Luc. My lord, I do not know that I did cry. Bru. Yes, that thou didst: Didst thou see any

thing?

Luc. Nothing, my lord.

Bru. Sleep again, Lucius.-Sirrah, Claudius!

Fellow thou! awake.

Var. My lord.

Clau. My lord.

Bru. Why did you so cry out, sirs, in your sleep? Var. Clau. Did we, my lord?

Bru.

Var. No, my lord, I saw nothing.

Clau.

Ay; Saw you any thing?

Nor I, my lord.

Bru. Go, and commend me to my brother Cassius; Bid him set on his powers betimes before,

SCENE I. The Plains of Philippi.

Enter OCTAVIUS, ANTONY, and their Army. Oct. Now, Antony, our hopes are answered: You said, the enemy would not come down, But keep the hills and upper regions; It proves not so: their battles are at hand; They mean to warn1 us at Philippi here, Answering before we do demand of them. Ant. Tut, I am in their bosoms, and I know

1 To warn is to summon.

So in King John :

Who is it that hath warn'd us to the walls.'

And in King Richard III.:

And sent to warn them to his royal presence.'

Wherefore they do it: they could be content
To visit other places; and come down

With fearful bravery 2, thinking, by this face,
To fasten in our thoughts that they have courage;
But 'tis not so.

Mess.

Enter a Messenger.

Prepare you, generals:

The enemy comes on in gallant show,
Their bloody sign of battle is hung out,
And something to be done immediately.
Ant. Octavius, lead your battle softly on,
Upon the left hand of the even field.

Oct. Upon the right hand I, keep thou the left.
Ant. Why do you cross me in this exigent?
Oct. I do not cross you; but I will do so.

[March. Drum. Enter BRUTUS, CASSIUS, and their Army; LUCILIUS, TITINIUS, MESSALA, and Others. Bru. They stand, and would have parley. Cas. Stand fast, Titinius: We must out and talk. Oct. Mark Antony, shall we give sign of battle? Ant. No, Cæsar, we will answer on their charge. Make forth, the generals would have some words. Oct. Stir not until the signal.

Bru. Words before blows: Is it so, countrymen? Oct. Not that we love words better, as you do. Bru. Good words are better than bad strokes, Octavius.

2 Fearful bravery.' Though fearful is often used by Shakspeare and his cotemporaries in an active sense, for producing fear, or terrible, it may in this instance bear its usual acceptation of timorous, or, as it was sometimes expressed, false-hearted. Thus in a passage, cited by Steevens, from Sidney's Arcadia, lib. ii. Her horse faire and lustie; which she rid so as might show a fearefull boldness, daring to do that which she knew that she knew not how to doe.'

Ant. In your bad strokes, Brutus, you give good

words:

Witness the hole you made in Cæsar's heart,
Crying, Long live! hail, Cæsar!

Cas.

Antony,

The posture of your blows are yet unknown3;
But for your words, they rob the Hybla bees,
And leave them honeyless.

Ant.

Not stingless too.

Bru. O, yes, and soundless too;

For you have stol'n their buzzing, Antony,

And, very wisely, threat before you sting.

Ant. Villains, you did not so, when your vile daggers

Hack'd one another in the sides of Cæsar:

You show'd your teeth like apes, and fawn'd like hounds,

And bow'd like bondmen, kissing Cæsar's feet;
Whilst damned Casca, like a cur, behind,
Struck Cæsar on the neck. O flatterers!

Cas. Flatterers!-Now, Brutus, thank yourself:
This tongue had not offended so to-day,
If Cassius might have rul'd.

Oct. Come, come, the cause: If arguing make
us sweat,

The proof of it will turn to redder drops.
Look;

I draw a sword against conspirators;

When think you that the sword goes up again?

3 The posture of your blows are yet unknown.' It should be is yet unknown;' but the error was probably the poet's more correct writers than Shakspeare have committed this error, where a plural noun immediately precedes the verb, although it be the nominative case by which it is governed. Steevens attributes the error to the transcriber or printer, and would have it corrected; but Malone has adduced several examples of similar inaccuracy in Shakspeare's writings. See vol. i. p. 370, note 27.

Never, till Cæsar's three and twenty wounds1
Be well aveng'd; or till another Cæsar

Have added slaughter to the sword of traitors.

Bru. Cæsar, thou canst not die by traitors, Unless thou bring'st them with thee.

Oct.

So I hope; I was not born to die on Brutus' sword.

Bru. O, if thou wert the noblest of thy strain, Young man, thou could'st not die more honourable. Cas. A peevish schoolboy, worthless of such

honour,

Join'd with a masker and a reveller.

Ant. Old Cassius still!

Oct.

Come, Antony; away.

Defiance, traitors, hurl5 we in your teeth:
If you dare fight to-day, come to the field;
If not, when you have stomachs.

[Exeunt OCTAVIUS, ANTONY, and their Army. Cas. Why now, blow, wind; swell, billow; and swim, bark!

The storm is up, and all is on the hazard.

Bru. Ho!

Lucilius; hark, a word with you.

Luc.

My lord.

[BRUTUS and LUCILIUS converse apart. Cas. Messala,

4 The old copy reads, two and thirty wounds. Theobald corrected the error, which Beaumont and Fletcher have also fallen into in their Noble Gentleman.

5 Hurl is peculiarly expressive. The challenger was said to hurl down his gage when he threw his glove down as a pledge that he would make good his charge against his adversary. And interchangeably hurl down my gage Upon this over-weening traitor's foot.'

King Richard II.

Milton perhaps had this passage in mind, Paradise Lost, b. i.

v. 669:

'Hurling defiance toward the vault of Heaven.'

Mes.

Cas.

What says my general?

This is my birth-day; as this very day

Messala,

Was Cassius born. Give me thy hand, Messala:
Be thou my witness, that against my will,
As Pompey was, am I compell'd to set
Upon one battle all our liberties.

You know, that I held Epicurus strong,
And his opinion: now I change my mind,
And partly credit things that do presage.
Coming from Sardis, on our former7 ensign
Two mighty eagles fell, and there they perch'd,
Gorging and feeding from our soldier's hands;
Who to Philippi here consorted us;

This morning are they fled away, and gone;
And in their steads, do ravens, crows, and kites,
Fly o'er our heads, and downward look on us,
As we were sickly prey; their shadows seem
A canopy most faithful, under which

Our army lies, ready to give up the ghost.
Mes. Believe not so.

Cas.

I but believe it partly;

For I am fresh of spirit, and resolv'd
To meet all perils very constantly.
Bru. Even so, Lucilius.

Now, most noble Brutus,

Cas.
The gods to-day stand friendly; that we may,
Lovers in peace, lead on our days to age!
But, since the affairs of men rest still uncertain,
Let's reason with the worst that

may

If we do lose this battle, then is this

befall.

6 Almost every circumstance in this speech is taken from Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch.

7 i. e. fore ensign; it probably means the chief ensign. Baret `has the former teeth [i. e. fore teeth], dentes primores.' It is derived from the Saxon Forma, first.

So in King John:

'As doth a raven on a sick-fallen prey.'