Julius Caesar

METELLUS CIMBER. Is there no voice more worthy than my own To sound more sweetly in great Cæsar’s ear

For the repealing219 of my banish’d brother? BRUTUS. I kiss thy hand, but not in flattery, Cæsar;

Desiring thee that Publius Cimber may Have an immediate freedom of repeal.

CÆSAR. What, Brutus!

CASSIUS. Pardon, Cæsar; Cæsar, pardon: As low as to thy foot doth Cassius fall,

To beg enfranchisement for Publius Cimber. CASSIUS. I could be well moved, if I were as you:

If I could pray to move, prayers would move me:220 But I am constant as the northern star,

Of whose true-fix’d and resting quality There is no fellow in the firmament.

The skies are painted with unnumber’d sparks, They are all fire and every one doth shine, But there’s but one in all doth hold his place: So in the world; ’tis furnish’d well with men,

And men are flesh and blood, and apprehensive;221 Yet in the number I do know but one

That unassailable holds on his rank, Unshaked of motion:222 and that I am he, Let me a little show it, even in this;

That I was constant Cimber should be banish’d, And constant do remain to keep him so.223

CINNA. O Cæsar,—

CÆSAR. Hence! Wilt thou lift up Olympus? DECIUS BRUTUS. Great Cæsar,— CÆSAR. Doth not Brutus bootless kneel? CASCA. Speak, hands for me!

219To repeal from banishment is, in old English, to recall by repealing the sentence.

220“If I could seek to move others by prayers, then I were capable of being myself moved by the prayers of others.”

221Apprehensive is intelligent, capable of apprehending.

222“Unshaked of motion” is simply unmoved, or not subject to motion. Undisturbed by the motion of others. As all readers of the Bible know, of was continually used, with passive verbs, to denote the agent.

223All through this scene, Cæsar is made to speak quite out of character, and in a strain of hateful arrogance, in order, apparently, to soften the enormity of his murder, and to grind the daggers of the assassins to a sharper point. Perhaps, also, it is a part of the irony which so marks this play, to put the haughtiest words in Cæsar’s mouth just before his fall.

[CASCA stabs CÆSAR in the neck. CÆSAR catches hold of his arm. He is then stabbed by several other Conspirators, and last by MARCUS BRUTUS]

CÆSAR. Et tu, Brute?224—Then fall, Cæsar!225

[Dies. The SENATORS and PEOPLE retire in confusion.]

CINNA. Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead! Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets.

CASSIUS. Some to the common pulpits, and cry out

Liberty, freedom, and enfranchisement!226

BRUTUS. People and senators, be not affrighted; Fly not; stand stiff: ambition’s debt is paid.

CASCA. Go to the pulpit, Brutus. DECIUS BRUTUS. And Cassius too. BRUTUS. Where’s Publius?

CINNA. Here, quite confounded with this mutiny.

METELLUS CIMBER. Stand fast together, lest some friend of Cæsar’s Should chance—

BRUTUS. Talk not of standing. Publius, good cheer; There is no harm intended to your person,

Nor to no Roman else: so tell them, Publius. CASSIUS. And leave us, Publius; lest that the people,

Rushing on us, should do your age some mischief. BRUTUS. Do so;—and let no man abide227 this deed,

224There is no classical authority for putting these words into the mouth of Cæsar; and the English equivalent, Thou too, Brutus, sounds so much better, that it seems a pity the Poet did not write so. Cæsar had been as a father to Brutus, who was fifteen years his junior; and the Greek, Kai su teknon, “You too, my son,” which Dion and Suetonius put into his mouth, though probably unauthentic, is good enough to be true.

225Then Cimber with both his hands plucked Cæsar’s gown over his shoulders, and Casca, that stood behind him, drew his dagger first and struck Cæsar upon the shoulder, but gave him no great wound. Cæsar, feeling himself hurt, took him straight by the hand he held his dagger in, and cried out in Latin: “O traitor Casca, what doest thou?” Casca on the other side cried in Greek, and called his brother to help him. So divers running on a heap together to fly upon Cæsar, he, looking about him to have fled, saw Brutus with a sword drawn in his hand ready to strike at him: then he let Casca’s hand go, and, casting his gown over his face, suffered every man to strike at him that would. Then the conspirators thronging one upon another, because every man was desirous to have a cut at him, so many swords and daggers lighting upon one body, one of them hurt another, and among them Brutus caught a blow on his hand, because he would make one in murdering of him, and all the rest also were every man of them bloodied.—PLUTARCH.

226This is somewhat in the style of Caliban, when he gets glorious with “celestial liquor,” The Tempest, ii. 2: “Freedom, hey-day! hey-day, freedom! freedom, hey-day, freedom!”

227To abide a thing is to be responsible for it, to bear the consequences.

But we the doers.

[Re-enter TREBONIUS.]

CASSIUS. Where is Antony? TREBONIUS. Fled to his house amazed:

Men, wives and children stare, cry out and run As it were doomsday.

BRUTUS. Fates, we will know your pleasures: That we shall die, we know; ’tis but the time And drawing days out, that men stand upon.228

CASSIUS. Why, he that cuts off twenty years of life Cuts off so many years of fearing death.

BRUTUS. Grant that, and then is death a benefit: So are we Cæsar’s friends, that have abridged

His time of fearing death. Stoop, Romans, stoop, And let us bathe our hands in Cæsar’s blood

Up to the elbows, and besmear our swords: Then walk we forth, even to the market-place, And, waving our red weapons o’er our heads, Let’s all cry Peace, freedom and liberty!

CASSIUS. Stoop, then, and wash. How many ages hence Shall this our lofty scene be acted over

In states unborn and accents yet unknown! BRUTUS. How many times shall Cæsar bleed in sport,

That now on Pompey’s basis lies along229 No worthier than the dust!

CASSIUS. So oft as that shall be,

So often shall the knot of us be call’d The men that gave their country liberty.230

DECIUS BRUTUS. What, shall we forth? CASSIUS. Ay, every man away:

Brutus shall lead; and we will grace his heels With the most boldest231 and best hearts of Rome.

228“We all know that we are to die some time; and how long we can draw out our life, is the only thing we concern ourselves about.”

229So it was in fact: Cæsar fell at the pedestal of Pompey’s statue; the statue itself dripping with the blood that spurted from him.

230These three speeches, vain-gloriously anticipating the stage celebrity of the deed, are very strange; and, unless there be a shrewd irony lurking in them, I am at a loss to understand the purpose of them. Their effect on my mind has long been to give a very ambitious air to the work of these patriots, and to cast a highly theatrical colour on their alleged virtue.

231This doubling of superlatives, as also of comparatives, and of negatives, was common in the Poet’s time. So, in The Acts, xxvi. 5, St. Paul says, “after the most straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee.”

[Enter a SERVANT.]

BRUTUS. Soft! Who comes here? A friend of Antony’s. SERVANT. Thus, Brutus, did my master bid me kneel:

Thus did Mark Antony bid me fall down; And, being prostrate, thus he bade me say: Brutus is noble, wise, valiant, and honest; Cæsar was mighty, bold, royal, and loving: Say I love Brutus, and I honour him;

Say I fear’d Cæsar, honour’d him and loved him. If Brutus will vouchsafe that Antony

May safely come to him, and be resolved232 How Cæsar hath deserved to lie in death, Mark Antony shall not love Cæsar dead So well as Brutus living; but will follow The fortunes and affairs of noble Brutus Thorough233 the hazards of this untrod state

With all true faith. So says my master Antony. BRUTUS. Thy master is a wise and valiant Roman;

I never thought him worse.

Tell him, so please him come unto this place, He shall be satisfied; and, by my honour, Depart untouch’d.

SERVANT. I’ll fetch him presently. [Exit.]

BRUTUS. I know that we shall have him well to friend. CASSIUS. I wish we may: but yet have I a mind

That fears him much; and my misgiving still Falls shrewdly to the purpose.

BRUTUS. But here comes Antony.

[Re-enter ANTONY.]

Welcome, Mark Antony.

ANTONY. O mighty Cæsar! Dost thou lie so low?

Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils,

Shrunk to this little measure? Fare thee well.

I know not, gentlemen, what you intend,

Who else must be let blood, who else is rank:234

232Informed, assured, satisfied are among the old senses of resolved.

233Shakespeare uses through or thorough indifferently, as suits his verse. The two are in fact but different forms of the same word.

234“Must be let blood” is a mere euphemism for “must be put to death.”—“Who else is rank” means “who else has too much blood in him.” And the idea is of one who has overtopped his equals, and grown too high for the public safety.

If I myself, there is no hour so fit

As Cæsar’s death hour, nor no instrument

Of half that worth as those your swords, made rich With the most noble blood of all this world.

I do beseech ye, if you bear me hard,

Now, whilst your purpled hands do reek and smoke, Fulfil your pleasure. Live a thousand years,235

I shall not find myself so apt to die:

No place will please me so, no mean of death, As here by Cæsar, and by236 you cut off,

The choice and master spirits of this age. BRUTUS. O Antony, beg not your death of us.

Though now we must appear bloody and cruel, As, by our hands and this our present act,

You see we do, yet see you but our hands And this the bleeding business they have done: Our hearts you see not; they are pitiful;

And pity to the general wrong of Rome— As fire drives out fire,237 so pity pity— Hath done this deed on Cæsar. For your part,

To you our swords have leaden points, Mark Antony: Our arms, in strength of malice, and our hearts

Of brothers’ temper, do receive you in

With all kind love, good thoughts, and reverence.

CASSIUS. Your voice shall be as strong as any man’s In the disposing of new dignities.238

BRUTUS. Only be patient till we have appeased The multitude, beside themselves with fear, And then we will deliver you the cause,

Why I, that did love Cæsar when I struck him, Have thus proceeded.

ANTONY. I doubt not of your wisdom.

Let each man render me his bloody hand:

235That is, “if I live,” or “should I live, a thousand years.”

236By is here used in two senses; first, in the sense of near, or as a sign of place;

second, to denote agency, as usual.

237Shakespeare uses fire as one or two syllables indifferently, to suit his metre. Here the first fire is two syllables, the second one.—The allusion is to the old way of salving a burn by holding it up to the fire. So in Romeo and Juliet, i. 2: “Tut, man, one fire burns out another’s burning; one pain is lessen’d by another’s anguish.”

238This little speech is snugly characteristic. Brutus has been talking about “our hearts,” and “kind love, good thoughts, and reverence.” To Cassius, all that is mere rosewater humbug, and he knows it is so to Antony too. He therefore hastens to put in such motives as he knows will have weight with Antony, as they also have with himself. And it is somewhat remarkable that several of these patriots, especially Cassius, the two Brutuses, and Trebonius, afterwards accepted the governorship of fat provinces for which they had been prospectively named by Cæsar.

First, Marcus Brutus, will I shake with you;— Next, Caius Cassius, do I take your hand;—

Now, Decius Brutus, yours;—now yours, Metellus;— Yours, Cinna; and, my valiant Casca, yours;

Though last, not last in love, yours, good Trebonius. Gentlemen all,—alas, what shall I say?

My credit now stands on such slippery ground, That one of two bad ways you must conceit me,239

Either a coward or a flatterer.—

That I did love thee, Cæsar, O, ’tis true: If then thy spirit look upon us now,

Shall it not grieve thee dearer240 than thy death, To see thy Anthony making his peace, Shaking the bloody fingers of thy foes,— Most noble!—In the presence of thy corpse? Had I as many eyes as thou hast wounds, Weeping as fast as they stream forth thy blood, It would become me better than to close

In terms of friendship with thine enemies.

Pardon me, Julius! Here wast thou bay’d,241 brave hart; Here didst thou fall; and here thy hunters stand, Sign’d in thy spoil, and crimson’d in thy lethe.

O world, thou wast the forest to this hart; And this, indeed, O world, the heart of thee. How like a deer, tricken by many princes, Dost thou here lie!

CASSIUS. Mark Antony,— ANTONY. Pardon me, Caius Cassius:

The enemies of Cæsar shall say this; Then, in a friend, it is cold modesty.242

CASSIUS. I blame you not for praising Cæsar so; But what compact mean you to have with us? Will you be prick’d243 in number of our friends; Or shall we on, and not depend on you?

ANTONY. Therefore244 I took your hands, but was, indeed, Sway’d from the point, by looking down on Cæsar.

239Must conceive of me, or construe me. See page 39, note 133.

240Formerly dear might signify whatever moved any strong feeling, whether of pleasure or pain. The Poet has many instances of it used as here.

241Bay’d is brought to bay, and so barked at and worried, as a deer by hounds.

Shakespeare has the word often in that sense.

242Modesty in its original sense of moderation. Frequent.

243Prick’d is marked. The image is of a list of names written out, and some of them having holes pricked in the paper against them.

244Therefore is not the illative conjunction here; but means to that end, or for that

purpose.

ANTONY. O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, That I am meek and gentle with these butchers! Thou art the ruins of the noblest man

That ever lived in the tide of times.

Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood! Over thy wounds now do I prophesy,—

Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips, To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue— A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;246 Domestic fury and fierce civil strife

Shall cumber all the parts of Italy; Blood and destruction shall be so in use And dreadful objects so familiar

That mothers shall but smile when they behold Their infants quarter’d with the hands of war; All pity choked247 with custom of fell deeds:

And Cæsar’s spirit, ranging for revenge, With Até248 by his side come hot from hell,

Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice Cry Havoc! and let slip the dogs of war;249

That this foul deed shall smell above the earth With carrion men, groaning for burial.

[Enter a SERVANT.]

You serve Octavius Cæsar, do you not? SERVANT. I do, Mark Antony.

ANTONY. Cæsar did write for him to come to Rome. SERVANT. He did receive his letters, and is coming; And bid me say to you by word of mouth—

[Seeing the body.] O Cæsar!—

ANTONY. Thy heart is big, get thee apart and weep. Passion, I see, is catching; for mine eyes,

246By men Antony means not mankind in general; the scope of the curse being limited by the subsequent words, “the parts of Italy,” and “in these confines.”—Limbs is merely the figure of speech called Synecdoche, or the putting of a part of a thing for the whole.

247“All pity being choked.” Ablative absolute again.

248Até is the old goddess of discord and mischief. So, in Much Ado, ii. 1, Benedick

describes Beatrice as “the infernal Ate in good apparel.”

249 Havoc was anciently the word of signal for giving no quarter in a battle. It was a high crime for any one to give the signal without authority from the general-in-chief; hence the peculiar force of monarch’s voice.—To let slip a dog was a term of the chase, for releasing the hounds from the leash or slip of leather whereby they were held in hand till it was time to let them pursue the animal.—The dogs of war are fire, sword, and famine. So in King Henry V., first Chorus: “At his heels, leash’d in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire, crouch for employment.”

Seeing those beads of sorrow stand in thine, Began to water. Is thy master coming?

SERVANT. He lies to-night within seven leagues of Rome. ANTONY. Post back with speed, and tell him what hath chanced:

Here is a mourning Rome, a dangerous Rome, No Rome of safety for Octavius yet;

Hie hence, and tell him so. Yet, stay awhile; Thou shalt not back till I have borne this corpse Into the market-place: there shall I try

In my oration, how the people take The cruel issue of these bloody men;

According to the which, thou shalt discourse To young Octavius of the state of things.

Lend me your hand. [Exeunt with CÆSAR’s body.]

SCENE II.

The Same. The Forum.

[Enter BRUTUS and CASSIUS, and a throng of CITIZENS.]

CITIZENS. We will be satisfied; let us be satisfied. BRUTUS. Then follow me, and give me audience, friends.—

Cassius, go you into the other street, And part the numbers.—

Those that will hear me speak, let ’em stay here; Those that will follow Cassius, go with him; And public reasons shall be rendered

Of Cæsar’s death.

FIRST CITIZEN. I will hear Brutus speak.

SECOND CITIZEN. I will hear Cassius; and compare their reasons, When severally we hear them rendered.

[Exit CASSIUS, with some of the CITIZENS. BRUTUS goes into the rostrum.]

THIRD CITIZEN. The noble Brutus is ascended: silence! BRUTUS. Be patient till the last.

Romans, countrymen, and lovers!250 hear me for my cause, and be silent, that you may hear: believe me for mine honour, and have respect to mine honour, that you may believe: censure251 me in

250Lover and friend were used as synonymous in the Poet’s time. Brutus afterwards speaks of Cæsar as “my best lover.”

251Censure is here, as often, judge; probably used for the jingle it makes with

senses.

your wisdom, and awake your senses, that you may the better judge. If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Cæsar’s, to him I say, that Brutus’ love to Cæsar was no less than his. If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Cæsar, this is my answer:—Not that I loved Cæsar less, but that I loved Rome more. Had you rather Cæsar were living and die all slaves, than that Cæsar were dead, to live all free men? As Cæsar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honour him: but, as he was ambitious, I slew him. There is tears for his love; joy for his fortune; honour for his valour; and death for his ambition. Who is here so base that would be a bondman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so vile that will not love his country? If any, speak; for him have I offended. I pause for a reply.

ALL THE CITIZENS. None, Brutus, none.

BRUTUS. Then none have I offended. I have done no more to Cæsar than you shall do to Brutus. The question of his death is enrolled in the Capitol;252 his glory not extenuated, wherein he was worthy,253 nor his offences enforced, for which he suffered death.

[Enter ANTONY and others, with CÆSAR’s body.]

Here comes his body, mourned by Mark Antony: who, though he had no hand in his death, shall receive the benefit of his dying, a place in the commonwealth; as which of you shall not? With this I depart,—that, as I slew my best lover for the good of Rome, I have the same dagger for myself, when it shall please my country to need my death.254

ALL THE CITIZENS. Live, Brutus! live, live!

FIRST CITIZEN. Bring him with triumph home unto his house. SECOND CITIZEN. Give him a statue with his ancestors.

252The reason of his death is made a matter of solemn official record in the books of the Senate, as showing that the act of killing him was done for public ends, and not from private hate.

253His fame is not lessened or whittled down in those points wherein he was worthy.—Enforced is in antithesis to extenuated, meaning that his faults are not magnified or forced out of just measure.

254In this celebrated speech, which, to my taste, is far from being a model of style either for oratory or any thing else, the Poet seems to have aimed at imitating the manner actually ascribed to Brutus. So, in Plutarch: “They do note that, in some of his Epistles, he counterfeited that briefe compendious manner of speech of the Lacedæmonians.” And Shakespeare’s idea, as followed out in this speech, is sustained also by the Dialogus de Oratoribus, ascribed to Tacitus; wherein it is said that Brutus’ style of eloquence was censured as otiosum et disjunctum. For, as Verplanck remarks, “the disjunctum, the broken-up style, without oratorical continuity, is precisely that assumed by the dramatist.”