83. Line 128: the ELEMENT.-Often used for the heaven or sky; as by North (Life of Pompey): "the dust in the element," or the air. See also the quotation in note on line 15 above: "the fires in the element." Milton uses the word in the same sense in Comus, 298: "some gay creatures of the element" (spirits of the air).

84. Line 129: IN FAVOUR'S like, &c.-The Ff. read: Is Fauors, like the Worke we haue in hand.

The emendation is due to Johnson, and is generally adopted. Steevens suggested It favours, or Is favour'd; and Rowe, 1s feverous.

85. Line 136: our ATTEMPT.-The Ff. have "our Attempts," which some editors retain. The emendation is Walker's.

86. Line 144: Where Brutus may BUT find it.-The but is apparently equivalent to only (as not unfrequently), the meaning being "only taking care to place it so that Brutus may be sure to find it" (Craik). Abbott (Grammar, §128) gets at the same meaning by paraphrasing thus: "Where Brutus can (do nothing) but find it."

87. Line 146: Upon old Brutus' statue.-Compare North (Life of Brutus): "But for Brutus, his friends and countrymen, both by divers procurements and sundry rumours of the city, and by many bills also, did openly call and procure him to do that he did. For under the image of his ancestor Junius Brutus, (that drave the kings out of ROME) they wrote: '0, that it pleased the gods thou wert now alive, Brutus!' and again, that thou were here among us now! His tribunal or chair, where he gave audience during the time he was Prætor, was full of such bills: 'Brutus thou art asleep, and art not Brutus indeed'" (p. 112)

88. Line 152: Pompey's theatre.-This was the first stone theatre built in Rome, and could accommodate 40,000 spectators. It was opened in B.C. 55 with dramatic representations and gladiatorial shows lasting for many days.

ACT II. SCENE 1.

89. In the Ff. the heading of the scene is "Enter Brutus in his Orchard," that is, in his garden, the usual sense in which Shakespeare uses orchard (see As You Like It, note 6, and Much Ado, note 62). In iii. 2. 253 below, we have mention of "private arbours, and new-planted orchards," which are described in North's Plutarch as "gardens and arbours."

90. Line 10: It must be by his death.-Coleridge (p. 103) remarks here: "This speech is singular-at least, I do not at present see into Shakespeare's motive, his rationale, or in what point of view he meant Brutus's character to appear. For surely-(this, I mean, is what I say to myself, with my present quantum of insight, only modified by my experience in how many instances I have ripened into a perception of beauties where I had before descried faults)-surely nothing can seem more discordant with our historical preconceptions of Brutus, or more lowering to the intellect of the Stoico-Platonic tyrannicide, than the tenets here attributed to him-to him, the stern Roman republican; namely, that he would have no objection to

a king, or to Cæsar, a monarch in Rome, would Cæsar but be as good a monarch as he now seems disposed to be! How, too, could Brutus say that he found no personal cause-none in Cæsar's past conduct as a man? Had he not crossed the Rubicon? Had he not entered Rome as a conqueror? Had he not placed his Gauls in the Senate? Shakespeare, it may be said, has not brought these things forward. True-and this is just the ground of my perplexity. What character did Shakespeare mean his Brutus to be?" By personal cause Brutus clearly meant such as "concerned himself personally," as opposed to such as affected "the general," or the public weal. The acts to which Coleridge refers all come under the latter head.

Dowden (Primer, p. 117) well says: "Brutus acts as an idealizer and theorizer might, with no eye for the actual bearing of facts, and no sense of the true importance of persons. Intellectual doctrines and moral ideals rule the life of Brutus; and his life is most noble, high, and stainless, but his public action is a series of mistakes. Yet even while he errs we admire him, for all his errors are those of a pure and lofty spirit. . . . All the practical gifts, insight, and tact, which Brutus lacks, are possessed by Cassius; but of Brutus's moral purity, veneration of ideals, disinterestedness, and freedom from unworthy personal motive, Cassius possesses little."

91. Line 12: But for THE GENERAL.-This use of the general for the community or the people was common. Compare Measure for Measure, ii. 4. 27:

The general, subject to a well-wish'd king; and Hamlet, ii. 2. 457: “caviare to the general.”

92. Line 15: Crown him?-THAT.-The use of that, though clear enough (Be that so, suppose that), is exceptional. We do not know of any other instance of the word thus standing alone.

93. Line 24: the UPMOST round.-This is the only instance of upmost in Shakespeare; and uppermost he does not use at all.

94. Line 34: And kill him in the shell.-Craik (p. 150) remarks: "It is impossible not to feel the expressive force of the hemistich here. The line itself is, as it were, killed in the shell."

95. Line 40: the IDES of March.--The Ff. have "the first of March;" corrected by Theobald. [This is one of the instances where one is obliged to substitute what Shakespeare ought to have written for what he, most probably, did write. See the note of Mr. Aldis Wright in the Clarendon Press ed., where the passage from the Life of Brutus is quoted which led Shakespeare into the error.-F. A. M.]

96. Line 53: My ANCESTORS.-Dyce reads "My ancestor;" but the plural may well enough stand, and most editors retain it; though, strictly speaking, the singular number would be more correct, for there was only one of his ancestors of whom Brutus could have been thinking, and

that was Junius Brutus, the first consul, and the expeller of the Tarquins.

97. Line 59: March is wasted FIFTEEN days.—This is the early reading, but Theobald and the majority of modern editors change it to "fourteen days." The text is true to Roman usage, which in such cases counted the current day as complete. Thus in the New Testament, Christ says, "After three days I will rise again;" but the crucifixion was on Friday, and the resurrection early on Sunday morning.

98. Line 66: The GENIUS and the MORTAL instruments. -There has been much dispute over these words, but they probably mean nothing more than the mind or soul and the bodily powers through which it acts. Compare lines 175-177 below:

And let our hearts, as subtle masters do,
Stir up their servants to an act of rage,
And after seem to chide 'em.

According to Johnson, the poet "is describing the insurrection which a conspirator feels agitating the little kingdom of his own mind; when the genius, or power that watches for his protection, and the mortal instruments, the passions, which excite him to a deed of honour and danger, are in council and debate; when the desire of action, and the care of safety, keep the mind in continual fluctuation and disturbance" (Var. Ed. vol. x. p. 39). But though genius elsewhere in Shakespeare has this sense (as in The Comedy of Errors, v. 1. 332:

One of these men is Genius to the other, &c.),

it does not suit the present passage, especially when compared with the one quoted, in which hearts is clearly parallel to genius here.

[I must say that I cannot agree with this note. In the first place Shakespeare never uses genius in any other sense than in what may be called its spiritual sense, i.e. that of "a spirit, either good or evil, which governs our actions." Besides the passage in our text, and that given above from The Comedy of Errors, Shakespeare uses the word genius five times: in Twelfth Night, iii. 4. 142: "His very genius hath taken the infection of the device;" in Troilus and Cressida, iv. 4. 52, 53:

Hark! you are call'd: some say the Genius so
Cries "Come!" to him that instantly must die;

in Macbeth, iii. 1. 55-57:

and, under him,

My Genius is rebuk'd; as, it is said,
Mark Antony's was by Cæsar;

in The Tempest, iv. 1. 26, 27:

the strong'st suggestion

Our worser genius can;

and in II. Henry IV. iii. 2. 337, in the sense of the embodied spirit: "a' was the very genius of famine." The

only one of these passages, in which genius can have anything but the meaning which Johnson gives it, is the one from Twelfth Night; and, as that is in prose, it is difficult to believe that Shakespeare would have written genius had he meant simply spirit or soul. Perhaps the distinction may seem to some persons not of much importance, for the genius, whether good or bad, would act through the soul or spiritual part of the man; but I think it would be a pity to lose sight of the special meaning

here-a meaning which it appears always to have had in English literature, at least up to the middle of the seventeenth century-embodying, as it does, a belief which was a very characteristic one. As to the passage below (175-177), Mr. Adams follows Craik in regarding it as the parallel or complement of this; but I cannot see any positive connection between them. There is no distinction in the latter between the spiritual and bodily parts of men; the meaning simply is: "let our hearts (i.e. our feelings) stir us up to an act of rage which afterwards, in our calmer moments, they may seem to disapprove" (see note 110 below); while in the passage before us the struggle is represented as taking place, in one man's being, between the spirit that is supposed, more or less, to govern the actions, and the mortal part of him (including the will) which puts these actions into force. Mortal probably is used here in the sense of "deadly," as in Macbeth, L. 5. 42.-F. A. M.]

99. Line 67: the state of man.-F. 1 has "the state of a man;" corrected in F. 2. Knight and Craik, however, retain the a.

On the passage comp. Troilus and Cressida, ii. 3. 184-186: 'twixt his mental and his active parts

Kingdom'd Achilles in commotion rages,
And batters down himself.

100. Line 70: your brother Cassius.-Cassius had married Junia, the sister of Brutus.

101. Line 72: there are MOE with him.-This word moe occurs forty or more times in the early editions of Shakespeare, as in other books of the time. It was regularly used with a plural or collective noun. The only instance of the latter sort in Shakespeare is Tempest, v. 1. 234: "And moe diversity of sounds." The modern editions generally change the word to more, unless it is required for the rhyme, as in Much Ado, ii. 3. 72-75:

Sing no more ditties, sing no moe,

Of dumps so dull and heavy; The fraud of men was ever so,

Since summer first was leavy.

[The difficulty in deciding whether or not to retain such forms as moe is to know where to draw the line; for we may soon, without intending it, be logically committed to an old-spelling text. Skeat says that mo and more were originally "well-distinguished, the former relating to number, the latter to size."—F. A. M.]

102. Line 83: For, if thou PATH, thy native semblance on. This, except for the comma after path, is the reading of the Ff. Path is found as a transitive verb in Drayton, and its intransitive use (= walk) is not more peculiar than many other liberties of the kind in Shakespeare. It is possible, however, that it may be a misprint, and various emendations have been proposed. Southern and Coleridge independently suggested put, which Dyce adopts; but it seems a Hibernicism to speak of putting on one's natural appearance. Other conjectures are pass and hadst. Johnson well paraphrases the passage: "If thou walk in thy true form." [There is a verb in Sanskrit, path, panth, to go, which comes from the same root, pat, to go, as the Greek Taru, to tread, and our path. In the old slang word still used by thieves, to pad to go, we have an old cognate form of the verb.-F. A. M.]

103. Line 107: Which is a great way growing on the SOUTH, &c. That is, "which must be far to the south, considering the time of year." It is curious that no commentator has noted that on the 15th of March, or previous to the vernal equinox, the sun would not rise at all to the south of the true east, but a little northward of that point. [It should be noted that during this and the preceding speech the change from night to early dawn is supposed to take place; but, even in Italy, in the middle of March it would not be light at three o'clock in the morning.-F. A. M.]

104 Line 114: No, not an oath! &c.-Compare North (Life of Brutus): "the only name and great calling of Brutus did bring on the most of them to give consent to this conspiracy: who having never taken oaths together, nor taken or given any caution or assurance, nor binding themselves one to another by any religious oaths, they all kept the matter so secret to themselves, and could so cunningly handle it, that notwithstanding the gods did reveal it by manifest signs and tokens from above, and by predictions of sacrifices, yet all this would not be believed" (p. 114).

105. Line 114: the FACE of men.-This is the Ff. reading, and is retained by most of the recent editors. Warburton proposed fate for face, Mason faith, and Malone faiths.

106. Line 134: the INSUPPRESSIVE metal of our spirits. -The passive sense of insuppressive is paralleled by that of sundry other words in -ive. Compare unexpressive (inexpressible) in As You Like It, iii. 2. 10:

The fair, the chaste, and unexpressive she; uncomprehensive (incomprehensible or unknown) in Troilus and Cressida, iii. 3. 198: "th' uncomprehensive deeps;" &c.

107. Line 138: a several bastardy.-"A special or distinct act of baseness, or of treachery against ancestry and honourable birth" (Craik).

108. Lines 144, 145:

his SILVER hairs

Will PURCHASE us a good opinion. Cicero was then about sixty years old. There is a play upon silter and purchase.

109. Line 150: let us not break with him.- Compare North (Life of Brutus): "For this cause they durst not acquaint Cicero with their conspiracy, although he was a man whom they loved dearly, and trusted best; for they were afraid that he being a coward by nature, and age also having increased his fear, he would quite turn and alter all their purpose, and quench the heat of their enterprise, (the which specially required hot and earnest execution)" (p. 114).

110 Lines 170-180.-One part of this passage has been already alluded to in note 98 above. The point of what Brutus says, when we look at it in its entirety, is evident. He is advising a course of deliberate hypocrisy; the conspirators are to try and entrap the sympathies of the people by committing the murder with all due delicacy and decorum, and then pretending to regret it. This is very characteristic advice, and shows that Brutus was

quite fit to be the leader of a political party which claimed to be the "popular" one. But it appears that all the great actors who played the part of Brutus, and, naturally enough, sought to make him a sympathetic character, have always omitted this passage on the stage; as well they might, considering their object.-F. A. M.

111. Line 183: Yet I fear him.-Pope, whom Craik follows, reads "Yet I do fear him."

112. Line 187: take thought and die.-Both think and thought are used in this sense. Compare Antony and Cleopatra, iii. 13. 1:

Cleo. What shall we do, Enobarbus?
Eno.

Think, and die. See also I. Samuel ix. 5, and Matthew vi. 25. Bacon (Henry VII. p. 230) says that Hawis "dyed with thought" (anxiety).

113. Line 192: count the clock.-A palpable anachronism, as the Roman clepsydra, or water-clocks, had no mechanism for striking the hours.

114. Lines 204, 205:

That unicorns may be betray'd with trees, And bears with glasses, elephants with holes. Steevens says: "Unicorns are said to have been taken by one who, running behind a tree, eluded the violent push the animal was making at him, so that his horn spent its force on the trunk, and stuck fast, detaining the beast till he was despatched by the hunter" (Var. Ed. vol. xii. pp. 50, 51). Compare Spenser, Faery Queene, ii. 5. 10: Like as a Lyon, whose imperiall powre A prowd rebellious Unicorn defyes, T'avoide the rash assault and wrathful stowre Of his fiers foe, him to a tree applyes, And when him ronning in full course he spyes,

He slips aside; the whiles that furious beast His precious horne, sought of his enimyes, Strikes in the stocke, ne thence can be releast, But to the mighty victor yields a bounteous feast. There is a similar allusion in Timon of Athens, iv. 3. 339: "wert thou the unicorn, pride and wrath would confound thee and make thine own self the conquest of thy wrath."

Steevens adds (ut supra, p. 51): "Bears are reported to have been surprised by means of a mirror, which they would gaze on, affording their pursuers an opportunity of taking a surer aim. This circumstance, I think, is mentioned by Claudian. Elephants were seduced into pitfalls, lightly covered with hurdles and turf, on which a proper bait to tempt them was exposed. See Pliny's Natural History, book viii."

115. Line 215: Caius Ligarius doth bear Cæsar hard.— His real name was Quintus, but the mistake is in North. Compare the Life of Brutus: "Now amongst Pompey's friends, there was one called Caius Ligarius, who had been accused unto Cæsar for taking part with Pompey, and Cæsar discharged him. But Ligarius thanked not Cæsar so much for his discharge, as he was offended with him for that he was brought in danger by his tyrannical power. And, therefore, in his heart he was always his mortal enemy, and was besides very familiar with Brutus, who went to see him being sick in his bed, and said unto

him: Ligarius in what a time art thou sick!' Ligarius rising up in his bed, and taking him by the right hand, said unto him: 'Brutus,' said he, 'if thou hast any great enterprise in hand worthy of thyself, I am whole'" ' (p. 113).

116. Line 219: I have given him REASONS.-Dyce adopts Walker's suggestion of reason; but no change is called for.

117. Line 225: Let not our looks put on our purposes.— That is, "such expression as would betray our purposes." Craik compares the exhortation of Lady Macbeth to her husband (i. 5. 64-67):

To beguile the time,

Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,

Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under 't.

See also Macbeth, i. 7. 81, 82:

Away, and mock the time with fairest show:

False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

118. Line 230: the HONEY-HEAVY DEW of slumber.—The Ff. reading is: "the hony-heauy-Dew of slumber." This, with the slight change in the text, is retained by Knight and the Cambridge editors. It is aptly explained by Grant White as "slumber as refreshing as dew, and whose heaviness is sweet." Dyce reads, "the heavy honey-dew of slumber."

119. Line 233: Enter PORTIA-Compare North (Life of Brutus): "Now Brutus, who knew very well that for his sake all the noblest, valiantest, and most courageous men of ROME did venture their lives, weighing with himself the greatness of the danger: when he was out of his house, he did so frame and fashion his countenance and looks that no man could discern he had anything to trouble his mind. But when night came that he was in his own house, then he was clean changed: for either care did wake him against his will when he would have slept, or else oftentimes of himself he fell into such deep thoughts of this enterprise, casting in his mind all the dangers that might happen: that his wife lying by him, found that there was some marvellous great matter that troubled his mind, not being wont to be in that taking, and that he could not well determine with himself. . . This young lady being excellently well seen in philosophy, loving her husband well, and being of a noble courage, as she was also wise: because she would not ask her husband what he ailed before she had made some proof by herself: she took a little razor, such as barbers occupy to pare men's nails, and causing her maids and women to go out of her chamber gave herself a great gash withal in her thigh, that she was straight all of a gore blood and incontinently after a vehement fever took her, by reason of the pain of her wound. Then perceiving her husband was marvellously out of quiet, and that he could take no rest, even in her greatest pain of all she spake in this sort unto him: 'I being, O Brutus,' said she, 'the daughter of Cato, was married unto thee; not to be thy bed-fellow, and companion in bed and at board only, like a harlot, but to be partaker also with thee of thy good and evil fortune. Now for thy self, I can find no cause of fault in thee touching our match: but for my part, how may I shew my duty towards thee,

and how much I would do for thy sake, if I cannot constantly bear a secret mischance or grief with thee, which requireth secrecy and fidelity? I confess, that a woman's wit commonly is too weak to keep a secret safely: but yet Brutus good education, and the company of virtuous men have some power to reform the defect of nature. And for myself, I have this benefit moreover, that I am the daughter of Cato, and wife of Brutus. This notwithstanding, I did not trust to any of these things before, until that now I have found by experience that no pain or grief whatsoever can overcome me.' With those words she shewed him her wound on her thigh, and told him what she had done to prove herself. Brutus was amazed to hear what she said unto him, and lifting up his hands to heaven, he besought the gods to give him the grace he might bring his enterprise to so good pass, that he might be found a husband, worthy of so noble a wife as Porcia: so he then did comfort her the best he could” (pp. 115, 116).

120. Line 246: an angry WAFTURE of your hand.—The Ff. have wafter, which probably indicates the current pronunciation of the word.

121. Line 261: Is Brutus sick?-This old English use of sick is still current in America. Grant White says here: "For sick, the correct English adjective to express all degrees of suffering from disease, and which is universally used in the Bible and by Shakespeare, the Englishman of Great Britain has poorly substituted the adverb ill.'

122. Line 271: I CHARM you-"I conjure you;" as in Lucrece, 1681, 1682:

And for my sake, when I might charm thee so,
For she that was thy Lucrece, now attend me.
Pope needlessly changed charm to the prosaic charge.
123. Lines 289, 290:

As dear to me as are the ruddy drops

That visit my sad heart.

Some commentators regard this as an anticipation of Harvey's discovery; but the general fact of the circulation of the blood was known centuries before his day, though the details of the process were not understood. Gray has imitated the passage in The Bard, 41:

Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart. 124. Line 308: All the CHARACTERY of my sad brows.— For charáctery compare Merry Wives of Windsor, v. 5. 77: Fairies use flowers for their charáctery.

It will be observed that the word is accented as here.

125. Line 315: To wear a KERCHIEF.-The word kerchief (French, couvrir, to cover, and chef, head) is here used in its original meaning of a covering for the head. As Malone notes, Shakespeare gives to Rome the manners of his own time, it being a common practice in England for sick people to wear a kerchief on their heads. Compare Fuller's Worthies: "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 God be merciful to him."

126. Line 323: like an EXORCIST. See II. Henry VI. note 89.

ACT II. SCENE 2.

127. Line 2: Thrice hath Calpurnia in her sleep cried out, &c. Compare North (Life of Cæsar): "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, and that she had him in her armes. Insomuch that Cæsar 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 Cæsar likewise did fear or suspect somewhat, because his wife Calpurnia until that time was never given to any fear and superstition: 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 them: then he determined to send Antonius to adjourn the session of the Senate. But in the mean time came Decius Brutus, surnamed Albinus, in whom Cæsar put such confidence, that in his last will and testament he had appointed him to be his next heir, and yet was of the conspiracy with Cassius and Brutus: he, fearing that if Cæsar did adjourn the session that day, the conspiracy would be betrayed, laughed at the soothsayers, and reproved Casar, saying, that he gave the Senate occasion to mislike with him, and that they might think he mocked them, considering that by his commandment they were assembled, and that they were ready willingly to grant him all things, and to proclaim him king of all his provinces of the Empire of ROME out of ITALY, and that he should wear his diadem in all other places both by sea and land. And furthermore, that if any man should tell them from him they should depart for that present time, and return again when Calpurnia should have better dreams, what would his enemies and ill-willers say, and how could they like of his friends' words?'" (pp. 98, 99).

128. Line 19: FOUGHT upon the clouds.-The Ff. have fight, which Knight and Craik retain. The emendation is due to Dyce.

129. Line 23: Horses DID neigh.-Here the 1st Folio has "Horsses do neigh," which F. 2 corrects.

130. Line 24: And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets.-Compare Hamlet, i. 1. 113-120:

In the most high and palmy state of Rome,

A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,

The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets:
As, stars with trains of fire, and dews of blood,

Disasters in the sun; and the moist star,
Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands,
Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.

131. Line 46: We ARE two lions litter'd in one day. -The Ff. reading is, "We heare," &c. Upton's correction is generally adopted by the editors. Theobald proposed "We were."

132. Line 67: To be AFEARD to tell greybeards the truth. -See Midsummer Night's Dream, note 148.

VOL. V.

133. Line 72: That Is enough to satisfy the senate; i.e. "That should be enough, as I look at it, or as I choose to admit."

134. Line 76: my statua.-Here the Ff. have statue, as in iii. 2. 192 below:

Euen at the Base of Pompeyes Statue;

but the editors, with few exceptions, substitute statua, which was common both in poetry and prose in Elizabethan writers. See II. Henry VI. note 189.

135. Lines 79-81:

And these

Does she apply for warnings and portents
OF evils imminent.

We have printed this passage as in Dyce. In Ff. lines 79 and 80 are printed as one line, making an Alexandrine in a very awkward portion of the speech. Ff. read "And Evils imminent." Hanmer first substituted the obvious correction Of. There can be little doubt that And was a repetition by the printer in mistake from the line above.

-F. A. M.

136. Line 89: For TINCTURES, STAINS, relics, and cognizance.-"Tinctures and stains are understood both by Malone and Steevens as carrying an allusion to the practice of persons dipping their handkerchiefs in the blood of those whom they regarded as martyrs. And it must be confessed that the general strain of the passage, and more especially the expression 'shall press for tinctures,' &c., will not easily allow us to reject this interpretation. Yet does it not make the speaker assign to Cæsar by implication the very kind of death Calphurnia's apprehension of which he professes to regard as visionary? The pressing for tinctures and stains, it is true, would be a confutation of so much of Calphurnia's dreain as seemed to imply that the Roman people would be delighted with his death Many lusty Romans

Came smiling, and did bathe their hands in it.

Do we refine too much in supposing that this inconsistency between the purpose and the language of Decius is intended by the poet, and that in this brief dialogue between him and Cæsar, in which the latter suffers himself to be so easily won over-persuaded and relieved by the very words that ought naturally to have confirmed his fears-we are to feel the presence of an unseen power driving on both the unconscious prophet and the blinded victim?" (Craik).