The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar Part 18

Ca.s.sIUS. Yes, every man of them; and no man here 90 But honours you; and every one doth wish You had but that opinion of yourself Which every n.o.ble Roman bears of you.

This is Trebonius.

BRUTUS. He is welcome hither.

Ca.s.sIUS. This, Decius Brutus.

BRUTUS. He is welcome too. 95

Ca.s.sIUS. This, Casca; this, Cinna; and this, Metellus Cimber.

[Note 86: Scene II Pope.]

[Note 95: /Decius Brutus./ See notes, Dramatis Personae, and p.

40, l. 148.]

[Page 50]

BRUTUS. They are all welcome.

What watchful cares do interpose themselves Betwixt your eyes and night? 99

Ca.s.sIUS. Shall I entreat a word? [_They whisper_]

DECIUS. Here lies the east: doth not the day break here?

CASCA. No.

CINNA. O, pardon, sir, it doth; and yon gray lines That fret the clouds are messengers of day.

CASCA. You shall confess that you are both deceiv'd. 105 Here, as I point my sword, the sun arises, Which is a great way growing on the south, Weighing the youthful season of the year.

Some two months hence up higher toward the north He first presents his fire, and the high east 110 Stands, as the Capitol, directly here.

BRUTUS. Give me your hands all over, one by one.

Ca.s.sIUS. And let us swear our resolution.

[Note 101-111: This little side-talk on a theme so different from the main one of the scene, is finely conceived, and aptly marks the men as seeking to divert anxious thoughts of the moment by any casual chat. It also serves the double purpose of showing that they are not listening, and of preventing suspicion if any were listening to them. In itself it is thoroughly Shakespearian; and the description of the dawn-light flecking the clouds takes high place among Shakespeare's great sky pictures.]

[Note 104: /fret:/ "mark with interlacing lines like fretwork."--Clar. There are two distinct verbs spelled 'fret,'

one meaning 'to eat away,' the other 'to ornament.' See Skeat.

In _Hamlet_, II, ii, 313, we have "this majestical roof fretted with golden fire."]

[Note 107: /growing on:/ encroaching upon, tending towards.]

[Note 108: /Weighing:/ if you take into consideration.]

[Note 110: /high:/ full, perfect. Cf. 'high day,' 'high noon,'

etc.]

[Note 112: /all over:/ one after the other until all have been included.]

[Page 51-52]

BRUTUS. No, not an oath: if not the face of men, The sufferance of our souls, the time's abuse,-- 115 If these be motives weak, break off betimes, And every man hence to his idle bed; So let high-sighted tyranny range on, Till each man drop by lottery. But if these, As I am sure they do, bear fire enough 120 To kindle cowards and to steel with valour The melting spirits of women, then, countrymen, What need we any spur but our own cause To p.r.i.c.k us to redress? what other bond Than secret Romans, that have spoke the word, 125 And will not palter? and what other oath Than honesty to honesty engag'd, That this shall be, or we will fall for it?

Swear priests and cowards and men cautelous, Old feeble carrions and such suffering souls 130 That welcome wrongs; unto bad causes swear Such creatures as men doubt; but do not stain The even virtue of our enterprise, Nor th' insuppressive mettle of our spirits, To think that or our cause or our performance 135 Did need an oath; when every drop of blood That every Roman bears, and n.o.bly bears, Is guilty of a several b.a.s.t.a.r.dy, If he do break the smallest particle Of any promise that hath pa.s.s'd from him. 140

Ca.s.sIUS. But what of Cicero? shall we sound him?

I think he will stand very strong with us.

[Note 114: /No, not an oath./ This is based on Plutarch's statement in _Marcus Brutus:_ "Furthermore, 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 a.s.surance, 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 G.o.ds did reveal it by manifest signs and tokens from above, and by predictions of sacrifices, yet all this would not be believed."--/if not the face of men./ This means, probably, the shame and self-reproach with which Romans must now look each other in the face under the consciousness of having fallen away from the republican spirit of their forefathers. The change in the construction of the sentence gives it a more colloquial cast, without causing any real obscurity. Modern editors have offered strange subst.i.tutes for 'face' here,--'faith,'

'faiths,' 'fate,' 'fears,' 'yoke,' etc.]

[Note 115: /sufferance:/ suffering. So in _Measure for Measure_, III, i, 80; _Coriola.n.u.s_, I, i, 22. In I, iii, 84, 'sufferance' is used in its ordinary modern sense.--/the time's abuse:/ the miserable condition of things in the present. Such 'time's abuse' in his own day Shakespeare describes in detail in _Sonnets_, LXVI.]

[Note 118-119: Brutus seems to have in mind the capriciousness of a high-looking and heaven-daring Oriental tyranny, where men's lives hung upon the nod and whim of the tyrant, as on the hazards of a lottery.]

[Note 123: /What need we:/ why need we. So in _Antony and Cleopatra_, V, ii, 317; _t.i.tus Andronicus_, I, i, 189. Cf.

_Mark_, xiv, 63.]

[Note 125: /secret Romans:/ Romans who had promised secrecy.]

[Note 126: /palter:/ equivocate, quibble. The idea is of shuffling as in making a promise with what is called a "mental reservation." "Palter with us in a double sense" is the famous expression in _Macbeth_, V, viii, 20, and it brings out clearly the meaning implicit in the term.]

[Note 129: /cautelous:/ deceitful. The original meaning is 'wary,' 'circ.u.mspect.' It is the older English adjective for 'cautious.' "The transition from caution to suspicion, and from suspicion to craft and deceit, is not very abrupt."--Clar. Cf. 'cautel' in _Hamlet_, I, iii, 5.]

[Note 130: /carrions:/ carca.s.ses, men as good as dead.]

[Note 133: /The even virtue:/ the virtue that holds an equable and uniform tenor, always keeping the same high level. Cf.

_Henry VIII_, III, i, 37.]

[Note 134: /insuppressive:/ not to be suppressed. The active form with the pa.s.sive sense. Cf. 'unexpressive,' in _As You Like It_, III, ii, 10.]

[Note 135: /To think:/ by thinking. The infinitive used gerundively.]

[Page 53]

CASCA. Let us not leave him out.

CINNA. No, by no means.

METELLUS. O, let us have him, for his silver hairs Will purchase us a good opinion, 145 And buy men's voices to commend our deeds: It shall be said, his judgment rul'd our hands; Our youths and wildness shall no whit appear, But all be buried in his gravity.

BRUTUS. O, name him not; let us not break with him, For he will never follow any thing 151 That other men begin.

Ca.s.sIUS. Then leave him out.

CASCA. Indeed he is not fit.

DECIUS. Shall no man else be touch'd but only Caesar?