Julius Caesar | Project Gutenberg

The man that hath no music in himself,

Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,

Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils.

I.147 This is one of the little touches of invention that so often impart a fact-like vividness to Shakespeare's scenes.

I.149 sad. The word is used here probably in its early sense of 'weary' (as in Middle English) or 'resolute' (as in Chaucer and old Ballads). In 2 Henry IV, V, i, 92, is the expression "a jest with a sad brow," where 'sad' evidently means 'wise,' 'sage.'

I.150 there was a crown offer'd him. In the Life of Marcus Antonius Plutarch gives a detailed and vivid description of this scene.

I.156 soft! This is an elliptical use of the adverb 'soft' and was much used as an exclamation for arresting or retarding the speed of a person or thing; meaning about the same as 'hold!' 'stay!' or 'not too fast!' So in Othello, V, ii, 338: "Soft you; a word or two before you go"; and The Merchant of Venice, IV, i, 320: "Soft! The Jew shall have all justice; soft! no haste."

I.159 falling-sickness. An old English name for epilepsy (Lat. morbus caducus, German fallende Sucht) used by North in translating Plutarch. Another form of the word is 'falling-evil,' also used by North (see quotation, p. 26, l. 268). It is an interesting fact that the best authorities allow that Napoleon suffered from epileptic seizures towards the close of his life.

I.161 true: honest. Shakespeare frequently uses 'true' in this sense, especially as opposed to 'thief.' Cf. Cymbeline, II, iii, 76; Venus and Adonis, 724: "Rich preys make true men thieves."

I.162 Marry. The common Elizabethan exclamation of surprise, or asseveration, corrupted from the name of the Virgin Mary.

I.163 me. The ethical dative. Cf. III, iii, 18; The Merchant of Venice, I, iii, 85; Romeo and Juliet, III, i, 6. See Abbott, § 220.

I.164 doublet. This was the common English name of a man's outer body-garment. Shakespeare dresses his Romans like Elizabethan Englishmen (cf. II, i, 73–74), but the expression 'doublet-collar' occurs in North's Plutarch (see quotation in note on ll. 268–270).

I.167 a man of any occupation. This probably means not only a mechanic or user of cutting-tools, but also a man of business and of action, as distinguished from a gentleman of leisure, or an idler.

I.168 to hell among the rogues. The early English drama abounds in examples of such historical confusion. For example, in the Towneley Miracle Plays Noah's wife swears by the Virgin Mary.

I.169 "Thereupon Cæsar rising departed home to his house; and, tearing open his doublet-collar, making his neck bare, he cried out aloud to his friends, that his throat was ready to offer to any man that would come and cut it.... Afterwards, to excuse his folly, he imputed it to his disease, saying that their wits are not perfect which have this disease of the falling-evil."—Plutarch, Julius Cæsar.

I.172 A charming invention, though in his Life of Cicero Plutarch refers to the orator's nicknames, 'Grecian' and 'scholer,' due to his ability to "declaim in Greek." Cicero had a sharp, agile tongue, and was fond of using it; and nothing was more natural than that he should snap off some keen, sententious sayings, prudently veiling them, however, in a foreign language from all but those who might safely understand them.

I.174 Greek to me. 'Greek,' often 'heathen Greek,' was a common Elizabethan expression for unintelligible speech. In Dekker's Grissil (1600) occurs "It's Greek to him." So in Dickens's Barnaby Rudge: "this is Greek to me."

I.175 I am promis'd forth: I have promised to go out. 'Forth' is often used in this way in Elizabethan literature without any verb of motion. Cf. The Merchant of Venice, II, v, 11. See Abbott, § 41.

I.176 blunt: dull, slow. Or there may be a quibble involved in connection with 'mettle' in the next line. Brutus alludes to the 'tardy form' (l. 296) Casca has just 'put on' in winding so long about the matter before coming to the point.

I.177 quick mettle: lively spirit. Collier conjectured 'quick-mettl'd.' 'Mettlesome' is still used of spirited horses. Cf. I, i, 63.

I.179 tardy form: appearance of tardiness. The construction in this expression is common in Shakespeare, as 'shady stealth' for 'stealing shadow,' in Sonnets, LXXVII, 7; 'negligent danger' for 'danger from negligence,' in Antony and Cleopatra, III, v, 81.

I.184 that it is dispos'd: that which it is disposed to. For the omission of prepositions in Shakespeare, see Abbott, §§ 198–202. Cassius in this speech is chuckling over the effect his talk has had upon Brutus.

I.185 bear me hard: has a grudge against me. This remarkable expression occurs three times in this play, but nowhere else in Shakespeare. Professor Hales quotes an example of it from Ben Jonson's Catiline, IV, v. It seems to have been borrowed from horsemanship, and to mean 'carries tight rein,' or 'reins hard,' like one who distrusts his horse. So before, ll. 35, 36:

You bear too stubborn and too strange a hand

Over your friend that loves you.

I.186 humour. To 'humor' a man, as the word is here used, is to turn and wind and manage him by watching his moods and crotchets, and to touch him accordingly. It is somewhat in doubt whether the 'he' in the preceding line refers to Brutus or to Cæsar. If to Brutus, the meaning of course is: he should not play upon my humors and fancies as I do upon his. And this sense is fairly required by the context, for the whole speech is occupied with the speaker's success in cajoling Brutus, and with plans for cajoling and shaping him still further. Johnson refers 'he' to Cæsar.

I.188 We will either shake him, or endure worse days in suffering the consequences of our attempt.—Shakespeare makes Cassius overflow with intense personal spite against Cæsar. This is in accordance with what he read in North's Plutarch.

I.190 Scene III. Rowe added "with his sword drawn" to the Folio stage direction, basing the note on l. 19.

A month has passed since the machinery of the conspiracy was set in motion. The action in the preceding scene took place on the day of the Lupercalia; the action in this is on the eve of the Ides of March.

I.193 sway of earth: established order. "The balanced swing of earth."—Craik. "The whole weight or momentum of this globe."—Johnson. In such a raging of the elements, it seems as if the whole world were going to pieces, or as if the earth's steadfastness were growing 'unfirm.' "'Unfirm' is not firm; while 'infirm' is weak."—Clar.

I.196 Either the gods are fighting among themselves, or else they are making war on the world for being overbearing in its attitude towards them. For Shakespeare's use of 'saucy,' see Century.

I.197 any thing more wonderful. This may be interpreted as 'anything that was more wonderful,' or 'anything more that was wonderful.' The former seems the true interpretation. For the 'wonderful' things that Casca describes, Shakespeare was indebted to the following passage from Plutarch's Julius Cæsar, which North in the margin entitles "Predictions and foreshews of Cæsar's death": "Certainly destiny may easier be foreseen than avoided, considering the strange and wonderful signs that were said to be seen before Cæsar's death. For, touching the fires in the element, and spirits running up and down in the night, and also the solitary birds to be seen at noondays sitting in the great market-place, are not all these signs perhaps worth the noting, in such a wonderful chance as happened? But Strabo the philosopher writeth, that divers men were seen going up and down in fire, and furthermore, that there was a slave of the soldiers that did cast a marvellous burning flame out of his hand, insomuch as they that saw it thought he had been burnt; but when the fire was out, it was found he had no hurt. Cæsar self also, doing sacrifice unto the gods, found that one of the beasts which was sacrificed had no heart: and that was a strange thing in nature, how a beast could live without a heart." This passage is worth special attention, as Shakespeare uses many of the details again in II, ii, 17–24, 39–40. Cf. Hamlet, I, i, 113–125.

I.198 you know. Dyce suggested 'you'd know'; Craik, 'you knew.' But the text as it stands is dramatically vivid and realistic.

I.201 glaz'd. Rowe's change to 'glar'd' is usually adopted as the reading here, but 'glaze' is used intransitively in Middle English in the sense of 'shine brilliantly,' and Dr. Wright (Clar) says: "I am informed by a correspondent that the word 'glaze' in the sense of 'stare' is common in some parts of Devonshire, and that 'glazing like a conger' is a familiar expression in Cornwall." See Murray for additional examples.

I.203 Upon a heap: together in a crowd. 'Heap' is often used in this sense in Middle English as it is colloquially to-day. The Anglo-Saxon héap almost always refers to persons. In Richard III, II, i, 53, occurs "princely heap." So "Let us on heaps go offer up our lives" in Henry V, IV, v, 18.

I.204 the bird of night. The old Roman horror of the owl is well shown in this passage (spelling modernized) of Holland's Pliny, quoted by Dr. Wright (Clar): "The screech-owl betokeneth always some heavy news, and is most execrable ... in the presages of public affairs.... In sum, he is the very monster of the night.... There fortuned one of them to enter the very sanctuary of the Capitol, in that year when Sextus Papellio Ister and Lucius Pedanius were Consuls; whereupon, at the Nones of March, the city of Rome that year made general processions, to appease the wrath of the gods, and was solemnly purged by sacrifices."

I.206 These: such and such. Cf. "these and these" in II, i, 31. Casca refers to the doctrine of the Epicureans, who were slow to believe that such pranks of the elements had any moral significance in them, or that moral causes had anything to do with them, and held that the explanation of them was to be sought for in the simple working of natural laws and forces. Shakespeare deals humorously with these views in All's Well that Ends Well, II, iii, 1–6.

I.207 climate: region, country. So Richard II, IV, i, 130. Cf. Hamlet, I, i, 125: "Unto our climatures and countrymen."

I.208 Clean: quite, completely. From the fourteenth century to the seventeenth 'clean' was often used in this sense, usually with verbs of removal and the like, and so it is still used colloquially. For 'from' without a verb of motion, see Abbott, § 158.

I.211 what: what a. For the omission of the indefinite article, common in Shakespeare, see Abbott, § 86. In the Folios the interrogation mark and the exclamation mark are often interchanged.

I.215 thunder-stone: thunder-bolt. It is still a common belief in Scotland and Ireland that a stone or bolt falls with lightning. Cf. Cymbeline, IV, ii, 271: "Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone."

To stand against the deep, dread-bolted thunder?

In the most terrible and nimble stroke

Of quick, cross lightning?

I.219 cast yourself in: throw yourself into a state of. In previous editions of Hudson's Shakespeare Jervis's conjecture 'case' for 'cast' was adopted. The change is unnecessary. Cf. Cymbeline, III, ii, 38: "Though forfeiters you cast in prison."

I.220 ll. 63–68 The construction here is involved, and the grammar confused, but the meaning is clear enough. The general idea is that of elements and animals, and even human beings, acting in a manner out of or against their nature, or changing their natures and original faculties from the course in which they were ordained to move, to monstrous or unnatural modes of action.

I.221 from quality and kind: turn from their disposition and nature. Emerson and Browning use 'quality' (cf. l. 68) in this old sense of 'disposition.' 'Kind,' meaning 'nature,' is common in Shakespeare.

I.222 old men, fools, and | Old men, Fooles, and F₁F₂ | Old men, Fools, and F₃F₄ | old men fools, and Steevens | old men fool and White.

I.223 There seems no necessity for changing the reading of the Folios. This conjunction of old men, fools, and children is found in country sayings in England to-day. So in a Scottish proverb: "Auld fowks, fules, and bairns should never see wark half dune," White's reading was first suggested by Mitford.

I.225 monstrous state: abnormal condition of things. 'Enormous state' occurs with probably the same general meaning in King Lear, II, ii, 176. As Cassius is an avowed Epicurean, it may seem out of character to make him speak thus. But he is here talking for effect, his aim being to kindle and instigate Casca into the conspiracy; and to this end he does not hesitate to say what he does not himself believe.

I.227 This reads as if a lion were kept in the Capitol. But the meaning probably is that Cæsar roars in the Capitol, like a lion. Perhaps Cassius has the idea of Cæsar's claiming or aspiring to be among men what the lion is among beasts. Dr. Wright suggests that Shakespeare had in mind the lions kept in the Tower of London, "which there is reason to believe from indications in the play represented the Capitol to Shakespeare's mind." It is possible, too, that we have here a reference to the lion described by Casca in ll. 20–22.

I.228 prodigious: portentous. As in A Midsummer Night's Dream, V, i, 419: "Never mole, hare lip, nor scar, Nor mark prodigious."

I.232 thews: muscles. So in Hamlet, I, iii, 12, and 2 Henry IV, III, ii, 276. In Chaucer and Middle English the word means 'manners,' though in Layamon's Brut (l. 6361), in the singular, it seems to mean 'sinew' or 'strength.' See Skeat for a suggestive discussion.

I.235 bondman. The word 'cancel' in the next line shows that Casca plays on the two senses of 'bond.' Cf. Cymbeline, V, iv, 28.

I.236 The idea seems to be that, as men start a huge fire with worthless straws or shavings, so Cæsar is using the degenerate Romans of the time to set the whole world a-blaze with his own glory. Cassius's enthusiastic hatred of "the mightiest Julius" is irresistibly delightful. For a good hater is the next best thing to a true friend; and Cassius's honest gushing malice is surely better than Brutus's stabbing sentimentalism.

I.237 The meaning is, Perhaps you will go and tell Cæsar all I have said about him, and then he will call me to account for it. Very well; go tell him; and let him do his worst. I care not.

I.238 Fleering. This word of Scandinavian origin seems to unite the senses of 'grinning,' 'flattering' (see Love's Labour's Lost, V, ii, 109, and Ben Jonson's "fawn and fleer" in Volpone, III, i, 20), and 'sneering,' and so is just the right epithet for a telltale, who flatters you into saying that of another which you ought not to say, and then mocks you by going to that other and telling what you have said.

I.239 Hold, my hand: stay! here is my hand. As men clasp hands in sealing a bargain. In Rowe's text the comma is omitted.

I.240 Be factious: be active. Or it may mean, 'form a party,' 'join a conspiracy.'

I.241 griefs: grievances. The effect put for the cause. A common Shakespearian metonymy. Cf. III, ii, 211; IV, ii, 42, 46.

I.242 undergo: undertake. So in 2 Henry IV, I, iii, 54; The Winter's Tale, II, iii, 164; IV, iv, 554.

I.244 Pompey's porch. This was a spacious adjunct to the huge theater that Pompey had built in the Campus Martius, outside of the city proper; and there, as Plutarch says in Marcus Brutus, "was set up the image of Pompey, which the city had made and consecrated in honour of him, when he did beautify that part of the city with the theatre he built, with divers porches about it." Here it was that Cæsar was stabbed to death; and though Shakespeare transfers the assassination to the Capitol, he makes Cæsar's blood stain the statue of Pompey. See III, ii, 187, 188.

I.245 element: sky. Twice Shakespeare seems to poke fun at the way in which the Elizabethans overdid the use of 'element' in this sense, in Twelfth Night, III, i, 65, and in 2 Henry IV, IV, iii, 58.

I.246 favour: appearance. So in I, ii, 91. Johnson's emendation, though pleonastic, makes least change upon the text of the Folios.

I.249 close: hidden. So in 1 Chronicles, xii, 1: "He yet kept himself close because of Saul the son of Kish."

I.251 incorporate: closely united. Shakespeare uses this word nine times,—four times as an adjective and five times as a verb. With regard to the omission of -ed in participial forms, see Abbott, § 342.

I.255 in the prætor's chair. "But for Brutus, his friends and countrymen, both by divers procurements and sundry rumours of the city, and by many bills[1] also, did openly call and procure him to do that he did. For under the image of his ancestor Junius Brutus, (that drave the kings out of Rome) they wrote: 'O, that it pleased the gods thou wert now alive, Brutus!' and again, 'that thou wert here among us now!' His tribunal or chair, where he gave audience during the time he was Prætor, was full of such bills: 'Brutus, thou art asleep, and art not Brutus indeed.'"—Plutarch, Marcus Brutus.

I.257 For a discussion of singular verbs with plural subjects, see Abbott, § 333. Cf. l. 138, l. 155; III, ii, 26.

I.258 Decius Brutus. As indicated in the notes to the Dramatis Personæ, this should be 'Decimus Brutus.' Shakespeare found the form 'Decius' in North's Plutarch, who translated from Amyot, in whose French version the blunder was originally made. Decimus Brutus is said to have been cousin to the other Brutus of the play. He had been one of Cæsar's ablest, most favored, and most trusted lieutenants, and had particularly distinguished himself in his naval service at Venetia and Massilia. After the murder of Cæsar, he was found to be written down in his will as second heir.

I.261 alchemy: the old ideal art of turning base metals into gold. So in Sonnets, xxxiii, 4: "Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy." Cf. King John, III, i, 78.

I.262 conceited: formed an idea of, conceived, judged. 'Conceit' as a verb occurs again in III, i, 193, and in Othello, III, iii, 149.

II.1 orchard. Shakespeare generally uses 'orchard' in its original sense of 'garden' (literally 'herb-garden,' Anglo-Saxon ort-geard).

II.3 What. A common exclamation frequent in Shakespeare. So in V, iii, 72. The 'when' of l. 5 shows increasing impatience.

II.6 Brutus has been casting about on all sides to find some means to prevent Cæsar's being king, and here admits that it can be done only by killing him. Thus the soliloquy opens in just the right way to throw us back upon his antecedent meditations. In expression and in feeling it anticipates Hamlet, III, i, 56–88. From now onwards the speeches of Brutus strangely adumbrate those of Hamlet.

II.7 the general: the general public, the community at large. Cf. Hamlet, II, ii, 457, "pleas'd not the million; 't was caviare to the general." See III, ii, 89, and V, v, 71–72.

II.8 The sunshine of royalty will kindle the serpent in Cæsar. The figure in 32–34 suggests that 'bring forth' may here mean 'hatch.'

II.10 do danger with: do mischief with, prove dangerous. Cf. Romeo and Juliet, V, ii, 20: "neglecting it May do much danger."

II.11 Remorse. Constantly in Shakespeare 'remorse' is used for 'pity' or 'compassion.' Here it seems to mean something more, 'conscience,' 'conscientiousness.' So in Othello, III, iii, 468:

Let him command,

And to obey shall be in me remorse,

What bloody business ever.

The possession of dictatorial power is apt to stifle or sear the conscience, so as to make a man literally remorseless.

II.15 Warburton put a hyphen between 'climber' and 'upward.' Delius, however, would connect 'upward' with 'whereto' and 'turns.'

II.16 base degrees: lower steps. 'Degrees' is here used in its original, literal sense for the rounds, or steps, of the ladder.

II.21 ll. 29–34 The general meaning of this somewhat obscure passage is, Since we have no show or pretext of a cause, no assignable ground or apparent ground of complaint, against Cæsar, in what he is, or in anything he has yet done, let us assume that the further addition of a crown will quite upset his nature, and metamorphose him into a serpent. The strain of casuistry used in this speech is very remarkable. Coleridge found it perplexing. On the supposition that Shakespeare meant Brutus for a wise and good man, the speech seems unintelligible. But Shakespeare must have regarded him simply as a well-meaning but conceited and shallow idealist; and such men are always cheating and puffing themselves with the thinnest of sophisms, feeding on air and conceiving themselves inspired, or "mistaking the giddiness of the head for the illumination of the Spirit."

II.24 The Folio reading 'first of March' cannot be right chronologically, though it is undoubtedly what Shakespeare wrote, for in Plutarch, Marcus Brutus, he read: "Cassius asked him if he were determined to be in the Senate-house the first day of the month of March, because he heard say that Cæsar's friends should move the Council that day that Cæsar should be called king by the Senate." This inconsistency is not without parallels in Shakespeare. Cf. the "four strangers" in The Merchant of Venice, I, ii, 135, when six have been mentioned. In Scott, too, are many such inconsistencies.

II.25 exhalations: meteors. In Plutarch's Opinions of Philosophers, Holland's translation, is this passage (spelling modernized): "Aristotle supposeth that all these meteors come of a dry exhalation, which, being gotten enclosed within a moist cloud, seeketh means, and striveth forcibly to get forth." Shakespeare uses 'meteor' repeatedly in the same way. So in Romeo and Juliet, III, v, 13.

II.26 The Folios give this line as it is here. Some editors arrange it as the beginning of the letter repeated ponderingly by Brutus.

II.33 fifteen. This, the Folio reading, is undoubtedly correct. Lines 103–104 and 192–193 show that it is past midnight, and Lucius is including in his computation the dawn of the fifteenth day, a natural thing for any one to do, especially a Roman.

II.36 phantasma: a vision of things that are not. "Shakespeare seems to use it ('phantasma') in this passage in the sense of nightmare, which it bears in Italian."—Clar. What Brutus says here is in the very spirit of Hamlet's speeches. Cf. also the King's speech to Laertes, Hamlet, IV, vii, 115–124, and Macbeth, I, vii, 1–28.

II.37 Commentators differ about 'Genius' here; some taking it for the 'conscience,' others for the 'anti-conscience.' Shakespeare uses 'genius,' 'spirit,' and 'demon,' as synonymous, and all three, apparently, both in a good sense and in a bad, as every man was supposed to have a good and a bad angel. So, in this play, IV, iii, 282, we have "thy evil spirit"; in The Tempest, IV, i, 27, "our worser genius"; in Troilus and Cressida, IV, iv, 52, "some say the Genius so Cries 'come' to him that instantly must die"; in Antony and Cleopatra, II, iii, 19, "Thy demon, that's thy spirit which keeps thee"; where, as often, 'keeps' is 'guards.' In these and some other cases the words have some epithet or context that determines their meaning, but not so with 'Genius' in the text. But, in all such cases, the words indicate the directive power of the mind. And so we often speak of a man's 'better self,' or a man's 'worser self,' according as one is in fact directed or drawn to good or to evil.—The sense of 'mortal' here is also somewhat in question. Shakespeare sometimes uses it for 'perishable,' or that which dies; but oftener for 'deadly,' or that which kills. 'Mortal instruments' may well be held to mean what Macbeth refers to when he says, "I'm settled, and bend up Each corporal agent to this terrible feat."—As Brutus is speaking with reference to his own case, he probably intends 'Genius' in a good sense, for the spiritual or immortal part of himself. If so, then he would naturally mean by 'mortal' his perishable part, or his ministerial faculties, which shrink from executing what the directing power is urging them to. The late Professor Ferrier of St. Andrews seems to take a somewhat different view of the passage. He says, "In this speech of Brutus, Shakespeare gives a fine description of the unsettled state of the mind when the will is hesitating about the perpetration of a great crime, and when the passions are threatening to overpower, and eventually do overpower, the reason and the conscience."

II.42 moe: more. The old comparative of 'many.' In Middle English 'moe,' or 'mo,' was used of number and with collective nouns; 'more' had reference specifically to size. See Skeat.

II.43 Pope was evidently so disgusted with Shakespeare's tendency to dress his Romans like Elizabethans, that in his two editions he omits 'hats' altogether, indicating the omission by a dash!

II.47 evils: evil things. So in Lucrece, l. 1250, we have 'cave-keeping evils.' The line in the text means, When crimes and mischiefs, and evil and mischievous men, are most free from the restraints of law or of shame. So Hamlet speaks of night as the time "when hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world." Cf. l. 265.

II.48 path: take thy way. Drayton employs 'path' as a verb, both transitively and intransitively, literally and figuratively, in England's Heroicall Epistles (1597–1598). The verb seems to have been in use from the fourteenth century to the close of the seventeenth.

II.49 path, thy F₂ | path thy F₁F₃F₄ | hath thy Quarto (1691) | march, thy Pope | put thy Dyce (Coleridge conj.).

II.50 Erebus: the region of nether darkness between Earth and Hades. Cf. The Merchant of Venice, V, i, 87: "dark as Erebus."

II.51 prevention: discovery, anticipation. This, the original sense, would lead to 'prevention,' as the term is used to-day.

II.54 ll. 101–111 This little side-talk on a theme so different from the main one of the scene, is finely conceived, and aptly marks the men as seeking to divert anxious thoughts of the moment by any casual chat. It also serves the double purpose of showing that they are not listening, and of preventing suspicion if any were listening to them. In itself it is thoroughly Shakespearian; and the description of the dawn-light flecking the clouds takes high place among Shakespeare's great sky pictures.

II.55 fret: "mark with interlacing lines like fretwork."—Clar. There are two distinct verbs spelled 'fret,' one meaning 'to eat away,' the other 'to ornament.' See Skeat. In Hamlet, II, ii, 313, we have "this majestical roof fretted with golden fire."

II.60 No, not an oath. This is based on Plutarch's statement in Marcus Brutus: "Furthermore, the only name and great calling of Brutus did bring on the most of them to give consent to this conspiracy: who having never taken oaths together, nor taken or given any caution or assurance, nor binding themselves one to another by any religious oaths, they all kept the matter so secret to themselves, and could so cunningly handle it, that notwithstanding the gods did reveal it by manifest signs and tokens from above, and by predictions of sacrifices, yet all this would not be believed."

II.61 if not the face of men. This means, probably, the shame and self-reproach with which Romans must now look each other in the face under the consciousness of having fallen away from the republican spirit of their forefathers. The change in the construction of the sentence gives it a more colloquial cast, without causing any real obscurity. Modern editors have offered strange substitutes for 'face' here,—'faith,' 'faiths,' 'fate,' 'fears,' 'yoke,' etc.

II.62 sufferance: suffering. So in Measure for Measure, III, i, 80; Coriolanus, I, i, 22. In I, iii, 84, 'sufferance' is used in its ordinary modern sense.

II.63 the time's abuse: the miserable condition of things in the present. Such 'time's abuse' in his own day Shakespeare describes in detail in Sonnets, lxvi.

II.64 Brutus seems to have in mind the capriciousness of a high-looking and heaven-daring Oriental tyranny, where men's lives hung upon the nod and whim of the tyrant, as on the hazards of a lottery.

II.65 What need we: why need we. So in Antony and Cleopatra, V, ii, 317; Titus Andronicus, I, i, 189. Cf. Mark, xiv, 63.

II.67 palter: equivocate, quibble. The idea is of shuffling as in making a promise with what is called a "mental reservation." "Palter with us in a double sense" is the famous expression in Macbeth, V, viii, 20, and it brings out clearly the meaning implicit in the term.

II.68 cautelous: deceitful. The original meaning is 'wary,' 'circumspect.' It is the older English adjective for 'cautious.' "The transition from caution to suspicion, and from suspicion to craft and deceit, is not very abrupt."—Clar. Cf. 'cautel' in Hamlet, I, iii, 5.

II.70 The even virtue: the virtue that holds an equable and uniform tenor, always keeping the same high level. Cf. Henry VIII, III, i, 37.

II.71 insuppressive: not to be suppressed. The active form with the passive sense. Cf. 'unexpressive,' in As You Like It, III, ii, 10.

II.74 break with him: broach the matter to him. This bit of dialogue is very charming. Brutus knows full well that Cicero is not the man to take a subordinate position; that if he have anything to do with the enterprise it must be as the leader of it; and that is just what Brutus wants to be himself. Merivale thinks it a great honor to Cicero that the conspirators did not venture to propose the matter to him. In Plutarch, Marcus Brutus, the attitude of the conspirators to Cicero is described thus: "For this cause they durst not acquaint Cicero with their conspiracy, although he was a man whom they loved dearly and trusted best; for they were afraid that he, being a coward by nature, and age also having increased his fear, he would quite turn and alter all their purpose, and quench the heat of their enterprise (the which specially required hot and earnest execution), seeking by persuasion to bring all things to such safety, as there should be no peril."

II.76 envy: malice. Commonly so in Shakespeare, as in The Merchant of Venice, IV, i, 10. So 'envious' in the sense of 'malicious' in l. 178.

II.81 So the king proceeds with Hubert in King John. And so men often proceed when they wish to have a thing done, and to shirk the responsibility; setting it on by dark hints and allusions, and then, after it is done, affecting to blame or to scold the doers of it.

II.83 'Think and die,' as in Antony and Cleopatra, III, xiii, 1, seems to have been a proverbial expression meaning 'grieve oneself to death'; and it would be much indeed, a very wonderful thing, if Antony should fall into any killing sorrow, such a light-hearted, jolly companion as he is. Cf. Hamlet, III, i, 85. 'Thoughtful' (sometimes in the form 'thoughtish') is a common provincial expression for 'melancholy' in Cumberland and Roxburghshire to-day.

II.84 ll. 188–189: Here is Plutarch's account in Marcus Antonius, of contemporary criticism of Antony's habits: "And on the other side, the noblemen (as Cicero saith), did not only mislike him, but also hate him for his naughty life: for they did abhor his banquets and drunken feasts he made at unseasonable times, and his extreme wasteful expenses upon vain light huswives; and then in the daytime he would sleep or walk out his drunkenness, thinking to wear away the fume of the abundance of wine which he had taken over night."

II.86 stricken. In II, ii, 114, we have the form 'strucken.' An interesting anachronism is this matter of a striking clock in old Rome.

II.89 'Main' is often found in sixteenth century literature in the sense of 'great,' 'strong,' 'mighty.' Cæsar was, in his philosophy, an Epicurean, like most of the educated Romans of the time. Hence he was, in opinion, strongly skeptical about dreams and ceremonial auguries. But his conduct, especially in his later years, was characterized by many gross instances of superstitious practice.

II.90 apparent prodigies: evident portents. 'Apparent' in this sense of 'plainly manifest,' and so 'undeniable,' is found more than once in Shakespeare. Cf. King John, IV, ii, 93; Richard II, I, i, 13.