overlooked by a statue of Pompey. Polonius in Hamlet likewise assigns the scene of Caesar's death to the Capitol. Shakespeare may have derived the error from some preceding drama on the topic, but the misconception was a tradition in England since the time of Chaucer, who wrote in The Monkes Tale (713-716):

"This Julius to the Capitolie wente,

Upon a day as he was wont to go on,
And in the Capitolie anon him hente
This false Brutus and his othere foon."

Plutarch knows nothing of the Capitol in this connexion. But here Shakespeare paid tribute to a conventional error with eyes half-opened to the truth. While he misdescribes the Capitol as the meeting-place of the Senate on the fatal day, he rightly follows Plutarch in depicting Caesar's dead body as lying in the same scene at the base of Pompey's statue. That statue stood outside the region of the Capitol. The old mistake is thus given in a new and original perplexity.

All other errors in the piece are attributable to Shakespeare's study of North,- to an overscrupulous respect for North's words, even where they happen either to misread Amyot's French, or to repeat Amyot's misapprehension of the Greek. Shakespeare is perpetuating slips of North when he gives Decimus Brutus, Caesar's favourite and a distant cousin of the conspirator Marcus, the unauthorized prænomen of Decius. North, too, is responsible for Mark Antony's allocation, in the play, of the gardens which Caesar bequeathed to the people of Rome to this side of the Tiber, to the same

side as the Forum, where the crowded streets left no room for gardens. Plutarch had correctly placed the gardens across the river, on the opposite side to that where the Forum lay. Only one divergence from the facts of history needs any other explanation. Shakespeare, in making the triumvirs meet after Caesar's murder in Rome, instead of on an island on the river Reno near Bologna, as in Plutarch, made the alteration deliberately for the dramatic purpose of simplifying the scenic disposition of events. But such a conscious emendation of his authority stands almost alone.

It is Shakespeare's strict fidelity to Plutarch which largely distinguishes his mode of work in Julius Caesar from what preceded it. He takes none of those liberties with his authorities which were habitual to him when dramatising an Italian novel or even an English chronicle. He creates no new characters. He does not divert the course of events. Though his dependent method bears some resemblance to his procedure in the Englishhistory plays, he adheres far more closely to Plutarch's text than to the text of Holinshed. He appropriates more of Plutarch's phraseology as presented by North; his verbal modifications are on the whole slighter. He economises his powers with a greater frugality. Yet his dramatic instinct never sleeps. He chooses and rejects (he does not invent) incident as suits his dramatic purpose; invariably he imports into his borrowings the unerring dramatic touch, and with a magical facility he clothes the borrowed utterance or trait of character with dramatic significance. Although he knew nothing, save what he learnt from Plutarch's pages, of such

distinctively Roman ceremonies, as the feast of the Lupercalia or of Roman funeral rites, they are reproduced in his tragedy with the fidelity of life.

One cannot measure more graphically the affluence and vivifying power of Shakespeare's dramatic power than by placing side by side a few specimens of North's phraseology with Shakespeare's adaptation of them. Plutarch's pellucid and swiftly flowing language grows pale and heavy when it is contrasted with Shakespeare's conversion of it into the vivid terms of drama.

Take for example the account of the portents preceding Caesar's murder. Shakespeare transfers Plutarch's catalogue almost literally to Casca's mouth. Plutarch's words begin thus:

"Furthermore there was a slave of the soldiers that did cast a marvellous burning flame out of his hand, insomuch that they who saw it thought he had been burnt; but when the fire was out, it was found he had no hurt."

Shakespeare's transliteration opens thus:

"A common slave (you know him well by sight),
Held up his left hand, which did flame and burn
Like twenty torches join'd; and yet his hand,
Not sensible of fire, remain'd unscorch'd."

The initial dramatic touch "you know him well by sight" at once infects the narrative with the dramatic vivacity of which Plutarch gives no trace.

Again, Shakespeare appropriates from Plutarch's pages the whole story of the omen which shakes the nerve of Cassius "being in opinion an Epicurean" on

the eve of the battle of Philippi (V, i, 80-90). Cassius speaks to this effect:

"You know, that I held Epicurus strong,

And his opinion: now I change my mind
And partly credit things that do presage.
Coming from Sardis, on our former ensign
Two mighty eagles fell, and there they perched,
Gorging and feeding from our soldiers' hands
Who to Philippi here consorted us.

This morning are they fled away, and gone,
And in their steads, do ravens crows and kites
Fly o'er our heads, and downward look on us
As we were sickly prey; their shadows seem
A canopy most fatal, under which

Our Army lies, ready to give up the ghost."

Plutarch had put the situation thus (Vol. VI, 218– 219):

"When they raised their Camp, there came two Eagles that flying with a marvellous force, lighted upon two of the foremost Ensigns, and always followed the soldiers, which gave them meat and fed them, untill they came near to the city of Philippi; and there one day only before the battle, they both flew away. and yet further there was seen a marvellous number of fowls of prey, that feed upon dead carcases: . . . The which began somewhat to alter Cassius' mind from Epicurus' opinions."

...

No point is lacking from Plutarch's narrative, yet it sounds coldly before Shakespeare's magic breath has lent it warmth.

Elsewhere Shakespeare's modification of Plutarch's words are more energetic, but there is no violent deviation from their tenor. Plutarch's prosaic hint of Portia's

nervous agitation after Brutus has left her for the Senate House is interpreted by Shakespeare with a peculiarly dramatic vigour. Plutarch writes:

"Portia being very careful (i. e. anxious) and pensive for that which was to come, and being too weak to away with so great and inward grief of mind, she could hardly keep within, but was frighted with every little noise and cry she heard, as those that are taken and possessed with the fury of the Bacchantes; asking every man that came from the market place what Brutus did, and still sent messenger after messenger to know what news."

This passage reappears in Shakespeare's play (Act II, Sc. iv) thus:

"PORTIA. I prithee, boy, run to the senate-house;

Luc.

Stay not to answer me, but get thee gone;

Why dost thou stay?

To know thy errand, madam.
PORT. I would have had thee there, and here again,
Ere I can tell thee what thou should'st do there.

Luc.

Art thou here yet?

Madam, what should I do?
Run to the Capitol, and nothing else?
And so return to you, and nothing else?
PORT. Yes, bring me word, boy, if thy lord look well,
For he went sickly forth: and take good note
What Caesar doth, what suitors press to him.
Hark, boy! what noise is that?

Luc. I hear none, madam.

PORT.

Prithee, listen well.

I hear a bustling rumour, like a fray,
And the wind brings it from the Capitol.

Luc. Sooth, madam, I hear nothing."