The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar Part 7

[Note 25: The text of the First Folio needs no emendation. It is good prose and involves a neat pun.]

[Note 26: /proper:/ goodly, handsome. This word has often this meaning in Elizabethan literature, and is still so used in provincial England. Cf. _The Tempest_, II, ii, 63; _Hebrews_ (King James version), xi, 23; Burns's _The Jolly Beggars_: "And still my delight is in proper young men."]

[Note 27: /trod upon neat's-leather/. This expression and "as proper a man as" are repeated in the second scene of the second act of _The Tempest_.--/neat's-leather/: ox-hide.

'Neat' is Anglo-Saxon _neat_, 'ox,' 'cow,' 'cattle,' and is still used in 'neat-herd,' 'neat's-foot oil.' See _The Winter's Tale_, I, ii, 125. The form 'nowt' is still in common use in the North of England and the South of Scotland. Cf.

Burns's _The Twa Dogs_: "To thrum guitars an' fecht wi nowte."]

[Page 6]

MARULLUS. Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?

What tributaries follow him to Rome, 35 To grace in captive bonds his chariot-wheels?

You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!

O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome, Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft Have you climb'd up to walls and battlements, 40 To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops, Your infants in your arms, and there have sat The live-long day, with patient expectation, To see great Pompey pa.s.s the streets of Rome: And when you saw his chariot but appear, 45 Have you not made an universal shout, That Tiber trembled underneath her banks To hear the replication of your sounds Made in her concave sh.o.r.es?

And do you now put on your best attire? 50 And do you now cull out a holiday?

And do you now strew flowers in his way That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood?

Be gone!

Run to your houses, fall upon your knees, 55 Pray to the G.o.ds to intermit the plague That needs must light on this ingrat.i.tude.

[Note 39: /Many a time and oft/. This form of emphasis occurs also in _The Merchant of Venice_, I, iii, 107. Cf. _Timon of Athens_, III, i, 25.]

[Note 41: /windows/, Rowe Windowes? Ff.]

[Note 44: /Rome/: Ff Rome? Rowe.]

[Note 47, 49: /her/ his Rowe.]

[Note 47: /That/: so that. For the omission of 'so' before 'that,' see Abbott, -- 283.--/her/. In Latin usage rivers are masculine, and 'Father' is a common appellation of 'Tiber.' In Elizabethan literature Drayton generally makes rivers feminine, while Spenser tends to make them masculine.]

[Note 48: /To hear/: at hearing. A gerundive use of the infinitive.--/replication/: echo, repet.i.tion (Lat.

_replicare_, to roll back).]

[Note 51: Is this a day to pick out for a holiday?]

[Note 53: The reference is to the great battle of Munda, in Spain, which took place in March of the preceding year, B.C.

45. Caesar was now celebrating his fifth triumph, which was in honor of his final victory over the Pompeian, or conservative, faction. Cnaeus and s.e.xtus, the two sons of Pompey the Great, were leaders in that battle, and Cnaeus perished. "And because he had plucked up his race by the roots, men did not think it meet for him to triumph so for the calamities of his country."--Plutarch, _Julius Caesar_.]

[Note 57: "It is evident from the opening scene, that Shakespeare, even in dealing with cla.s.sical subjects, laughed at the cla.s.sic fear of putting the ludicrous and sublime into juxtaposition. After the low and farcical jests of the saucy cobbler, the eloquence of Marullus 'springs upwards like a pyramid of fire.'"--Campbell.]

[Page 7]

FLAVIUS. Go, go, good countrymen, and, for this fault, a.s.semble all the poor men of your sort; Draw them to Tiber banks, and weep your tears 60 Into the channel, till the lowest stream Do kiss the most exalted sh.o.r.es of all.

[_Exeunt all the_ Commoners]

See, where their basest metal be not mov'd!

They vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness.

Go you down that way towards the Capitol; 65 This way will I: disrobe the images, If you do find them deck'd with ceremonies.

[Note 62: [_Exeunt_ ... ] Ff Exeunt Citizens Capell.]

[Note 63: /where/ Ff whe're Theobald wher Dyce whether Camb.]

[Note 61-62: Till the river rises from the extreme low-water mark to the extreme high-water mark.]

[Note 63: /where:/ whether. As in V, iv, 30, the 'where' of the Folios represents the monosyllabic p.r.o.nunciation of this word common in the sixteenth century. In Shakespeare's verse the 'th' between two vowels, as in 'brother,' 'other,'

'whither,' is frequently mute.--/basest metal./--The Folio spelling is 'mettle,' and the word here may connote 'spirit,'

'temper.' If it be taken literally, the reference may be to 'lead.' Cf. 'base lead,' _The Merchant of Venice_, II, ix, 19.

In this case the meaning may be that even these men, though as dull and heavy as lead, have yet the sense to be tongue-tied with shame at their conduct. 'Mettle' occurs again in I, ii, 293; 'metal' (First Folio, 'mettle') in I, ii, 306.]

[Note 66: /images./ These images were the busts and statues of Caesar, ceremoniously decked with scarfs and badges in honor of his triumph.]

[Note 67: /ceremonies:/ ceremonial symbols, festal ornaments.

Cf. 'trophies' in l. 71 and 'scarfs' in I, ii, 282.

Shakespeare employs the word in the same way, as an abstract term used for the concrete thing, in _Henry V_, IV, i, 109; and, in the singular, in _Measure for Measure_, II, ii, 59.

"After that, there were set up images of Caesar in the city, with diadems on their heads like kings. Those the two tribunes, Flavius and Marullus, went and pulled down."--Plutarch, _Julius Caesar_.]

[Page 8]

MARULLUS. May we do so?

You know it is the feast of Lupercal.

FLAVIUS. It is no matter; let no images 70 Be hung with Caesar's trophies. I'll about, And drive away the vulgar from the streets: So do you too, where you perceive them thick.

These growing feathers pluck'd from Caesar's wing Will make him fly an ordinary pitch, 75 Who else would soar above the view of men, And keep us all in servile fearfulness. [_Exeunt_]

[Note 69: /Lupercal./ The _Lupercalia_, originally a shepherd festival, were held in honor of Lupercus, the Roman Pan, on the 15th of February, the month being named from _Februus_, a surname of the G.o.d. Lupercus was, primarily, the G.o.d of shepherds, said to have been so called because he protected the flocks from wolves. His wife Luperca was the deified she-wolf that suckled Romulus. The festival, in its original idea, was concerned with purification and fertilization.]

[Note 71: /Caesar's trophies./ These are the scarfs and badges mentioned in note on l. 66, as appears from ll. 281-282 in the next scene, where it is said that the Tribunes "for pulling scarfs off Caesar's images, are put to silence."]

[Note 72: /the vulgar:/ the common people. So in _Love's Labour's Lost_, I, ii, 51; _Henry V_, IV, vii, 80.]

[Note 75: /pitch./ A technical term in falconry, denoting the height to which a hawk or falcon flies. Cf. _I Henry VI_, II, iv, 11: "Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch."]

[Page 9]

SCENE II. _A public place_

_Enter_ CaeSAR; ANTONY, _for the course_; CALPURNIA, PORTIA, DECIUS, CICERO, BRUTUS, Ca.s.sIUS, _and_ CASCA; _a great crowd following, among them a_ Soothsayer.

CaeSAR. Calpurnia!

CASCA. Peace, ho! Caesar speaks.

CaeSAR. Calpurnia!

CALPURNIA. Here, my lord.

CaeSAR. Stand you directly in Antonius' way, When he doth run his course. Antonius!