The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar Part 20

BRUTUS. Good gentlemen, look fresh and merrily; Let not our looks put on our purposes; 225 But bear it as our Roman actors do, With untir'd spirits and formal constancy: And so, good morrow to you every one.

[_Exeunt all but_ BRUTUS]

Boy! Lucius! Fast asleep? It is no matter; Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber: 230 Thou hast no figures nor no fantasies, Which busy care draws in the brains of men; Therefore thou sleep'st so sound.

[Note 221: Two lines in Ff.]

[Note 228: [_Exeunt_ ...] Exeunt. Manet Brutus Ff.]

[Note 230: /honey-heavy dew/ hony-heavy-Dew Ff honey heavy dew Johnson heavy honey-dew Collier.]

[Note 218: /by him:/ by his house. Make your way home that way.]

[Note 225: Let not our looks betray our purposes by wearing, or being attired with, any indication of them. Cf. _Macbeth_, I, vii, 81.]

[Note 230: The compound epithet, 'honey-heavy,' is very expressive and apt. The 'dew of slumber' is called 'heavy'

because it makes the subject feel heavy, and 'honey-heavy,'

because the heaviness it induces is sweet. But there may be a reference to the old belief that the bee gathered its honey from falling dew. So in Vergil's _Georgics_, IV, i, we have "the heavenly gifts of honey born in air." Brutus is naturally led to contrast the free and easy state of the boy's mind with that of his own, which the excitement of his present undertaking is drawing full of visions and images of trouble.]

[Page 59]

_Enter_ PORTIA

PORTIA. Brutus, my lord!

BRUTUS. Portia, what mean you? wherefore rise you now?

It is not for your health thus to commit 235 Your weak condition to the raw cold morning.

PORTIA. Nor for yours neither. You've ungently, Brutus, Stole from my bed: and yesternight at supper You suddenly arose, and walk'd about, Musing and sighing, with your arms across; 240 And when I ask'd you what the matter was, You star'd upon me with ungentle looks: I urg'd you further; then you scratch'd your head, And too impatiently stamp'd with your foot: Yet I insisted, yet you answer'd not, 245 But with an angry wafture of your hand Gave sign for me to leave you. So I did, Fearing to strengthen that impatience Which seem'd too much enkindled, and withal Hoping it was but an effect of humour, 250 Which sometime hath his hour with every man.

It will not let you eat, nor talk, nor sleep, And, could it work so much upon your shape As it hath much prevail'd on your condition, I should not know you, Brutus. Dear my lord, 255 Make me acquainted with your cause of grief.

[Note 233: Scene III Pope.]

[Note 237: /You've/ Rowe Y' have Ff.]

[Note 239: /suddenly/ sodainly Ff.]

[Note 246: /wafture/ Rowe wafter Ff.]

[Note 255: /you, Brutus/ F4 you Brutus F1 F2 F3.]

[Note 233: Similarities and differences between this scene with Brutus and Portia and that between Hotspur and his wife in _1 King Henry IV_, II, iii, will prove a suggestive study.

The description of the development of Portia's suspicion here is taken directly from Plutarch. "Out of his house he (Brutus) did so frame and fas.h.i.+on his countenance and looks that no man could discern he had anything to trouble his mind. But when night came that he was in his own house, then he was clean changed: for either care did wake him against his will when he would have slept, or else oftentimes of himself he fell into such deep thoughts of this enterprise, casting in his mind all the dangers that might happen: that his wife, lying by him, found that there was some marvellous great matter that troubled his mind, not being wont to be in that taking, and that he could not well determine with himself."--Plutarch, _Marcus Brutus_.]

[Note 237: Double negatives abound in Shakespeare. See Abbott, -- 406.]

[Note 250: /humour:/ moody caprice. The word comes to have this meaning from the theory of the old physiologists that four cardinal humors--blood, choler or yellow bile, phlegm, and melancholy or black bile--determine, by their conditions and proportions, a person's physical and mental qualities. The influence of this theory survives in the application of the terms 'sanguine,' 'choleric,' 'phlegmatic,' and 'melancholy'

to disposition and temperament.]

[Note 254: /condition:/ disposition, temper. So in _The Merchant of Venice_, I, ii, 143: "If he have the condition of a saint and the complexion of a devil, I had rather he should shrive me than wive me." Cf. the term 'ill-conditioned,' still in use to describe an irascible or quarrelsome disposition. In l. 236 'condition' refers to bodily health.]

[Note 255: /Dear my lord./ This transposition, common in earnest address, is due to close a.s.sociation of possessive adjective and noun.]

[Page 60]

BRUTUS. I am not well in health, and that is all.

PORTIA. Brutus is wise, and, were he not in health, He would embrace the means to come by it.

BRUTUS. Why, so I do. Good Portia, go to bed. 260

[Page 61]

PORTIA. 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, 265 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, 270 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 275 Have had resort to you; for here have been Some six or seven, who did hide their faces Even from darkness.

[Note 263: /dank/ danke F1 darke F2 dark F3 F4.]

[Note 267: /his/ hit F1]

[Note 271: /charm/ F3 F4 charme F1 F2 charge Pope.]

[Note 261: /physical:/ wholesome, salutary. Cf. _Coriola.n.u.s_, I, v, 19.]

[Note 266: 'Rheumy' here means that state of the air which causes the unhealthy issue of 'rheum,' a word which was specially used of the fluids that issue from the eyes or mouth. So in _Hamlet_, II, ii, 529, we have 'bisson rheum' for 'blinding tears.' So in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, II, i, 105, t.i.tania speaks of the moon as was.h.i.+ng "all the air, That rheumatic diseases do abound."]

[Note 271: /charm:/ conjure, appeal by charms. So in _Lucrece_, l. 1681.]

[Page 62]

BRUTUS. Kneel not, gentle Portia.

PORTIA. I should not need, if you were gentle Brutus.

Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus, 280 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 285 Of your good pleasure? If it be no more, Portia is Brutus' harlot, not his wife.

[Note 280: /the/ tho F1.]

[Note 279: This speech, and that beginning with l. 291, follow Plutarch very closely: "His wife Porcia[A] ... was the daughter of Cato, whom Brutus married being his cousin, not a maiden, but a young widow after the death of her first husband Bibulus, by whom she had also a young son called Bibulus, who afterwards wrote a book of the acts and gests of Brutus ....

This young lady, being excellently well seen[B] in philosophy, loving her husband well, and being of a n.o.ble courage, as she was also wise: because she would not ask her husband what he ailed before she had made some proof by her self: she took a little razor, such as barbers occupy to pare men's nails, and, causing her maids and women to go out of her chamber, gave herself a great gash withal in her thigh, that she was straight all of a gore blood: and incontinently after a vehement fever took her, by reason of the pain of her wound.

Then perceiving her husband was marvellously out of quiet, and that he could take no rest, even in her greatest pain of all she spake in this sort unto him: 'I being, O Brutus,' said she, 'the daughter of Cato, was married unto thee; not to be thy bed-fellow and companion in bed and at board only, like a harlot, but to be partaker also with thee of thy good and evil fortune. Now for thyself, I can find no cause of fault in thee touching our match: but for my part, how may I shew my duty towards thee and how much I would do for thy sake; if I cannot constantly bear a secret mischance or grief with thee, which requireth secrecy and fidelity? I confess that a woman's wit commonly is too weak to keep a secret safely: but yet, Brutus, good education, and the company of virtuous men, have some power to reform the defect of nature. And for my self, I have this benefit moreover, that I am the daughter of Cato, and wife of Brutus. This notwithstanding, I did not trust to any of these things before, until that now I have found by experience, that no pain or grief whatsoever can overcome me.'

With those words she shewed him her wound on her thigh, and told him what she had done to prove herself. Brutus was amazed to hear what she said unto him, and lifting up his hands to heaven, he besought the G.o.ds to give him the grace he might bring his enterprise to so good pa.s.s, that he might be found a husband, worthy of so n.o.ble a wife as Porcia: so he then did comfort her the best he could."--_Marcus Brutus._]

[Note A: the correct cla.s.sical spelling.]

[Note B: i.e. versed.]

[Note 285-286: In the outskirts or borders, and not at the center or near the heart. The image is exceedingly apposite and expressive.]

[Page 63]

BRUTUS. You are my true and honourable wife, As dear to me as are the ruddy drops That visit my sad heart. 290