The hour of assassination has arrived, and Cæsar, seated in the chair of state, says:
Senator Metellus, one of the chief conspirators, throws himself at the feet of Cæsar and implores pardon for his traitor brother.
Cæsar says:
The conspirators at this moment crowd around the doomed hero with pretended petitions—and, instanter, Casca stabs Cæsar in the neck, while several other murdering senators stab him through the body, and last Marcus Brutus plunges a dagger in the heart of his benefactor and father, when with glaring eyes and dying breath, the noble Cæsar exclaims:
Thus tumbled down at the base of Pompey's statue the greatest man the world has ever known!
Then the citizens of Rome—royal, rabble and conspirators, were filled with consternation, while Brutus tried to stem the rising flood of indignation.
Mark Antony was allowed to weep and speak over the pulseless clay of his official partner and friend.
Gazing on the cold, bloody form of the amazing Julius, he utters these pathetic phrases:
Brutus gave orders for a grand funeral, turning the body of the dead lion over to Antony, who might make the funeral oration to the people within such bounds of discretion as the conspirators dictated.
Standing alone, by the dead body of Cæsar in the Senate, Antony pours out thus, the overflowing vengeance of his soul:
The wild citizens of Rome clamored for the reason of Cæsar's death, and Brutus mounted the rostrum in the Forum and delivered this cunning and bold oration in defense of the conspirators:
"Romans, countrymen and lovers, hear me for my cause, and be silent that ye may hear; believe me for mine honor, and have respect to mine honor, that you may believe; censure me in your wisdom, and awake your senses that you may the better judge.
"If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Cæsar's, to him I say that Brutus' love to Cæsar was no less than his.
"If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Cæsar, this is my answer. Not that I loved Cæsar less; but that I loved Rome more!
"Had you rather Cæsar were living, and die all slaves, than Cæsar were dead, to live all free men?
"As Cæsar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honor him, but as he was ambitious I slew him!
"There is tears for his love; joy for his fortune; honor for his valor, and death for his ambition!
"Who is here so base that would be a bondman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so rude that would be a Roman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so vile that will not love his country? If any, speak; for him have I offended.
"I pause for a reply."
And then the rabble, vacillating, fool citizens said, "None, Brutus, none," and continue to yell, "Live, Brutus, live! live!"
Brutus leaves the Forum and requests the human cattle to remain and hear Antony relate the glories of Cæsar!
Finally Antony is persuaded to take the rostrum, and delivers this greatest funeral oration of all the ages:
This oration fired the Roman people to mutiny, and Brutus and Cassius with their followers fled from the city and prepared for war with Antony and Octavius, who had suddenly returned to Rome.
The passionate quarrel between Brutus and Cassius in their military camp at Sardis was a natural outcome of conspirators.
Cassius accused Brutus of having wronged him, and Brutus twitted his brother assassin thus:
Cassius fires back this reply:
The night before the battle of Philippi the spirit of Cæsar appeared in the tent of Brutus, who startles from a slumbering trance and exclaims:
The Ghost replies:
The armies of Antony and Octavius and Brutus and Cassius meet in crash of battle.
Cassius is hotly pursued by the enemy, and to prevent capture and exhibition at Rome, craves the service of Pindrus to run him through with his sword. He says:
Brutus is run to earth, and most of his generals dead or fled. He implores Strato to assist him to suicide, and says:
Antony and Octavius and his army soon find Brutus slain by his own sword, and with a most magnificent and undeserved generosity Antony pronounces this benediction over the dead body of the vilest and most intelligent conspirator who ever lived!
The whole audience, led by Southampton, Essex, Bacon and Drayton gave three cheers and a lion roar for "Julius Cæsar," the greatest historical and classical play ever composed, and destined to run down the ages for a million years!
The translation of Petrarch, Plutarch, Tacitus, Terence, and particularly Homer, by Chapman, gave a great impulse to dramatic writers, and inspired a feverish desire to travel through classic lands where classic authors lived and died.
Shakspere was a natural bohemian, and while he could conform to the conventionalities of society, he was never more pleased than when mixing with the variegated mass of mankind, where vice and virtue predominated without the guilt of hypocrisy to blur and blast the principles of sincerity.
Art, fashion and human laws he knew to be often only blinds for the concealment of plastic iniquity, and were secretly purchased by the few who had the gold to buy.
By sinking the grappling iron of independent investigation into every form and phase of human life, he plucked from the deepest ocean of adversity the rarest shells, weeds and flowers of thought, and spread them before the world as a new revelation.
By mingling with and knowing the good and bad, he solved the riddle of human passions, and with mind, tongue and pen unpurchased, he flashed his matchless philosophy on an admiring world, lifting the curtain of deceit and obscurity from the stage of falsehood, giving to the beholder a sight of Nature in her unexpurgated nakedness!
On the first of May, 1598, William and myself determined to travel into and around continental and oriental lands, and view some of the noted monuments, cities, seas, plains and mountains, where ancient warriors and philosophers had left their imperishable records.
Sailing through the Strait of Dover into the English Channel, our good ship Albion landed us in three days at Havre, the port town at the mouth of the river Seine, leading on to Rouen and up to the ancient city of Paris.
Our good ship Albion was to remain a week trading between Havre and Cherbourg, when we were to be again on board for a lengthy trip to the various ports of the Mediterranean.
Our first night in Paris was spent at the Hotel Reims, a jolly headquarters for students, painters, authors and actors.
LeMour was the blooming host, with his daughter Nannette as the coquettish "roper in." Father and daughter spoke English about as well as William and myself spoke French; and what was not understood by our mutual words and phrases was explained by our gesticulation of hand, shoulder, foot, eye, and clinking "francs" and "sovereigns."
Cash speaks all languages, and it is a very ignorant mortal who can't understand the voice of gold and silver.
"Francs," "pounds" and "dollars" are the real monarchs of mankind! William in a prophetic mood recited these few lines to the "boys" at the bar:
Although the Bard delivered this truthful poem off hand, so to speak, in "broken" French, the cosmopolitan, polyglot audience "caught on" and "shipped" the Stratford "poacher" a wave of tumultuous cheers!
That very night at the Theatre Saint Germain the new play of Garnier, "Juives," was to be enacted before Henry the Fourth and a brilliant audience.
William and myself were invited by a band of rollicking students to join them in a front bench "clapping" committee, as Garnier himself was to take the part of Old King Nebuchadnezzar in the great play, illustrating the siege and capture of Jerusalem.
The curtain went up at eight o'clock, and the French actors began their mimic contortions of face, lips, legs and shoulders for three mortal hours, and while there was a constant shifting of scenes, citizens, soldiers, Jews and battering rams, yells, groans and cheers, it looked as if the audience, including King Henry, was doing the most of the acting, and all the cheering! A maniac would be thoroughly at home in a French theatre!
The play had neither head, tail nor body, but it was sufficient for the excitable, revolutionary Frenchman to see that the Jews were being robbed, banished and slaughtered in the interest of Christianity and the late Jesus, who is reported as having taught the lessons of "love," "charity" and "mercy!"
The "Son of God," it seems, had been crucified more than fifteen hundred years before the audience had been created; and although "Old Neb" of Babylon had destroyed a million of Hebrews several hundred years previous to the birth of the Bethlehem "Savior of Mankind," the "frog" and "snail" eaters of France were still breaking their lungs and throats in cheering for the destruction of anybody!
It was one o'clock in the morning when we got back to the hotel; and with the Bacchanalian racket made by the "students" and fantastic "grisettes" it must have been nearly daylight before William and myself fell into the arms of sleep.
Sliding into the realm of dreams I heard the "mammoth man" murmur:
Jodelle, Lariney, Corneille, Moliere, Racine, La Fontaine, Rousseau, Voltaire, Balzac, or even Hugo, never uttered such masterly philosophy.
After partaking of a French breakfast, smothered with herbs and mystery, we hired a fancy phaeton and voluble driver to whirr us around the principal streets, parks and buildings of the rushing, brilliant city, everything moving as if the devil were out with a search warrant for some of the stray citizens of his imperial dominions.
The driver spoke English very well, and with a telephone voice, surcharged with monkey gestures, we listened to and saw the history of Paris from the advent of Cæsar, Clovis, Charlemagne to Louis and Henry. A city directory would have been a surplusage, and we flattered the "garcon" by seeming to believe everything he said, exclaiming "Oh my!" "Do tell!" "Gee whizz!" "Did you ever!" "Wonderful!" and "Never saw the like!"
As our mentor and nestor pulled up at noted wine cafés to water his horse, we contributed to his own irrigation and our champagne thirst. Be good to yourself.
It was sundown when we nestled in the Hotel Reims, but had been richly repaid in our visit to the king's palace, the great Louvre, St. Denis, Notre Dame and the great cathedrals, picture galleries, cemeteries and monuments that decorated imperial Paris.
The evening before we left Paris we accepted the invitation of Garnier to visit the Latin Quarter. The playwright did not know William or myself, except as young English lords—"Buckingham" and "Bacon," traveling for information and pleasure, sowing "wild," financial "oats" with the liberality of princes.
A well dressed, polite man, with lots of money, and a "spender" from "way back" is a welcome guest in home, church and state; and when it comes to the "ladies," he is, of course, "a jewel," "a trump" and "darling." They know a "soft snap" when they see it.
Some of us have been there.
While basking under the light of flashing eyes and sparkling wine at the Royal Café, surrounded by a dozen of the artistic "friends" of the "toast of the town," Garnier said he noticed us in the front bench the night before, and knowing us to be Englishmen, was desirous to know how his play, depicting the siege of Jerusalem compared with the new man Shakspere, who had recently loomed up into the dramatic sky.
William winked at me in a kind of sotto voce way, and with that natural exuberance or intellectual "gall" that never fails to strike the "bull's eye," I bluntly said that Garnier's philosophy and composition were as different from Shakspere's as the earth from the heaven!
The Frenchman arose and made an extended bow when his "girl" friends yelled like the "rebels" at Shiloh and kicked off the tall hat of the noted French dramatist! Great sport!
Extra wine was ordered, and then an improvised ballet girl jumped into the middle of the wine room, with circus antics, champagne glasses in hand, singing the praises of the great and only Garnier! Poor devil, he did not know that my criticism was a double ender. Just as well.
I cannot exactly remember how I got to the hotel, but when William aroused my latent energies the next morning, I felt as if I had been put through a Kentucky corn sheller, or caught up in a Texas blizzard and blown into the middle of Kansas.
William was, as usual, calm, polite, sober and dignified, and while he touched the wine cup for sociability, in search of human hearts, I never saw him intoxicated. He had a marvelous capacity of body and brain, and like an earthly Jupiter he shone over the variegated satellites around him with the force and brilliancy of the morning sun. He was so far above other thinkers and writers that no one who knew him felt a pang of jealousy, for they saw it was impossible to even twinkle in the heaven of his philosophy.
The day before leaving Paris we visited Versailles and wandered through its pictured palaces, drinking in the historical milestones of the past. Here lords, kings, queens, farmers, mechanics, shop keepers, sailors, soldiers, robbers, murderers and beggars had appropriated in turn these royal halls and stately gardens.
Riot and revolution swept over these memorials like a winter storm, and the thunder and lightning strokes of civil and foreign troops had desolated the works of art, genius and royalty.
Nations rise and fall like individuals, and a thousand or ten thousand years of time are only a "tick" in the clock of destiny.
Early on the morning of the seventh of May, 1598, we went on board a light double-oared galley, swung into the sparkling waters of the Seine, and proceeded on our way to Rouen and Havre.
The morning sun sparkling on the tall spires and towers, the songs of the watermen and gardeners, whirring ropes, flashing flags, blooming flowers, green parks, forest vistas, shining cottages, grand mansions and lofty castles, in the shimmering distance gave the suburbs of Paris a phase of enchantment that lifted the soul of the beholder into the fairy realm of dreamland; and as our jolly crew rowed away with rhythmic sweep we lay under a purple awning, sheltered from the midday sun, gazing out on the works of Dame Nature with entranced amazement.
William, in one of his periodical bursts of impromptu poetry, uttered these lines on
As the stars began to peep through the gathering curtains of night, and the young moon like a broken circle of silver split the evening sky, we came in sight of the busy town of Rouen, with its embattled walls and iron gates still bidding defiance to British invasion.
After a night's slumber and a speedy passage our galley drew up against the side of our stout ship Albion, when gallant Captain Jack O'Neil greeted us on board, and refreshed our manhood with a fine breakfast, interspersed with brandy and champagne.
The next morning, with all sails filled, we wafted away into the open waters of the rolling Atlantic Ocean, touching at the town of Brest, land's end port of France, and then away to Corunna in Spain, and on to Lisbon, Portugal, where we remained three days viewing the architectural and natural sights of the great commercial and shipping city of the Tagus.
About the middle of May we swung out again into the breakers of old ocean, and held our course to the wonderful "Strait of Gibraltar," separating Europe from Africa, whose inland, classic shores are bathed by the emerald waters of the romantic Mediterranean Sea.
We remained for a day at the rocky, stormy town of Gibraltar, meeting variegated men of all lands, who spoke all dialects, and preached and practiced all religions.
The pagan, the Moslem, the Buddhist, the Jew and the Christian dressed in the garb of their respective nationalities, were wrangling, trading, praying and swearing in all languages, every one grasping for the "almighty dollar."
As the sun went down over the shining shoulders of the Western Atlantic, flashing its golden rays over the moving, liquid floor of the heaving ocean and Mediterranean Sea, William and myself stood on the topmost crag of giant Gibraltar, and the Bard sent forth this impulsive sigh from his romantic soul:
I clapped my hands intensely at the rendition of the poem, and echo from her rocky caves sent back the applause, while the sea gulls in their circling flight, screamed in chorus to the voice of echo and the eternal roar of old ocean.
At sunrise we sailed away into the land-locked waters of the Mediterranean Sea, where man for a million years has loved, lived, fought and died among beautiful, blooming islands that nestle on its bosom like emeralds in the crown of immortality.
We passed along the coast of Spain to Cape Nao, in sight of the Balearic Islands, on to Barcelona, to the mouth of the river Rhone, and up to the ancient city of Avignon.
In and around this city popes, princes and international warriors lived in royal style; but they are virtually forgotten, while Petrarch, the poetic saint and laureate of Italy, is as fresh in the memory of man as the day he died—July 18th, 1374, at the age of seventy.
William and myself remained all night in the Lodge House of the Gardens of "Vacluse," the hermit home of the sighing, soaring poet, who pined his life away in platonic love for "Laura," who married Hugh de Sade, when she was only seventeen years of age, and presented the nobleman ten children as pledges of her homespun affection.
And this is the married lady who Petrarch, the poet, wasted his sonnets upon, and was treated in fact as we were told by the "oldest inhabitant" of Avignon, with supercilious contempt.
Boccaccio and Petrarch were intimate friends, and both of these passionate poets lavished their love on "married flirts," who give promise to the ear and disappointment to the heart.
I could see that while Shakspere reveled deep in the mental philosophy of Petrarch, and even plucked a flower from his rustic bower, he had no sympathy with lovesick swains, and as we signed our names in the Lodge House book, he wrote this:
Next day the Albion sailed into the Mediterranean, passed by the island of Corsica (cradle of one of the greatest soldiers of the world), through the Strait of Bonifacio, and in due course kept on to the flourishing city of Naples.
It was dark twilight when we came to peer into the surrounding hills and mountains of classic Italy.
To the wonder and amazement of every passenger on board, Mount Vesuvius was in brilliant action, and the flash of sparks and blazing lights from this huge chimney top of Nature dazzled the beholder, and produced a fearful sensation in the soul.
As the great jaws of the mountain opened its fiery lips and belched forth molten streams of lava, shooting a million red hot meteors into the caves of night, the earth and ocean seemed to tremble with the sound and birds and beasts of prey rushed screaming and howling to their nightly homes.
Shakspere entranced stood on the bow of the ship and soliloquized:
At this moment the vessel struck the dock and lurched William out of his reverie, coming "within an ace" of pitching the poet into the harbor of Naples.
Captain O'Neil informed us that he would be engaged unloading and loading his ship for a week or ten days at Naples, before he started for Sicily, Greece and Egypt.
William and myself concluded to hire a guide and ride and tramp by land to Rome, and view the ancient capital and test the hospitality of the Italians.
Early the next morning we set out for the Imperial City, perched on her seven hills, and enlightening the world with the radiance of her classic memorials.
Our guide, Petro, was a villainous looking fellow, yet the landlord of the Hotel Columbo told us he was well acquainted with the mountain bypaths and open roads, and could, in the event of meeting robbers, be of great service to us.
Petro wanted ten "florins" in advance, and wine and bread on the road; and as we could not do any better, the bargain was made, and off we tramped through the great city of Milan, scaling the surrounding hills and pulling up as the sun went down at the town of Terracino.
After a good night's rest and hot breakfast, we started on horseback through a mountain trail for the banks of the Tiber, but when within three miles of the Capitoline hills Petro seemed to lose his way and rode off into the underbrush to find it.
We stopped in the trail, and in less than five minutes after the disappearance of our faithful guide we were captured by a gang of bandits, whose garb and countenance convinced us that robbery or murder or both would be our fate.
We were dragged off our horses, hustled into the forest gloom, through briars, over streams and rocks, until finally pitched into the tiptop mountain lair of Roderick, the Terrible.
The evening camp fire was lit, and Tamora, the queen of the robbers, with a couple of robber cooks, was preparing supper for the whole band when they returned from their daily avocations.
They seemed to be a jolly set, and with joke, laughter and song, these chivalric sons of sunny Italy were relating their various exploits, and laughing at the trepidation and futile resistance of their former victims.
Just before the band sat around on the ferny, pine clad rocks for supper, Roderick addressed William, and asked him if he had anything to say why he should not be robbed and murdered.
William said he was perfectly indifferent; for, being only a writer of plays and an actor, working for the amusement of mankind, he led a kind of dog's life anyhow, and didn't give a damn what they did with him.
The Robber Chief gave a yell and a roar that could be heard for three miles among the columned pines and oaks of the Apennines, and yelled, "Bully for you! Shake!"
Roderick then turned to me and said, "Who are you?"
I replied at once, "I am a fool and a poet."
He grasped my hand intensely and yelled, "I'm another." That sealed our friendship.
Then these gay and festive robbers invited us to partake of the best in the mountain wilds, with the request that after the evening feast was over we should give samples of our trade.
With the blazing light of a mountain fire, hemmed in by inaccessible rocks and gulches, from a tablerock overhanging a roaring, dashing stream, five thousand feet below, William stood and was requested to give a sample of his dramatic poetry for the edification of the beautiful cut-throat audience! And this, as I well remember, was his encomium in Latin to the "Gentlemen" and "Queen" of independent, gold-getting, robbing, murdering, fantastic Italian "society."