The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar Part 21

PORTIA. If this were true, then should I know this secret.

I grant I am a woman; but withal A woman that Lord Brutus took to wife: I grant I am a woman; but withal A woman well-reputed, Cato's daughter. 295 Think you I am no stronger than my s.e.x, Being so father'd and so husbanded?

Tell me your counsels; I will not disclose 'em.

I have made strong proof of my constancy, Giving myself a voluntary wound 300 Here, in the thigh: can I bear that with patience, And not my husband's secrets?

BRUTUS. O ye G.o.ds, Render me worthy of this n.o.ble wife! [_Knocking within_]

Hark, hark! one knocks. Portia, go in a while; And by and by thy bosom shall partake 305 The secrets of my heart: All my engagements I will construe to thee, All the charactery of my sad brows.

Leave me with haste. [_Exit_ PORTIA] Lucius, who's that knocks?

[Note 303: [_Knocking within_] Malone Knocke F1 F2.]

[Note 289-290: This embodies what was known about the circulation of the blood at the close of the sixteenth century. In 1616, the year of Shakespeare's death, William Harvey, born in 1578, lectured on his great discovery, but his celebrated treatise was not published until 1628. The general fact of the circulation was known in ancient times, and Harvey's discovery lay in ascertaining the _modus operandi_ of it, and in reducing it to matter of strict science.]

[Note 295: Cf. _The Merchant of Venice_, I, 1, 166:

Her name is Portia, nothing undervalued To Cato's daughter, Brutus' Portia.]

[Note 308: /charactery:/ "writing by characters or strange marks." Brutus therefore means that he will divulge to her the secret cause of the sadness marked on his countenance.

'Charactery' seems to mean simply 'writing' in the well-known pa.s.sage in _The Merry Wives of Windsor_, V, v, 77: "Fairies use flowers for their charactery." So in Keats: "Before high-piled books in charactery Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain."]

[Note 309: Editors from Pope down have been busy trying to mend the grammar and the rhythm of this line. But in Shakespeare the full pause has often the value of a syllable, and the omission of the relative is common in Elizabethan literature. See Abbott, -- 244.]

[Page 64]

_Re-enter_ LUCIUS _with_ LIGARIUS

LUCIUS. Here is a sick man that would speak with you. 310

BRUTUS. Caius Ligarius, that Metellus spake of.

Boy, stand aside. Caius Ligarius! how?

LIGARIUS. Vouchsafe good morrow from a feeble tongue.

BRUTUS. O, what a time have you chose out, brave Caius, To wear a kerchief! Would you were not sick! 315

LIGARIUS. I am not sick, if Brutus have in hand Any exploit worthy the name of honour.

[Note 310: _Re-enter ... with_ Dyce Enter ... and Ff after [Exit Portia].]

[Note 313 (and elsewhere): LIGARIUS Cai. Ff.]

[Note 315: /To wear a kerchief./ It was a common practice in England for those who were sick to wear a kerchief on their heads. So in Fuller's _Worthies, Cheshire_, 1662, quoted by Malone: "If any there be sick, they make him a posset and tye a kerchief on his head: and if that will not mend him, then G.o.d be merciful to him."]

[Page 65]

BRUTUS. Such an exploit have I in hand, Ligarius, Had you a healthful ear to hear of it.

LIGARIUS. By all the G.o.ds that Romans bow before, 320 I here discard my sickness! Soul of Rome!

Brave son, deriv'd from honourable loins!

Thou, like an exorcist, hast conjur'd up My mortified spirit. Now bid me run, And I will strive with things impossible; 325 Yea, get the better of them. What's to do?

BRUTUS. A piece of work that will make sick men whole.

LIGARIUS. But are not some whole that we must make sick?

BRUTUS. That must we also. What it is, my Caius, I shall unfold to thee, as we are going 330 To whom it must be done.

LIGARIUS. Set on your foot, And with a heart new-fir'd I follow you, To do I know not what; but it sufficeth That Brutus leads me on.

BRUTUS. Follow me, then. [_Exeunt_]

[Note 327: Two lines in Ff.]

[Note 334: _Thunder_ Ff.]

[Note 321: /I here discard my sickness./ Ligarius here pulls off the kerchief. Cf. Northumberland's speech, _2 Henry IV_, I, i, 147, "hence, thou sickly quoif! Thou art a guard too wanton for the head."]

[Note 323: In Shakespeare's time, 'exorcist' and 'conjurer'

were used indifferently. The former has since come to mean only 'one who drives away spirits'; the latter, 'one who calls them up.']

[Note 324: /My mortified spirit:/ my spirit that was dead in me. So 'mortifying groans' in _The Merchant of Venice_, I, i, 82, and 'mortified man' in _Macbeth_, V, ii, 5. Words directly derived from Latin are often used, by Shakespeare and sixteenth century writers, in a signification peculiarly close to the root notion of the word.]

[Page 66]

SCENE II. CaeSAR'S _house_

_Thunder and lightning._ _Enter_ CaeSAR, _in his night-gown_

CaeSAR. Nor heaven nor earth have been at peace to-night: Thrice hath Calpurnia in her sleep cried out, 'Help, ho! they murder Caesar!' Who's within?

[Note: SCENE II Rowe Scene IV Pope.] [Note: --CaeSAR'S _house_ Ff omit.] [Note: _Enter_ CaeSAR ... Enter Julius Caesar ... Ff.--_in his night-gown_ Pope omits.]

[Note 1: Two lines in Ff.]

[Note: This scene, taken with the preceding, affords an interesting study in contrasts: Caesar and Brutus; Calpurnia the yielding wife, and Portia the heroic.]

[Note: _Enter_ CaeSAR _in his night-gown_.' Night-gown' here, as in _Macbeth_, II, ii, 70, V, 1, 5, means 'dressing-robe' or 'dressing-gown.' This is the usual meaning of the word in English from the fifteenth century to the eighteenth. So Addison and Steele use it in _The Spectator_.]

[Note 2: In Plutarch the scene is thus graphically described: "Then going to bed the same night, as his manner was, and lying with his wife Calpurnia, all the windows and doors of his chamber flying open, the noise awoke him, and made him afraid when he saw such light; but more, when he heard his wife Calpurnia, being fast asleep, weep and sigh, and put forth many fumbling lamentable speeches: for she dreamed that Caesar was slain.... Caesar rising in the morning, she prayed him, if it were possible, not to go out of the doors that day, but to adjourn the session of the Senate until another day.

And if that he made no reckoning of her dream, yet that he would search further of the soothsayers by their sacrifices, to know what should happen him that day. Thereby it seemed that Caesar did likewise fear or suspect somewhat, because his wife Calpurnia until that time was never given to any fear and superst.i.tion; and that then he saw her so troubled in mind with this dream she had. But much more afterwards, when the soothsayers having sacrificed many beasts one after another, told him that none did like[A] them: then he determined to send Antonius to adjourn the session of the Senate."--_Julius Caesar._]

[Note A: i.e. satisfy.]

[Page 67]

_Enter a_ Servant

SERVANT. My lord?