The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar Part 42

LUCIUS. Ay, my lord, an 't please you.

BRUTUS. It does, my boy: I trouble thee too much, but thou art willing.

LUCIUS. It is my duty, sir. 260

BRUTUS. I should not urge thy duty past thy might; I know young bloods look for a time of rest.

LUCIUS. I have slept, my lord, already.

[Note 262: /bloods./ So in _Much Ado about Nothing_, III, iii, 141: "How giddily a' turns about all the hot bloods between fourteen and five-and-thirty?" Cf. I, ii, 151: "the breed of n.o.ble bloods."]

[Page 141]

BRUTUS. It was well done; and thou shalt sleep again; I will not hold thee long: if I do live, 265 I will be good to thee. [_Music, and a song_]

This is a sleepy tune. O 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: 270 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 turn'd down Where I left reading? Here it is, I think.

_Enter the_ Ghost _of_ CaeSAR

How ill this taper burns! Ha! who comes here? 275 I think it is the weakness of mine eyes That shapes this monstrous apparition.

It comes upon me. Art thou any thing?

Art thou some G.o.d, some angel, or some devil, That mak'st my blood cold, and my hair to stare? 280 Speak to me what thou art.

[Note 267: /murderous slumber/ Murd'rous slumbler F1.]

[Note 274: [Sits down] Camb.]

[Note 275: Scene VII Pope.]

[Note 267: /murderous slumber./ The epithet probably has reference to sleep being regarded as the image of death; or, as Sh.e.l.ley put it, "Death and his brother Sleep." Cf.

_Cymbeline_, II, ii, 31.]

[Note 268: /thy leaden mace./ Upton quotes from Spenser, _The Faerie Queene_, I, iv, 44:

But whenas Morpheus had with leaden mace Arrested all that courtly company.

Shakespeare uses 'mace' both as 'scepter,' _Henry V_, IV, i, 278, and as 'a staff of office,' _2 Henry VI_, IV, vii, 144.]

[Note 269: The boy is spoken of as playing music to slumber because he plays to soothe the agitations of his master's mind, and put him to sleep. Bacon held that music "hindereth sleep."]

[Note 275: The presence of a ghost was believed to make lights burn blue or dimly. So in _Richard III_, V, iii, 180, when the ghosts appear to Richard, he says: "The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight. Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh."]

[Note 277: /this monstrous apparition./ "Above all, the ghost that appeared unto Brutus shewed plainly that the G.o.ds were offended with the murder of Caesar. The vision was thus: Brutus ... thought he heard a noise at his tent-door, and, looking towards 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 no hurt, but stood at his bedside and said nothing; at length he asked him what he was.

The image answered him: 'I am thy ill angel, Brutus, and thou shalt see me by the city of Philippes.' Then Brutus replied again, and said, 'Well, I shall see thee then.' Therewithal the spirit presently vanished from him."--Plutarch, _Julius Caesar_.]

[Note 280: /stare:/ stand on end. 'To be stiff, rigid, fixed'

is the primary idea. Cf. _The Tempest_, I, ii, 213; _Hamlet_, I, v, 16-20.]

[Page 142]

GHOST. Thy evil spirit, Brutus.

BRUTUS. Why com'st thou?

GHOST. To tell thee thou shalt see me at Philippi.

BRUTUS. Well; then I shall see thee again?

GHOST. Ay, at Philippi. 285

BRUTUS. Why, I will see thee at Philippi then.

[_Exit_ Ghost]

Now I have taken heart thou vanishest: Ill spirit, I would hold more talk with thee.

Boy, Lucius! Varro! Claudius! Sirs, awake!

Claudius! 290

[Note 286: [_Exit_ Ghost] Ff omit.]

[Note 287: This strongly, though quietly, marks the Ghost as subjective; as soon as Brutus recovers his firmness, the illusion is broken. The order of things is highly judicious here, in bringing the "horrible vision" upon Brutus just after he has heard of Portia's shocking death. With that great sorrow weighing upon him, he might well see ghosts. The thickening of calamities upon him, growing out of the a.s.sa.s.sination of Caesar, naturally awakens remorse.]

[Page 143]

LUCIUS. The strings, my lord, are false.

BRUTUS. He thinks he still is at his instrument.

Lucius, awake!

LUCIUS. My lord?

BRUTUS. Didst thou dream, Lucius, that thou so criedst out? 295

LUCIUS. My lord, I do not know that I did cry.

BRUTUS. Yes, that thou didst: didst thou see any thing?

LUCIUS. Nothing, my lord.

BRUTUS. Sleep again, Lucius. Sirrah Claudius!

[_To_ VARRO] Fellow thou, awake! 300

VARRO. My lord?

CLAUDIUS. My lord?

BRUTUS. Why did you so cry out, sirs, in your sleep?