The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar Part 50

[Note 60: /will entertain them:/ will take them into my service.]

[Note 62: /prefer:/ recommend. Cf. _The Merchant of Venice_, II, ii, 155.]

[Note 68: Cf. Antony's soliloquy on Caesar, III, i, 257-258.]

[Note 69-70: "Antonius spake ... that of all them that had slain Caesar, there was none but Brutus only that was moved ...

thinking the act commendable of itself; but that all the other conspirators did conspire his death for some private malice or envy that they otherwise did bear unto him."--Plutarch, _Marcus Brutus_.]

[Note 73-74: This refers to the old doctrine of the four elements, earth, water, air, and fire, a right proportion of which was supposed to be the principle of all excellence in nature. Shakespeare has many allusions to the doctrine, which was a commonplace of the sixteenth century. It is this common property in the idea which invalidates the importance of the argument for the date of _Julius Caesar_ drawn from a similar pa.s.sage in Drayton's revised version of his _Mortimeriados_ (1596-1597) published in 1603 under the t.i.tle of _The Barons'

Wars_.]

[Page 168]

OCTAVIUS. According to his virtue let us use him, With all respect and rites of burial.

Within my tent his bones to-night shall lie, Most like a soldier, ordered honourably.

So call the field to rest; and let's away 80 To part the glories of this happy day. [_Exeunt_]

[Note 77: With all F3 F4 Withall F1 F2.]

[Note 79: ordered Ff order'd Pope.]

[Note 81: [_Exeunt_] Capell Exeunt omnes Ff.]

[Note 79: /Most like a soldier./ Cf. with these words of Octavius the speech of Fortinbras with which _Hamlet_ closes:

Let four captains Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage; For he was likely, had he been put on, To have prov'd most royally.]

[Note 80: /call the field to rest:/ give the signal to cease fighting. 'Field,' by metonymy, is occasionally used in sixteenth century literature as synonymous with 'battle' or 'order of battle.' Cf. the expression 'to gather a field,'

meaning 'to collect an armed force.' So in Hall's _Chronicles_, 1548: "my lorde of Winchester intended to gather any feld or a.s.semble people." Cf., too, 'field' as a hunting term.]

[Note 81: /part:/ distribute. A specific meaning of 'part'

used to be 'share one with another.' This sense is now obsolete or provincial.]