Marullus. May we do so? You know it is the feast of Lupercal.* *A festival in honor of the God Lupercal, whose wife in the guise of a wolf was believed to have acted the part of a nurse to Romulus and Remus. It was held on the 15th of February annually. Flavius. It is no matter; let no images Be hung with Cæsar's trophies. I'll about, And drive away the vulgar from the streets;* Who else would soar above the view of men, (Exeunt. *From the Latin Vulgus, common people, used here in the Latin sense. That is, the plucking of the The language of hawking. feathers will restrain him to an ordinary pitch. AN Enter, in procession with Music, CESAR; TONY, for the course; CALPURNIA, PORTIA, DECIUS, CICERO, BRUTUS, CASSIUS, and CASCA, a great crowd following, among them a Soothsayer. Cæsar. Calpurnia !* *The name of Caesar's wife was properly Calpurnia, but the dramatist called her Calphurnia in the folio, following Plutarch. She was his fourth wife, he having been married to her fifteen years at the time of his death. Peace, ho! Cæsar speaks. Casca. Cæsar. Calpurnia! (Music ceases. Here, my lord. Cæsar. Stand you directly in Antonius' way When he doth run his course.-Antonius!* *An allusion to the festivities of the Lupercalia, in the course of which the priests of the order ran through the most frequented streets of the city, smiting those who came in their way; On this occasion a special society had been initiated in honor of Caesar, with Marc Antony at its head. Antony. Cæsar, my lord! Cæsar. Forget not, in your speed, Antonius, The barren, touched in this holy chase, Antony. He *Caesar was very careful to observe in public the sanctities of the Roman religion, without being superstitious himself. He staked his fortunes and his life on the battlefield of Munda, although the augurs gave him early notice that in their sacrifices they had found a beast without a heart. neglected a similar augury on the day of his assassination. He invaded Africa with all the auspices, many times repeated, against the undertaking. He declared his disbelief in the immortality of the soul, but in the eyes of the people, and to serve his personal ends, he was exceedingly scrupulous in his devotion to the gods, and was said to have crawled up the steps of the Capitolene temple on his hands and knees to propitiate one of them. Soothsayer. Cæsar! Cæsar. Ha! who calls? (Music. Casca. Bid every noise be still.-Peace yet again! (Music ceases. Casar. Who is it in the press that calls on me? I hear a tongue, shriller than all the music, Cry, Cæsar. Speak; Cæsar is turn'd to hear. Soothsayer. Beware the ides of March.* *In the Roman calendar, the Ides fall on the 15th of March, May, July, and October, in the other months on the 13th. The name signifies the middle of the month. Cæsar. What man is that? Brutus. A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March. Cæsar. Set him before me; let me see his face. Cassius. Fellow, come from the throng; look upon Cæsar. Cæsar. What say'st thou to me now? Speak once again. Soothsayer. Beware the ides of March. Cæsar. He is a dreamer; let us leave him :-pass. (Sennet.* Exeunt all but Brutus and Cassius. *A set of notes on the trumpet. Cassius. Will you go to see the order of the course? Brutus. Not I. Cassius. I pray you, do. Brutus. 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. *Pronounced here as a monosyllable, into which (sprite) it is often contracted. Cassius. 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.* * Cassius and Brutus were brothers-in-law, Cassius having married Tertulla, half-sister of Brutus. The two men had recently been competitors for the office of chief praetor, in consequence of which some estrangement existed between them. Cassius took advantage of the sentiment naturally inspired by a reconciliation, to begin the work of entangling his friend in the conspiracy against Caesar. He had learned in conference with others whom he had admitted into the secret, that the co-operation of Brutus was necessary for success. Brutus. Cassius, Be not deceiv'd; if I have veil'd my look, Of late with passions of some difference,* ** Which give some soil, perhaps, to my behaviours; But let not therefore my good friends be griev'd,— Among which number, Cassius, be you one,— Nor construe any further my neglect *Altogether upon myself. See Temp. p. 111, note on We are merely cheated. Cf. Bacon, Adv. of L. II. 1, 4: "narrations which are merely and sincerely natural;" Id. II., 25, 9: "which do make men merely aliens and disincorporate from the Church of God;" Essay 27: "it is a mere and miserable solitude to want true friends."-Rolfe. From Latin merum, wholly. Cf. K. Hen. VIII.: "To the mere undoing of all the kingdom." Also Bacon: "As for conflagrations and great droughts, they do not merely dispeople and destroy."-Essay of Vicissitude of Things. **Conflicting emotions: regard for his personal friend Caesar and the welfare of Rome. Cassius. Then, Brutus, I have much mistook your passion; By means whereof this breast of mine hath buried *Thoughts. Cf. Bacon, Adv. of L. I. introd.: "I may excite your princely cogitations to visit the excellent treasure of your own mind," etc. See also Dan. VII. 28.-Rolfe. Brutus. No, Cassius; for the eye sees not itself But by reflection by some other things.|| Cf. Troilus and Cressida: "Nor doth the eye itself, That most pure spirit of sense, behold itself." -II., 3, 105. Also Bacon: "The eye without a glass cannot see itself, but the eye of a wise man may be compared to a glass, for in it another may see his own image.' Plato's works had not been translated into English in Shake-speare's time. Cassius. And it is very much lamented, Brutus, 'T is just; That you have no such mirrors as will turn Your hidden worthiness into your eye, That you might see your shadow. I have heard, Brutus. Into what dangers would you lead me, Cassius, That you would have me seek into myself For that which is not in me? Cassius. Therefore, good Brutus, be prepar'd to hear; And, since you know you cannot see yourself That of yourself which you yet know not of. (Flourish and shout. *The claim made by Cassius that he could show Brutus to Brutus better than Brutus by his own introspective powers of sight could see himself, is thus explained by Bacon: "The light that a man receiveth by counsel from another is drier and purer than that which cometh from his own understanding and judgment, which 15 ever infused and drenched in his affections and customs."-Essay of Friendship. "The mind of a wise man is compared to a glass wherein images of all kinds in nature and custom are represented." -Advancement of Learning (1603-5). For the second edition of the "Advancement," printed in the same year as the play, Bacon rewrote the above-quoted sentence as follows: "The comparison of the mind of a wise man to a glass is the more proper, because in a glass he can see his own image, which the eye itself without a glass cannot do." The original of both of these parallel passages, however, is in Plato, not then translated into English. "You may take the analogy of the eye; the eye sees not itself, but from some other things, as, for instance, from a glass; it can also see itself by reflection in another eye."-First Alcibiades. i. e., suspicious of me. On was often used by Shakespeare for of. Cf. Macbeth: "Have we eaten on the insane root?" -I., 3, 84. Ibid: "Banquo's buried; he cannot come out on's grave." -V., 1, 71. |