To think that Cæsar bears such rebel blood, With that which melteth fools; I mean, sweet words, If thou dost bend, and pray, and fawn, for him, Met. Is there no voice more worthy than my own, to adopt Dr. Johnson's emendation. The words pre-ordinance and decree strongly support it. Malone. 8 Know, Cæsar doth not wrong; nor without cause Will he be satisfied.] Ben Jonson quotes this line unfaithfully among his Discoveries, and ridicules it again in the Introduction to his Staple of News: "Cry you mercy; you never did wrong, but with just cause? Steevens. It may be doubted, I think, whether Jonson has quoted this line unfaithfully. The turn of the sentence, and the defect in the metre (according to the present reading), rather incline me to believe that the passage stood originally thus : Know, Cesar doth not wrong, but with just cause; We may suppose that Ben started this formidable criticism at one of the earliest representations of the play, and that the players, or perhaps Shakspeare himself, over-awed by so great an authority, withdrew the words in question; though, in my opinion, it would have been better to have told the captious censurer that his criticism was ill-founded; that wrong is not always a synonymous term for injury; that, in poetical language especially, it may be very well understood to mean only harm, or hurt, what the law calls damnum sine injuria; and that, in this sense, there is nothing absurd in Cæsar's saying, that he doth not wrong (i. e. doth not inflict any evil, or punishment) but with just cause. But, supposing this passage to have been really censurable, and to have been written by Shakspeare, the exceptionable words were undoubtedly left out when the play was printed in 1623; and therefore what are we now to think of the malignant pleasure with which Jonson continued to ridicule his deceased friend for a slip, of which posterity, without his information, would have been totally ignorant? Tyrwhitt. Mr. Tyrwhitt's interpretation of the word wrong is supported by a line in our author's Rape of Lucrece: "Time's glory is "To wrong the wronger, till he render right." Malone. Thus also, in King Henry IV P. II, where Justice Shallow assures Davy that his friend (an arrant knave) "shall have no wrong." Steevens. For the repealing of my banish'd brother? Desiring thee, that Publius Cimber may Have an immediate freedom of repeal. Cas. What, Brutus! Cas. Pardon, Cæsar; Cæsar, pardon: As low as to thy foot doth Cassius fall, To beg enfranchisement for Publius Cimber. Cas. I could be well mov'd, if I were as you; The skies are painted with unnumber'd sparks, Cin. O Cæsar, apprehensive;) Susceptible of fear, or other passions. Johnson Apprehensive does not mean, as Johnson explains it, susceptible of fear, but intelligent, capable of apprehending. M. Mason. So, in King Henry IV, P. II, Act IV, sc. iii: " - makes it appre hensive, quick, forgetive," &c. Steevens. 1- but one-] One and only one. Johnson. 2 course. holds on his rank,] Perhaps, holds on his race; continues his We commonly say, To hold a rank, and To hold on a course or way. Johnson. To hold on his rank," is to continue to hold it; and I take rank to be the right reading. The word race, which Johnson proposes, would but ill agree with the following words, unshak'd of motion, or with the comparison to the polar star : "Of whose true fix'd, and resting quality, Hold on his rank, in one part of the comparison, has precisely the same import with hold his place, in the other. M. Mason. 3 Unshak'd of motion:] i. e. Unshak'd by suit or solicitation, of which the object is to move the person addressed. Malone. VOL. XIV. G Cas. Hence! Wilt thou lift up Olympus? Dec. Great Cæsar, - Doth not Brutus bootless kneel ?4 Casca. Speak, hands, for me. [CASCA stabs CESAR in the neck. CASAR catches hold of his Arm. He is then stabbed by several other Conspirators, and at last by MARCUS BRUTUS. Cas. Et tu, Brute 25-Then fall, Cæsar. [Dies. The Senators and People retire in confusion. 4 Doth not Brutus bootless kneel?] I would read : Do not Brutus bootless kneel! Johnson. I cannot subscribe to Dr. Johnson's opinion. Cæsar, as some of the conspirators are pressing round him, answers their importunity properly: See you not my own Brutus kneeling in vain? What success can you expect to your solicitations, when his are ineffectual? This might have put my learned coadjutor in mind of the passage of Homer, which he has so elegantly introduced in his preface. Thou? (said Achilles to his captive) when so great a man as Patroclus has fallen before thee, dost thou complain of the common lot of mortality? Steevens. The editor of the second folio saw this passage in the same light as Dr. Johnson did, and made this improper alteration. By Brutus here Shakspeare certainly meant Marcus Brutus, because he has confounded him with Decimus (or Decius as he calls him); and imagined that Marcus Brutus was the peculiar favourite of Cæsar, calling him "his well-beloved;" whereas in fact it was Decimus Brutus that Cæsar was particularly attached to, appointing him by his will his second heir, that is, in remainder after his primary devisees. See p. 8, n. 1. Steevens. Malone. 5 Et tu, Brute?] Suetonius says, that when Cæsar put Metellus Cimber back, "he caught hold of Cæsar's gowne at both shoulders, whereupon, as he cried out, This is violence, Cassius came in second full a front, and wounded him a little beneath the throat. Then Cæsar catching Cassius by the arme thrust it through with his stile, or writing punches; and with that being about to leape forward, he was met with another wound and stayed." Being then assailed on all sides, "with three and twenty wounds he was stabbed, during which time he gave but one groan, (without any word uttered) and that was at the first thrust; though some have written, that as Marcus Brutus came running upon him, he said, καὶ σύ τέκνον, and thou, my sonne. Holland's translation, 1607. No mention is here made of the Latin exclamation, which our author has attributed to Cæsar, nor did North furnish him with it, or with English words of the same import, as might naturally have been supposed. Plutarch says, that on receiving his first wound from Casca, " he caught hold of Casca's sword, and held it hard; and they both cried out, Cæsar in Latin, O vile traitor, Casca, what doest thou ? and Casca in Greek to his brother, Brother help me." -The conspi Cin. Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!- Bru. People, and senators! be not affrighted; Dec. Bru. Where's Publius? And Cassius too.. Cin. Here, quite confounded with this mutiny. Met. Stand fast together, lest some friend of Cæsar's Should chance Bru. Talk not of standing;-Publius, good cheer; There is no harm intended to your person, rators then "compassed him on every side with their swordes drawn in their handes, that Cæsar turned him no where but he was stricken by some, and still had naked swords in his face, and was hacked and mangled amongst them as a wild beast taken of hunters. And then Brutus himself gave him one wound above the privities. Men report also, that Cæsar did still defend himself against the reste, running every way with his bodie, but when he saw Brutus with his sworde drawen in his hande, then he pulled his gowne over his heade, and made no more resistance." Neither of these writers therefore, we see, furnished Shakspeare with this exclamation. His authority appears to have been a line in the old play, entitled, The true Tragedie of Richarde Duke of Yorke, &c. printed in 1600, on which he formed his Third Part of King Henry VI: "Et tu, Brute? Wilt thou stab Cæsar too?" This line Shakspeare rejected when he wrote the piece above mentioned, (See Vol. X, p. 406, n. 5.) but it appears it had made an impression on his memory. The same line is also found in Acolaustus his After-witte, a poem by S. Nicholson, printed in 1600: "Et tu, Brute? Wilt thou stab Cæsar too? So, in Cæsar's Legend, Mirror for Magistrates, 1587 : "O this, quoth I, is violence; then Cassius pierc'd my breast; "And Brutus thou, my sonne, quoth I, whom erst I loved best." The Latin words probably appeared originally in Dr. Eedes's play on this subject. See p. 338, n. *. Malone. Go to the pulpit, Brutus.] We have now taken leave of Casca. Shakspeare for once knew that he had a sufficient number of heroes on his hands, and was glad to lose an individual in the crowd. It may be added, that the singularity of Casca's manners would have appeared to little advantage amidst the succeeding varieties of tumult and war. Steevens. Cas. And leave us, Publius; lest that the people, Rushing on us, should do your age some mischief: Bru. Do so;-and let no man abide this deed, But we the doers. Re-enter TREBONIUS. Cas. Where's Antony? Tre. Fled to his house amaz'd: Men, wives, and children, stare, cry out, and run, Bru. Fates! we will know your pleasures: Cas. Why, he that cuts off twenty years of life, Eru. Grant that, and then is death a benefit: Cas. Stoop then, and wash.-How many ages hence, 7 Nor to no Roman else:] This use of two negatives, not to make an affirmative, but to deny more strongly, is common to Chaucer, Spenser, and other of our ancient writers. Dr. Hickes observes, that in the Saxon, even four negatives are sometimes conjoined, and still preserve a negative signification. Steevens. 8 Cas.] Both the folios give this speech to Casca. Reed. 9- Stoop, Romans, stoop,] Plutarch, in The Life of Cesar, says, "Brutus and his followers, being yet hot with the murder, marched in a body from the senate-house to the Capitol, with their drawn swords, with an air of confidence and assurance." And in The Life of Brutus: -" Brutus and his party betook themselves to the Capitol, and in their way, showing their hands all bloody, and their naked swords, proclaimed liberty to the people." Theobald. 1 Stoop then, and wash.] To wash does not mean here to cleanse, but to wash over, as we say, washed with gold; for Cassius means that they should steep their hands in the blood of Cæsar. M. Mason. 2 In states unborn,] The first folio has-state; very properly corrected in the second folio-states. Mr. Malone admits the first of these readings, which he thus explains-In theatrick pomp yet undisplayed. |