The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded Part 31

_Caesar_. Antonius.

_Antony_. Caesar.

_Caesar_. Let me have men about me that are fat; Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights: Yond' Ca.s.sius has a lean and hungry look.

_He thinks too much: such men are dangerous_.

_Antony_. Fear him not, Caesar; he's not dangerous: He is a n.o.ble Roman, and well given.

_Caesar_. Would he were fatter:--But I fear him not; Yet if my name were liable to fear, I do not know the man I should avoid So soon as that spare Ca.s.sius. _He reads much: He is a great observer, and he looks Quite through the deeds of men: he loves no plays, As thou dost Antony_; he hears no music: Seldom he smiles; and smiles _in such a sort, As if he mocked himself, and scorned his spirit That could be moved to smile at any thing_.

Such men as he are never at heart's ease, Whiles they behold a _greater than themselves_; And therefore are they very dangerous, I rather tell thee _what is to be feared_, Than what _I_ fear, FOR ALWAYS I AM CAESAR.

_Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf_, And tell me _truly_ what thou think'st of him.

[_Exeunt Caesar and his train. Casca stays behind_.]

_Casca_. You pulled me by the _cloak_: would you speak with me?

_Brutus_. Ay, Casca, tell us what hath chanced to-day, That Caesar looks so sad.

_Casca_. Why you were with him. Were you not?

_Brutus_. I should not then ask Casca what hath chanced.

_Casca_. Why there was a crown offered him: and, being offered, he put it by with the back of his hand, thus; and then the people fell a shouting.

_Brutus_. What was the second noise for?

_Casca_. Why for that too.

_Brutus_. They shouted thrice. What was the last cry for?

_Casca_. Why for that too.

_Brutus_. Was the crown offered him thrice?

_Casca_. Ay marry was't. And he put it by thrice, every time gentler than the other; and at every putting by, mine honest neighbours shouted.

_Ca.s.sius_. _Who offered him the crown_?

_Casca_. Why, Antony.

_Brutus_. Tell us the manner of it, gentle Casca.

_Casca_. I can as well be _hanged_ as tell the manner of it. It was mere foolery. I did not mark it. I saw _Mark Antony_ offer him a crown; yet 't was not a crown;--neither 't was one of these coronets;--and, as I told you, he put it by once; but, for all that, to my thinking, he would fain have had it. Then he offered it to him again; then he put it by again: but, to my thinking, he was very both to lay his fingers off it. And then he offered it the third time; he put it the third time by; and still, as he refused it, the rabblement hooted, and clapped their chapped hands, and threw up their sweaty night caps, and uttered such a deal of stinking breath, because Caesar refused the crown, that it had almost choked Caesar; for he swooned and fell down at it: and, for mine own part, I durst not laugh, for fear of opening my lips and receiving the bad air.

_Ca.s.sius_. But soft, I pray you: WHAT? DID CAESAR SWOON?

_Casca_. _He fell down in the market-place, and foamed at mouth, and was speechless_.

_Brutus_. 'Tis very like; he hath the falling sickness.

_Ca.s.sius_. No, Caesar hath it not; but you, and I, And honest Casca, _we have the falling sickness_.

_Casca_. _I know not what you mean by that_: but I am sure, Caesar fell down. If the _tag-rag people_ did not clap him and hiss him, _according as he pleased and displeased them_, as they use to do the Players in the theatre, I am no true man.

_Brutus_. What said he, when he came unto himself.

_Casca_. Marry, before he fell down, when he perceived the _common herd_ was glad when he refused the crown, he plucked me ope his doublet, and offered them his throat to cut.--An I had been a man of any occupation, if I would not have taken him at a word; I would I might go to h.e.l.l among the rogues: and so he fell. When he came to himself again, he said, if he had done or said anything amiss, he desired their worships to think it was _his infirmity_. Three or four wenches, where I stood, cried, 'Alas, good soul!'--and forgave him with all their hearts: But there's no heed to be taken of them; _if Caesar had stabbed their mothers, they would have done no less_.

_Brutus_. And after that, he came thus sad away?

_Casca_. Ay.

_Ca.s.sius_. Did _Cicero say anything_?

_Casca_. Ay, _he spoke Greek_.

_Ca.s.sius_. To what effect?

_Casca_. _Nay, an I tell you that, I'll ne'er look you i' the face again. But those that understood him, smiled at one another, and shook their heads_: but for mine own part, it was _Greek to me_. I could tell you more news, too: Marullus and Flavius, for _pulling scarfs off Caesar's images, are put to silence_. Fare you well.

There was more foolery yet, if I could remember it.

Brutus says of Casca, when he is gone, 'He was quick mettle _when he went to school_'; and Ca.s.sius replies, '_So he is now_--however he puts on this _tardy form_. This rudeness is a sauce to his good wit, which gives men stomach _to digest_ his words with better appet.i.te.'

'_And so it_ is,' Brutus returns;--and so it is, indeed, as any one may perceive, who will take the pains to bestow upon these pa.s.sages the attention which the author's own criticism bespeaks for them.

To the ear of such an one, the roar of the blank verse of Ca.s.sius is still here, subdued, indeed, but continued, through all the humour of this comic prose.

But it is Brutus who must lend to the Poet the sanction of his name and popularity, when he would strike home at last to the heart of his subject. Brutus, however, is not yet fully won: and, in order to secure him, Ca.s.sius will this night throw in at his window, '_in several hands--as if they came from several citizens_--writings, in which, OBSCURELY, CAESAR'S AMBITION SHALL BE GLANCED AT.' And, 'After this,' he says,--

'Let Caesar seat him sure, For we will shake him, or worse days endure.'

But in the interval, that night of wild tragic splendour must come, with its thunder-bolts and showers of fire, and unnatural horror. For these elements have a true part to perform here, as in Lear and other plays; they come in, not merely as subsidiary to the 'artistic effect'--not merely because their wild t.i.tanic play forms an imposing harmonious accompaniment to the play of the human pa.s.sions and their 'wildness'--but as a grand scientific exhibition of the element which the Poet is pursuing under all its Protean forms--as a most palpable and effective exhibition to the sense of that identical thing against which he has raised his eternal standard of revolt, refusing to own, under any name, its mastery.

But one can hear, in that wild lurid night, in the streets of Rome, amid the cross blue lightnings, what could not have been whispered in the streets of England then, or spoken in the ear in closets.

_Cicero_. [Encountering Casca in the street, with his sword drawn.]

Good-even, Casca; brought you Caesar home?

Why are you breathless? and why stare you so?

_Casca_. Are _you_ not moved, _when all the sway of earth Shakes like a thing unfirm_? O Cicero, I have seen tempests, when the _scolding winds_ Have rived the _knotty oaks_; and I have seen The _ambitious ocean swell, and rage and foam_, To be exalted with the threatening clouds; But never till to-night, never till now, Did I go through a tempest dropping fire.

Either there is a _civil strife in heaven_; Or else the world, too saucy with the G.o.ds, Incenses them to send destruction.

But the night has had other spectacles, it seems, which, to his eye, appeared to have some relation to the coming struggle; in answer to Cicero's '_Why_, saw you anything more wonderful?' Thus he describes them.

'_A common slave,--you know him, well by sight_, Held up his _left hand_, which did flame and burn _Like twenty torches join'd.

Against the Capitol_ I met a lion, Who glared upon me, and went _surly by_.'

[And he had seen, 'drawn on a head,']