The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar Part 8

ANTONY. Caesar, my lord? 5

CaeSAR. Forget not, in your speed, Antonius, To touch Calpurnia; for our elders say, The barren, touched in this holy chase, Shake off their sterile curse.

ANTONY. I shall remember: When Caesar says 'Do this,' it is perform'd. 10

[Note: SCENE ... _place_ Ff omit.]

[Note 3: /Antonius'/ Pope Antonio's Ff.]

[Note 4, 6: /Antonius/ Pope Antonio Ff (and so elsewhere).]

[Note 3: /Antonius'./ The 'Antonio's' of the Folios is the Italian form with which both actors and audience would be more familiar. So in IV, iii, 102, the Folios read "dearer than Pluto's (i.e. Plutus') mine." Antonius was at this time Consul, as Caesar himself also was. Each Roman _gens_ had its own priesthood, and also its peculiar religious rites. The priests of the Julian gens (so named from Iulus the son of aeneas) had lately been advanced to the same rank with those of the G.o.d Lupercus; and Antony was at this time at their head.

It was probably as chief of the Julian Luperci that he officiated on this occasion, stripped, as the old stage direction has it, "for the course."]

[Note 8-9: It was an old custom at these festivals for the priests, naked except for a girdle about the loins, to run through the streets of the city, waving in the hand a thong of goat's hide, and striking with it such women as offered themselves for the blow, in the belief that this would prevent or avert "the sterile curse." Caesar was at this time childless; his only daughter, Julia, married to Pompey the Great, having died some years before, upon the birth of her first child, who also died soon after.]

[Page 10]

CaeSAR. Set on; and leave no ceremony out. [_Flourish_]

SOOTHSAYER. Caesar!

CaeSAR. Ha! who calls?

CASCA. Bid every noise be still. Peace yet again!

CaeSAR. Who is it in the press that calls on me? 15 I hear a tongue, shriller than all the music, Cry 'Caesar!' Speak; Caesar is turn'd to hear.

SOOTHSAYER. Beware the Ides of March.

CaeSAR. What man is that?

BRUTUS. A soothsayer bids you beware the Ides of March.

CaeSAR. Set him before me; let me see his face. 20

Ca.s.sIUS. Fellow, come from the throng; look upon Caesar.

CaeSAR. What say'st thou to me now? speak once again.

SOOTHSAYER. Beware the Ides of March.

CaeSAR. He is a dreamer; let us leave him. Pa.s.s.

[_Sennet. Exeunt all but_ BRUTUS _and_ Ca.s.sIUS]

Ca.s.sIUS. Will you go see the order of the course? 25

[Note 11: [Flourish] Ff omit.]

[Note 25: Scene III Pope.]

[Note 18: /the Ides of March:/ March 15th.]

[Note 19: Coleridge has a remark on this line, which, whether true to the subject or not, is very characteristic of the writer: "If my ear does not deceive me, the metre of this line was meant to express that sort of mild philosophic contempt, characterizing Brutus even in his first casual speech."--/soothsayer./ By derivation, 'truth teller.']

[Note 24: /Sennet./ This is an expression occurring repeatedly in old stage directions. It is of uncertain origin (but cf.

'signature' in musical notation) and denotes a peculiar succession of notes on a trumpet, used, as here, to signal the march of a procession.]

[Page 11]

BRUTUS. Not I.

Ca.s.sIUS. I pray you, do.

BRUTUS. I am not gamesome: I do lack some part Of that quick spirit that is in Antony.

Let me not hinder, Ca.s.sius, your desires; 30 I'll leave you.

Ca.s.sIUS. Brutus, I do observe you now of late: I have not from your eyes that gentleness And show of love as I was wont to have: You bear too stubborn and too strange a hand 35 Over your friend that loves you.

[Note 36: /friend/ F1 Friends F2 F3.]

[Note 28: /gamesome:/ fond of games. Here as in _Cymbeline_, I, vi, 60, the word seems to be used in a literal and restricted sense.]

[Note 29: /quick spirit:/ lively humor. The primary meaning of 'quick' is 'alive,' as in the phrase "the quick and the dead."

See Skeat.]

[Note 34: /as./ The three forms 'that,' 'who' ('which'), and 'as' are often interchangeable in Elizabethan usage. So in line 174. See Abbott, ---- 112, 280.]

[Note 35: You hold me too hard on the bit, like a strange rider who is doubtful of his steed, and not like one who confides in his faithful horse, and so rides him with an easy rein. See note on l. 310.]

[Note 36: Caius Ca.s.sius Longinus had married Junia, a sister of Brutus. Both had lately stood for the chief praetorship of the city, and Brutus, through Caesar's favor, had won it; though Ca.s.sius was at the same time elected one of the sixteen praetors or judges of the city. This is said to have produced a coldness between Brutus and Ca.s.sius, so that they did not speak to each other, till this extraordinary flight of patriotism brought them together.]

[Page 12]

BRUTUS. Ca.s.sius, Be not deceiv'd: if I have veil'd my look, I turn the trouble of my countenance Merely upon myself. Vexed I am Of late with pa.s.sions of some difference, 40 Conceptions only proper to myself, Which give some soil, perhaps, to my behaviours; But let not therefore my good friends be griev'd-- Among which number, Ca.s.sius, be you one-- Nor construe any further my neglect, 45 Than that poor Brutus, with himself at war, Forgets the shows of love to other men.

Ca.s.sIUS. Then, Brutus, I have much mistook your pa.s.sion; By means whereof this breast of mine hath buried Thoughts of great value, worthy cogitations. 50 Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face?

BRUTUS. No, Ca.s.sius; for the eye sees not itself But by reflection, by some other things.

[Note 52-53: Three irregular lines in Ff.]

[Note 52: /itself/ it selfe F1 himselfe F2 himself, F3 himself: F4.]

[Note 53: /by some/ Ff from some Pope.]

[Note 39: /Merely:/ altogether, entirely. So in _The Tempest_, I, i, 59.]