The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar Part 14

[Note 35: /Clean:/ quite, completely. From the fourteenth century to the seventeenth 'clean' was often used in this sense, usually with verbs of removal and the like, and so it is still used colloquially. For 'from' without a verb of motion, see Abbott, -- 158.]

[Note 42: /what:/ what a. For the omission of the indefinite article, common in Shakespeare, see Abbott, -- 86. In the Folios the interrogation mark and the exclamation mark are often interchanged.]

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Ca.s.sIUS. A very pleasing night to honest men.

CASCA. Who ever knew the heavens menace so?

Ca.s.sIUS. Those that have known the earth so full of faults.

For my part, I have walk'd about the streets, 46 Submitting me unto the perilous night, And thus unbraced, Casca, as you see, Have bar'd my bosom to the thunder-stone: And when the cross blue lightning seem'd to open 50 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 G.o.ds by tokens send 55 Such dreadful heralds to astonish us.

[Note 50: /blue/ blew F1.]

[Note 48: /unbraced:/ unb.u.t.toned, with open doublet. For such anachronisms see note, p. 26, l. 263; also p. 48, l. 73.]

[Note 49: /thunder-stone:/ thunder-bolt. It is still a common belief in Scotland and Ireland that a stone or bolt falls with lightning. Cf. _Cymbeline_, IV, ii, 271: "Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone."]

[Note 50: /cross:/ zigzag. So in _King Lear_, IV, vii, 33-35:

To stand against the deep, dread-bolted thunder?

In the most terrible and nimble stroke Of quick, cross lightning?]

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Ca.s.sIUS. 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, 60 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; 65 Why all these things change from their ordinance, Their natures and preformed faculties, To monstrous quality, why, you shall find That heaven hath infus'd them with these spirits, To make them instruments of fear and warning 70 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, 75 A man no mightier than thyself or me In personal action, yet prodigious grown, And fearful, as these strange eruptions are.

[Note 57-60: Five lines in Ff.]

[Note 65: /old men, fools, and/ Old men, Fooles, and F1 F2 Old men, Fools, and F3 F4 old men fools, and Steevens old men fool and White.]

[Note 74: /roars/ roares F1 teares F2.]

[Note 60: /cast yourself in:/ throw yourself into a state of.

In previous editions of Hudson's Shakespeare Jervis's conjecture 'case' for 'cast' was adopted. The change is unnecessary. Cf. _Cymbeline_, III, ii, 38: "Though forfeiters you cast in prison."]

[Note 63-68: The construction here is involved, and the grammar confused, but the meaning is clear enough. The general idea is that of elements and animals, and even human beings, acting in a manner out of or against their nature, or changing their natures and original faculties from the course in which they were ordained to move, to monstrous or unnatural modes of action.]

[Note 64: /from quality and kind:/ turn from their disposition and nature. Emerson and Browning use 'quality' (cf. l. 68) in this old sense of 'disposition.' 'Kind,' meaning 'nature,' is common in Shakespeare.]

[Note 65: There seems no necessity for changing the reading of the Folios. This conjunction of old men, fools, and children is found in country sayings in England to-day. So in a Scottish proverb: "Auld fowks, fules, and bairns should never see wark half dune," White's reading was first suggested by Mitford.]

[Note 67: /preformed:/ originally created for some special purpose.]

[Note 71: /monstrous state:/ abnormal condition of things.

'Enormous state' occurs with probably the same general meaning in _King Lear_, II, ii, 176. As Ca.s.sius is an avowed Epicurean, it may seem out of character to make him speak thus. But he is here talking for effect, his aim being to kindle and instigate Casca into the conspiracy; and to this end he does not hesitate to say what he does not himself believe.]

[Note 75: This reads as if a lion were kept in the Capitol.

But the meaning probably is that Caesar roars in the Capitol, like a lion. Perhaps Ca.s.sius has the idea of Caesar's claiming or aspiring to be among men what the lion is among beasts. Dr.

Wright suggests that Shakespeare had in mind the lions kept in the Tower of London, "which there is reason to believe from indications in the play represented the Capitol to Shakespeare's mind." It is possible, too, that we have here a reference to the lion described by Casca in ll. 20-22.]

[Note 77: /prodigious:/ portentous. As in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, V, i, 419: "Never mole, hare lip, nor scar, Nor mark prodigious."]

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CASCA. 'Tis Caesar that you mean, is it not, Ca.s.sius?

Ca.s.sIUS. Let it be who it is; for Romans now 80 Have thews and limbs like to their ancestors; But, woe the while! our fathers' minds are dead, And we are govern'd with our mothers' spirits; Our yoke and sufferance show us womanish.

CASCA. Indeed, they say the senators to-morrow 85 Mean to establish Caesar as a king; And he shall wear his crown by sea and land, In every place save here in Italy.

[Note 79: Two lines in Ff.]

[Note 81: /thews/ Thewes F1 F2 Sinews F3 F4.]

[Note 80: /Let it be who it is:/ "no matter who it is."--Clar.]

[Note 81: /thews:/ muscles. So in _Hamlet_, I, iii, 12, and _2 Henry IV_, III, ii, 276. In Chaucer and Middle English the word means 'manners,' though in Layamon's _Brut_ (l. 6361), in the singular, it seems to mean 'sinew' or 'strength.' See Skeat for a suggestive discussion.]

[Note 83: /with:/ by. So in III, ii, 196. See Abbott, -- 193.]

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Ca.s.sIUS. I know where I will wear this dagger then; Ca.s.sius from bondage will deliver Ca.s.sius. 90 Therein, ye G.o.ds, you make the weak most strong; Therein, ye G.o.ds, you tyrants do defeat: Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten bra.s.s, Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron, Can be retentive to the strength of spirit; 95 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_]

CASCA. So can I: 100 So every bondman in his own hand bears The power to cancel his captivity.

Ca.s.sIUS. 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: 105 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 110 So vile a thing as Caesar! But, O 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 arm'd, And dangers are to me indifferent. 115

[Note 95: Can repress by force man's energy of soul.]

[Note 101: /bondman./ The word 'cancel' in the next line shows that Casca plays on the two senses of 'bond.' Cf. _Cymbeline_, V, iv, 28.]

[Note 107-108: The idea seems to be that, as men start a huge fire with worthless straws or shavings, so Caesar is using the degenerate Romans of the time to set the whole world a-blaze with his own glory. Ca.s.sius's enthusiastic hatred of "the mightiest Julius" is irresistibly delightful. For a good hater is the next best thing to a true friend; and Ca.s.sius's honest gus.h.i.+ng malice is surely better than Brutus's stabbing sentimentalism.]

[Note 112-115: The meaning is, Perhaps you will go and tell Caesar all I have said about him, and then he will call me to account for it. Very well; go tell him; and let him do his worst. I care not.]

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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.