At your best leisure, this his humble suit. Art. O, Cæsar! read mine first; for mine's a suit That touches Cæsar nearer. Read it, great Cæsar. Cas. What! is the fellow mad? Pub. Sirrah, give place. Cas. What! urge you your petitions in the street? Come to the Capitol. CÆSAR enters the Capitol, the rest following. All the Senators rise. Pop. I wish, your enterprize to-day may thrive. Cas. What enterprize, Popilius? Pop. Bru. What said Popilius Lena? Fare you well. [Advances to CÆSAR. Cas. He wish'd, to-day our enterprize might thrive. I fear, our purpose is discovered. Bru. Look, how he makes to Cæsar: mark him. Brutus, what shall be done? If this be known, For I will slay myself. Cassius, be constant: Popilius Lena speaks not of our purposes; Cas. Trebonius knows his time; for, look you, Brutus, He draws Mark Antony out of the way. [Exeunt ANTONY and TREBONIUS. CESAR and the Senators take their Seats. Dec. Where is Metellus Cimber? Let him go, And presently prefer his suit to Cæsar. Bru. He is address'd1o: press near, and second him. 10 He is ADDRESS'D:] i. e. He is ready. So in Vol. iv. p. 425, "Our navy is address'd," &c. Cin. Casca, you are the first that rears your hand. Cæs. Are we all ready1? what is now amiss, That Cæsar and his senate must redress? Met. Most high, most mighty, and most puissant Cæsar, Metellus Cimber throws before thy seat An humble heart : Cæs. [Kneeling. I must prevent thee, Cimber. These couchings, and these lowly courtesies, And turn pre-ordinance, and first decree, That will be thaw'd from the true quality 1 Are we all ready?) Ritson, with some plausibility, would make these words the conclusion of Cinna's speech; but we adhere to the old copies, as no deviation from the ancient distribution is absolutely required. Cæsar, by the words, "Are we all ready?" may mean, is the senate yet prepared to proceed ? * These COUCHINGS, and these lowly courtesies,] The Rev. Mr. Barry recommends the substitution of crouchings, on the ground that it suits the sense better, and was an easy misprint. This is certainly true; but an intelligible meaning is to be obtained from the old reading, and it is, in such cases, our principle to adhere to the text of the old copies. 3 Into the LAW of children.] A clear misprint in all the old copies of lane for "law." When, as formerly, "law" was spelt with a final e, nothing could be easier than such a mistake. 4 Know, Cæsar doth not wrong; nor without cause Will he be satisfied.) A question has arisen, whether this passage has reached us in the shape in which Shakespeare originally wrote it; and the doubt has been produced by the misquotation of it in Ben Jonson's "Explorata, or Discoveries," which were written, not only after the publication of the folio, 1623, but after the appearance of John Taylor's collected pieces, (which Ben Jonson calls "The Water-rhimer's Works,") in 1630. Ben Jonson, after asserting that Shakespeare " many times fell into those things could not escape laughter," adds this :-" As when he said in the person of Cæsar, one speaking to him, Cæsar, thou dost me wrong,' he replied, 'Cæsar did never wrong, but Doth not Brutus bootless kneel? Met. Is there no voice more worthy than my own, To sound more sweetly in great Cæsar's ear, For the repealing of my banish'd brother? Bru. I kiss thy hand, but not in flattery, Cæsar ; Desiring thee, that Publius Cimber may Have an immediate freedom of repeal. Cæs. What, Brutus! Cas. Pardon, Cæsar; Cæsar, pardon : As low as to thy foot doth Cassius fall, To beg enfranchisement for Publius Cimber. Cæs. I could be well mov'd, if I were as you ; The skies are painted with unnumber'd sparks, That I was constant Cimber should be banish'd, And constant do remain to keep him so. Cin. O Cæsar! Cæs. Hence! Wilt thou lift up Olympus? Dec. Great Cæsar, - with just cause." (Edit. fo. 1640, p. 98.) It is very evident that Ben Jonson was only speaking from memory, "shaken (as he confesses in the same work) with age now, and sloth;" because Metellus had not said, "Cæsar, thou dost me wrong," nor any thing like it, though that might have been the upshot of his complaint. We have little doubt that the folio, 1623, represents the passage as it was written by Shakespeare, and that it was never in fact liable to the criticism of Ben Jonson, though he had ridiculed the same expression in the Induction to his "Staple of News," which was acted in 1625, and printed in vol. ii. of the folio edition, with the date of 1631. Casca. Speak, hands, for me. [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. Cæs. Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Cæsar. [Dies. The Senators and People retire in confusion. Cin. Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets. Cas. Some to the common pulpits, and cry out, "Liberty, freedom, and enfranchisement !" Bru. People, and senators! be not affrighted. Bru. Where's Publius? And Cassius too. Cin. Here, quite confounded with this mutiny. Met. Stand fast together, lest some friend of Cæsar's Should chance Bru. Talk not of standing. - Publius, good cheer : There is no harm intended to your person, Cas. And leave us, Publius; lest that the people, 5 and last by Marcus Brutus.) The old stage-direction is merely, "They stab Cæsar," but more particularity seems necessary. The modern stage-direction has been formed, by Malone and other editors, from the accounts of Plutarch and Suetonius. * Et tu, Brute?] It has been a question whence Shakespeare obtained the words, Et tu, Brute? which, for the sake of emphasis, and without regard to propriety, he puts into the mouth of Cæsar. The probability is, that he found them in some earlier play on the same subject, which earlier play is quoted, or at all events referred to, in "The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York," 1594, where this line occurs, "Et tu, Brute? Wilt thou stab Cæsar, too?” It is also met with (as Malone remarks) in the very same words in a poem called "Acolastus his Afterwit," by S. Nicholson, 1600. Malone supposed that Et tu, Brute appeared originally in the old Latin play upon the death of Cæsar: this is very possible, but quite as likely that Shakespeare took it from some anterior English drama, containing the line quoted in "The True Tragedy" and in "Acolastus." Re-enter TREBONIUS. Fled to his house amaz'd. Cas. Where's Antony? Men, wives, and children, stare, cry out, and run, As it were doomsday. Bru. Fates, we will know your pleasures. That we shall die, we know; 'tis but the time, Casca. Why, he that cuts off twenty years of life, Bru. Grant that, and then is death a benefit : Cas. Stoop then, and wash.-How many ages hence, Bru. How many times shall Cæsar bleed in sport, That now on Pompey's basis lies along, No worthier than the dust? Cas. So oft as that shall be, So often shall the knot of us be call'd The men that gave their country liberty. Dec. What! shall we forth? Cas. Ay, every man away: Brutus shall lead; and we will grace his heels Enter a Servant. Bru. Soft! who comes here? A friend of Antony's. Serv. Thus, Brutus, did my master bid me kneel; 7 In STATES unborn,] The first folio has, state; corrected in the second folio. |