
551. |
must, 1. |
present, 57. |
shrew, 186. |
my, 89, 205. |
pretend, 65. [709. |
shrewd, 186, 343. |
myself, 54,56 599. |
prevent, 147, 161, 296, |
shrewishness, 186 |
350 INDEX. |
||
sign, 680. |
swoon, 82, 83, 128. |
virtue, 209. |
sin, 16. |
vouchsafe, 1. |
|
sing, 16. |
tag-rag, 87. |
|
-sion, 246. |
taste, 498. |
ware, 671. |
sirs, 637. |
tempered, 562. |
warn, 671. |
sit thee, 761. |
temple, 363. |
wary, 671. |
sleek, 522. |
tenure, 599. |
was, 560. |
sleep, 363. |
terror, 190, 194. |
wash, 333. |
slide, 522. |
th and y, 675. |
wave, 107. |
slight, 494, 522. |
than, 56, 575. |
weak, 267. |
slink, 522. |
that, 15, 44, 57, 147, |
weep, 16. |
slip, 363. |
177, 399. |
weigh, 107. |
slips, 363. |
thatch, 16. |
well, 504. |
sly, 522. |
the more, etc., 675. |
were, wert, hest, 469. |
smatch, 781. |
themselves, 56. |
when ? 143. |
so, 15, 44, 57, 147, 408. |
then (than), 56. |
whe'r, 16, 194, 745, |
sooth, 268. |
there's, 135. |
758. |
sore, 186. |
these, 57. |
which, 369, 377. |
sorrow, 186. |
these many, 486. |
while (the), 739. |
sorry, 186. |
thews, 124. |
whiles, 67. |
sort, 211. |
thigh, 124. |
whirl, 233. |
sound, 128. |
think, 147, 189. |
whit, 181. |
sour 186. |
this, 57. |
wicked, 267. |
speak, 647. |
this (time), 130. |
wight, 181. |
stale, 50. |
this present, 67. |
will, 1, 181, 238, 249, |
state, 50. |
thou, 1. |
491. |
statue, 246. |
thunderstone, 120. |
wis, v. ywis. |
stay, 709. |
thyself, 56. |
wit, 436, 561. |
stirred, 252. |
tide, 363. |
with, 124, 315, 363, |
strain, 695. |
tidings, 590. |
613. |
strange-disposed, 110. |
time, 363. |
withhold, 399. |
strew, 186. |
-tion, 246. |
worship, 504. |
stricken, 46, 253. |
to, 1, 57, 551, 634. |
worth, 504. |
struck, 46, 253. |
toward, 53. |
would, 218. |
strucken, 253, 349. |
true man, 87. |
wrote, 46. |
succeed, 229. |
||
success, 229, 735, 736. |
unaccustomed, 194. |
y-, 390. |
such, 57, 177. |
undergo, 130. |
ye, 345. |
sue, 283. |
undeservers, 525. |
yea, 675. |
suit, 283. |
unmeritable, 494. |
yearn, 259. |
suite, 283. swagger, 107. |
upon, 589. |
yon, yond, yonder, 65. you, 345. |
sway, 107, 353. |
viands, 498. |
yourself, 56. |
sweet, 267. |
vile, 575. |
ywis, 390. |
swing, 107. |
villain, 186. |
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