The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar Part 28

SERVANT. I'll fetch him presently. [_Exit_]

BRUTUS. I know that we shall have him well to friend.

Ca.s.sIUS. I wish we may: but yet have I a mind 145 That fears him much, and my misgiving still Falls shrewdly to the purpose.

[Note 132: /resolv'd/: informed. This meaning is probably connected with the primary one of 'loosen,' 'set free,'

through the idea of setting free from perplexity. 'Resolve'

continued to be used in the sense of 'inform' and 'answer'

until the beginning of the nineteenth century. Shakespeare uses the word in the three main senses of (1) 'relax,'

'dissolve,' _Hamlet_, I, ii, 130; (2) 'inform,' as here; and (3) 'determine,' _3 Henry VI_, III, iii, 219.]

[Note 137: /Thorough/. Shakespeare uses 'through' or 'thorough' indifferently, as suits his verse. The two are but different forms of the same word. 'Thorough,' the adjective, is later than the preposition.]

[Note 141: /so please him come/: provided that it please him to come. 'So' is used with the future and subjunctive to denote 'provided that.']

[Note 146-147: /still Falls shrewdly to the purpose/: always comes cleverly near the mark. See Skeat under 'shrewd' and 'shrew.']

[Page 91]

_Re-enter_ ANTONY

BRUTUS. But here comes Antony. Welcome, Mark Antony.

ANTONY. O mighty Caesar! dost thou lie so low?

Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils, 150 Shrunk to this little measure? Fare thee 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 Caesar's death's hour, nor no instrument 155 Of half that worth as those your swords, made rich With the most n.o.ble 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, 160 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.

[Note 148: Scene III Pope.--Two lines in Ff.]

[Note 153: /be let blood:/ be put to death. So in _Richard III_, III, i, 183.--/is rank:/ has grown grossly full-blooded.

The idea is of one who has overtopped his equals, and grown too high for the public safety. So in the speech of Oliver in _As You Like It_, I, i, 90, when incensed at the high bearing of Orlando: "Is it even so? begin you to grow upon me? I will physic your rankness."]

[Note 160: /Live:/ if I live. Cf. _The Merchant of Venice_, III, ii, 61.]

[Note 163: In this line /'by'/ is used (1) in the sense of 'near,' 'beside,' and (2) in its ordinary sense to denote agency.]

[Page 92]

BRUTUS. O Antony, beg not your death of us. 165 Though now we must appear b.l.o.o.d.y 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; 170 And pity to the general wrong of Rome-- As fire drives out fire, so pity pity-- Hath done this deed on Caesar. For your part, To you our swords have leaden points, Mark Antony: Our arms in strength of malice, and our hearts 175 Of brothers' temper, do receive you in With all kind love, good thoughts, and reverence.

Ca.s.sIUS. Your voice shall be as strong as any man's In the disposing of new dignities.

[Note 172: The first 'fire' is dissyllabic. The allusion is to the old notion that if a burn be held to the fire the pain will be drawn or driven out. Shakespeare has four other very similar allusions to this belief--_Romeo and Juliet_, I, ii, 46; _Coriola.n.u.s_, IV, vii, 54; _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_, II, iv, 192; _King John_, III, i, 277.]

[Note 175: /in strength of malice:/ strong as they have shown themselves to be in malice towards tyranny. Though the Folio text may be corrupt, and at least twelve emendations have been suggested, the figure as it stands is intelligible, though elliptically obscure. Grant White has indicated how thoroughly the expression is in the spirit of what Brutus has just said.

In previous editions of Hudson's Shakespeare, Singer's conjecture of 'amity' for 'malice' was adopted. What makes this conjecture plausible is Shakespeare's frequent use of 'amity,' and "strength of their amity" occurs in _Antony and Cleopatra_, II, vi, 137.]

[Note 178-179: Brutus has been talking about "our hearts," and "kind love, good thoughts, and reverence." To Ca.s.sius, all that is mere rose-water humbug, and he knows it is so to Antony too. He hastens to put in such motives as he knows will have weight with Antony, as they also have with himself. And it is remarkable that several of these patriots, especially Ca.s.sius, the two Brutuses, and Trebonius, afterwards accepted the governors.h.i.+p of fat provinces for which they had been prospectively named by Caesar.]

[Page 93]

BRUTUS. Only be patient till we have appeas'd 180 The mult.i.tude, beside themselves with fear, And then we will deliver you the cause Why I, that did love Caesar when I struck him, Have thus proceeded.

ANTONY. I doubt not of your wisdom.

Let each man render me his b.l.o.o.d.y hand: 185 First, Marcus Brutus, will I shake with you; Next, Caius Ca.s.sius, 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. 190 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, Caesar, O, 'tis true: 195 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 b.l.o.o.d.y fingers of thy foes, Most n.o.ble! in the presence of thy corse? 200 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 friends.h.i.+p with thine enemies.

Pardon me, Julius! Here wast thou bay'd, brave hart; 205 Here didst thou fall, and here thy hunters stand, Sign'd in thy spoil and crimson'd in thy lethe.

O world, thou wast the forest to this hart; And this, indeed, O world, the heart of thee.

How like a deer, strucken by many princes, 210 Dost thou here lie!

[Note 183: /struck/ strooke F1 F2 strook F3 F4.]

[Note 184: /wisdom/ F3 F4 Wisedome F1 F2.]

[Note 205: /hart/ F1 Heart F2 F3 F4.]

[Note 207: /lethe/ Lethe F2 F3 F4 Lethee F1 death Pope.]

[Note 209: /heart/ Theobald hart Ff.]

[Note 210: /strucken/ Steevens stroken F1 stricken F2 F3 F4.]

[Note 181: "When Caesar was slain, the Senate--though Brutus stood in the middest amongst them, as though he would have said something touching this fact--presently ran out of the house, and, flying, filled all the city with marvellous fear and tumult. Insomuch as some did shut to the doors."--Plutarch, _Julius Caesar_.]

[Note 193: /conceit:/ conceive of, think of. So in I, iii, 162.]

[Note 197: /dearer:/ more intensely. This emphatic or intensive use of 'dear' is very common in Shakespeare, and is used in the expression of strong emotion, either of pleasure or of pain.]

[Note 205: /bay'd:/ brought to bay. The expression connotes being barked at and worried as a deer by hounds. Cf. _A Midsummer Nights Dream_, IV, i, 118. "Caesar turned him no where but he was stricken at by some ... and was hackled and mangled among them, as a wild beast taken of hunters."--Plutarch, _Julius Caesar_.]

[Note 207: /Sign'd in thy spoil./ This may have reference to the custom still prevalent in England and Europe of hunters smearing their hands and faces with the blood of the slain deer.--/lethe./ This puzzling term is certainly the reading of the Folios, and may mean either 'violent death' (Lat.

_letum_), as 'lethal' means 'deadly,' or, as White interprets the pa.s.sage, 'the stream which bears to oblivion.']

[Page 94]

Ca.s.sIUS. Mark Antony,--

ANTONY. Pardon me, Caius Ca.s.sius: The enemies of Caesar shall say this; Then, in a friend, it is cold modesty.

Ca.s.sIUS. I blame you not for praising Caesar so; 215 But what compact mean you to have with us?

[Note 214: /modesty:/ moderation. So in _Henry VIII_, V, iii, 64. This is the original meaning of the word. See ill.u.s.trative quotation from Sir T. Elyot's _The Governour_, 1531, in Century.]

[Page 95]

Will you be p.r.i.c.k'd in number of our friends, Or shall we on, and not depend on you?