The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar Part 39

POET. [_Within_] Nothing but death shall stay me.

_Enter_ Poet, _followed by_ LUCILIUS, t.i.tINIUS, _and_ LUCIUS

Ca.s.sIUS. How now! what's the matter?

POET. For shame, you generals! what do you mean? 130 Love, and be friends, as two such men should be; For I have seen more years, I'm sure, than ye.

Ca.s.sIUS. Ha, ha! how vilely doth this cynic rhyme!

[Note 123: _Enter a Poet_ Ff.]

[Note 124, 127, 128: [_Within_] Ff omit.]

[Note 129: _Enter_ Poet ... LUCIUS Camb Globe Enter Poet, followed by Lucilius and t.i.tinius Dyce Enter Poet Theobald Ff omit.]

[Note 133: /vilely/ F4 vildely F1 F2 vildly F3.--doth Ff does Capell.]

[Note 129-133: "One Marcus Phaonius, that ... took upon him to counterfeit a philosopher, not with wisdom and discretion, but with a certain bedlam and frantic motion; he would needs come into the chamber, though the men offered to keep him out. But it was no boot to let Phaonius, when a mad mood or toy took him in the head: for he was an hot hasty man, and sudden in all his doings, and cared for never a senator of them all.

Now, though he used this bold manner of speech after the profession of the Cynic philosophers, (as who would say, _Dogs_,) yet his boldness did no hurt many times, because they did but laugh at him to see him so mad. This Phaonius at that time, in spite of the door-keepers, came into the chamber, and with a certain scoffing and mocking gesture, which he counterfeited of purpose, he rehea.r.s.ed the verses which old Nestor said in Homer:

My lords, I pray you hearken both to me, For I have seen mo years than suchie three.

Ca.s.sius fell a-laughing at him; but Brutus thrust him out of the chamber, and called him dog, and counterfeit Cynic.

Howbeit his coming in brake their strife at that time, and so they left each other."--Plutarch, _Marcus Brutus_.]

[Page 132]

BRUTUS. Get you hence, sirrah; saucy fellow, hence!

Ca.s.sIUS. Bear with him, Brutus; 'tis his fas.h.i.+on. 135

BRUTUS. I'll know his humour, when he knows his time: What should the wars do with these jigging fools?

Companion, hence!

Ca.s.sIUS. Away, away, be gone! [_Exit_ Poet]

BRUTUS. Lucilius and t.i.tinius, bid the commanders Prepare to lodge their companies to-night. 140

Ca.s.sIUS. And come yourselves, and bring Messala with you Immediately to us. [_Exeunt_ LUCILIUS _and_ t.i.tINIUS]

BRUTUS. Lucius, a bowl of wine! [_Exit_ LUCIUS]

Ca.s.sIUS. I did not think you could have been so angry.

BRUTUS. O Ca.s.sius, I am sick of many griefs.

Ca.s.sIUS. Of your philosophy you make no use, 145 If you give place to accidental evils.

[Note 139: Scene IV Pope.--Enter Lucil. and t.i.tin. Rowe.]

[Note 142: [_Exeunt_ ...] Rowe Ff omit.--[_Exit_ Lucius]

Capell Ff omit.]

[Note 137: /jigging:/ moving rhythmically, rhyming. So in the Prologue to Marlowe's _Tamburlaine the Great_:

From jigging veins of rhyming mother wits, And such conceits as clownage keeps in pay.]

[Note 138: 'Companion' was often used contemptuously. Cf.

_Coriola.n.u.s_, IV, v, 14; V, ii, 65. Cf. the way 'fellow' is often used to-day.]

[Note 145: In his philosophy, Brutus was a mixture of the Stoic and the Platonist. What he says of Portia's death is among the best things in the play, and is in Shakespeare's n.o.blest style. Profound emotion expresses itself with reserve.

Deep grief loves not many words.]

[Page 133]

BRUTUS. No man bears sorrow better. Portia is dead.

Ca.s.sIUS. Ha! Portia!

BRUTUS. She is dead.

Ca.s.sIUS. How 'scaped I killing when I cross'd you so? 150 O insupportable and touching loss!

Upon what sickness?

BRUTUS. Impatient of my absence, And grief that young Octavius with Mark Antony Have made themselves so strong,--for with her death That tidings came,--with this she fell distract, 155 And, her attendants absent, swallow'd fire.

Ca.s.sIUS. And died so?

BRUTUS. Even so.

Ca.s.sIUS. O ye immortal G.o.ds!

[Note 152: Strict harmony of construction would require 'impatience' for 'impatient' here, or 'griev'd' for 'grief' in the next line. Shakespeare is not very particular in such niceties. Besides, the broken construction expresses dramatically the deep emotion of the speaker.]

[Note 155: /distract:/ distracted. So in _Hamlet_, IV, v, 2.

'Distraught' is the form in _Romeo and Juliet_, IV, iii, 49.

For the dropping of the terminal _-ed_ of the participle in verbs ending in _t_ or _te_, see Abbott, --342.]

[Note 156: It appears something uncertain whether Portia's death was before or after her husband's. Plutarch represents it as occurring before; but Merivale follows those who place it after. "For Portia, Brutus's wife, Nicolaus the philosopher and Valerius Maximus do write, that she determining to kill herself (her parents and friends carefully looking to her to keep her from it) took hot burning coals, and cast them into her mouth, and kept her mouth so close that she choked herself. There was a letter of Brutus found, written to his friends, complaining of their negligence, that, his wife being sick, they would not help her, but suffered her to kill herself, choosing to die rather than to languish in pain."--Plutarch, _Marcus Brutus_.]

[Page 134]

_Re-enter_ LUCIUS, _with wine and taper_

BRUTUS. Speak no more of her. Give me a bowl of wine.

In this I bury all unkindness, Ca.s.sius. [_Drinks_]

Ca.s.sIUS. My heart is thirsty for that n.o.ble pledge. 160 Fill Lucius, till the wine o'erswell the cup; I cannot drink too much of Brutus' love. [_Drinks_]