Caf. Set him before me, let me fee his face. Caffi.Fellow, come from the throng, look vpon Cæfar. Caf. He is a Dreamer, let vs leaue him: Paffe. 27 30 Sennet. Exeunt. Manet Brut. & Caff. Caffi. Will you go see the order of the courfe? Brut. Not I. Caffi. I pray you do. 35 Brut. I am not Gamefom: I do lacke fome part Of that quicke Spirit that is in Antony: Ile leaue you. Caffi. Brutus, I do obferue you now of late: 40 28. Caffi.] Casca. 29. thou] thon F3. Johns. Var. '73. 31. Dreamer,] Dreamer F2F3. 32. Sennet.] Senate. F4. Om. Rowe,+. Musick. Cap. Exeunt...& Caff.] Ff (Manent F.F), Rowe, Pope. Exeunt Cæsar and Train. Theob.+, Varr. Ran. Exeunt all but Bru. and Cass. Cap. et cet. 33. SCENE III. Pope, Han. Warb. Johns. Jen. 34. Not I.] Not I. F3. 39. Ile leaue you] Om. Seymour. 40. you now] Om. Steev. conj. not seem to be an instance.' ABBOTT (§ 460) suggests that metri gratia, 'beware,' be shortened by the omission of the prefix. CAPELL's reading (see Text. Notes) is, perhaps, preferable.-ED.]-SCHWARTZKOPF (p. 324): It is noteworthy that it is Brutus who immediately repeats the soothsayer's warning words to Cæsar. And they are to be heard again by both, as we see later. To one as a warning which, heeded, could have been his salvation; to the other as a magnetic attraction towards the assassin's dagger. 32. Manet Brut. & Cass.] KNIGHT (Studies, p. 114): The leading distinctions between these two remarkable men, as drawn by Shakespeare, appear to us to be these: Brutus acts wholly upon principle; Cassius partly upon impulse. Brutus acts only when he has reconciled the contemplation of action with his speculative opinions; Cassius allows the necessity of some action to run before and govern his opinions. Brutus is a philosopher; Cassius is a partisan. Brutus, therefore, deliberates and spares; Cassius precipitates and denounces. Brutus is the nobler instructor; Cassius the better politician. Shakespeare, in the first great scene between them, brings out these distinctions of character upon which future events so mainly depend. Cassius does not, like a merely crafty man, use only the arguments to conspiracy which will most touch Brutus; but he mixes with them, in his zeal and vehemence, those which have presented themselves most strongly to his own mind. 40. Brutus, I do obserue, etc.] WRIGHT: In Plutarch's Life of Brutus the quarrel between Brutus and Cassius arose from their contest for the prætorship, which Cæsar assigned to Brutus. This, too, was one of the causes of Cassius' 41 I haue not from your eyes, that gentlenesse You beare too ftubborne, and too strange a hand Bru. Caffius, 45 Be not deceiu'd: If I haue veyl'd my looke, I turne the trouble of my Countenance Meerely vpon my felfe. Vexed I am Of late, with paffions of fome difference, Conceptions onely proper to my felfe, 50 Which giue fome foyle (perhaps) to my Behauiours : Caff. Then Brutus, I haue much mistook your passion, By meanes whereof, this Breft of mine hath buried 58 (-Johns. Var. '73). 44. Friend] Friends Ff, Rowe, Pope. loues] love F4, Rowe, Pope. 48. Vexed] Vexèd Dyce. 51. Behaviours] Behaviour Rowe,+ 54. further] farther Pope ii, Theob. Warb. Johns. Var. '73, Coll. Wh. i, Hal. personal animosity against Cæsar, and the first step in the plot for his assassination was the reconciliation of Cassius and Brutus. 43. strange] JOHNSON: That is, alien, unfamiliar, such as might become a stranger. 49. passions of some difference] JOHNSON: That is, with a fluctuation of discordant opinions and desires.-STEEVENS: Compare '—thou hast set thy mercy and thy honour At difference in thee.'-Coriol., V, iii, 201.—MALONE: A following line may prove the best comment on this: 'Than that poor Brutus, with himself at war,' 1. 55. 57. passion] MURRAY (N. E. D., s. v., III, 6): Any kind of feeling by which the mind is powerfully affected or moved; a vehement, commanding, or overpowering emotion; in psychology and art, any mode in which the mind is affected or acted upon (whether vehemently or not), as ambition, avarice, desire, hope, fear, love, hatred, joy, grief, anger, revenge. 58. By meanes whereof] CAPELL (1. 97): That is, by means of mistaking; but what was Cassius' mistake? Wherein lay it? Why, in thinking that his friend's 'passion,' what he appear'd to suffer, proceeded from his concern for the public; which thought of his he calls a thought of great value, a worthy cogitation; and then enters upon his sounding in terms that show it premeditated, and a manner more artificial than is consistent with real friendship; which the poet does not attribute to him or make a part of his character, and that in order to difference him from the open and honest Brutus. Thoughts of great value, worthy Cogitations. For the eye fees not it selfe but by reflection, Caffius. 'Tis iuft, And it is very much lamented Brutus, 60. face] eye Upton (Obs., p. 237). 61-63. No Caffius...other things] Two lines, ending: felfe...things Rowe et seq. 62. il felfe] himselfe F2. himself, F ̧. himself: F. 60 65 63. By] from Pope,+, Ran. of Sta. conj. things] thing Walker (Crit. i, 243), Wh. i, Dyce ii, iii, Coll. iii. 60. Can you see your face] J. HUNTER: Cassius is now proceeding to move Brutus to conspiracy. Observe how artfully he employs the considerations of his affection for Brutus; of the respect in which Brutus is held by others, and in which he should hold his own honour; of the republican principles which Brutus cherishes; and of his being a descendant of that Brutus who drove Tarquin from the throne; and then observe the result which manifests itself in the speech: 'That you do love me,' etc. 62. the eye sees not it selfe] STEEVENS: So, Sir John Davies (Nosce Teipsum, 1599): 'Is it because the Mind is like the Eye (Through which it gathers knowledge by degrees), Whose rays reflect not but spread outwardly, Not seeing itself, when other things it sees?' [p. 48, ed. Arber].-[Steevens quotes also a passage from Marston's Parisitaster which contains this same idea; and MALONE gives another from Davies' second part of Nosce Teipsum, which is, perhaps, more nearly parallel to the present line in Julius Cæsar: 'Mine eyes which see all objects nigh and far, Look not into this little world of mine; Nor see my face, wherein they fixed are' (p. 51, ed. Arber).-CRAIK compares 'Nor doth the eye itself, That most pure spirit of sense, behold itself'-Tro. & Cress., III, iii, 105, 106-and adds: 'It may be worth noting that these lines appear only in the two original quarto editions of the play (1609), and are not in any of the Folios.'-ED.] 62, 63. by reflection... other things] CRAIK (p. 150): The 'other things' must apparently, if we interpret the words with reference to their connection, be the reflectors or mirrors spoken of by Cassius. Taken by itself, however, the expression might rather seem to mean that the eye discovers its own existence by its power of seeing other things. The verse in the present speech is ingeniously broken up in the original edition [by the colon after 'Cassius' and the comma after 'reflection']. It may still be suspected that all is not quite right, and possibly some words have dropped out. 'By reflection, by some other things' is hardly Shakespeare's style. It is not customary with him to employ a word which he finds it necessary thus to attempt immediately to amend, or supplement, or explain by another.-WRIGHT, referring to the foregoing note by Craik, says: 'I do not see why "by," in the sense of by means of, does not give a very good meaning, even if we connect it closely with reflection.'-[More reliance might be placed upon the punctuation of the Folio were we sure that it was from Shakespeare's own hand. Wright's interpretation, based upon the removal of the printer's comma, shows how needless the latter point is.-ED.] 66 That you haue no fuch Mirrors, as will turne I haue heard, Where many of the best respect in Rome, Bru. Into what dangers, would you Lead me Caffius? That you would haue me feeke into my selfe, Caf. Therefore good Brutus, be prepar'd to heare: 66. Mirrors] mirror Walker (Crit. i, 243), Huds. Dyce ii, iii. 68, 69. That...heard] One line Rowe, Pope, Theob. Han.+. 73. eyes.] eyes- Johns. 70 75 78 74, 75. Into...Caffius?] One line Rowe et seq. 74. dangers] daungers F2. 69, 70. I haue heard... best respect in Rome] BOISSIER (p. 301): The conspirators were but little over sixty in number, but they had all Rome for their accomplice. 'All the honest men,' said Cicero (Philip, ii, 12), ‘in so far as they could, have killed Cæsar. Some wanted the means, others the resolution, several the opportunity; no one wanted the will.' 71. speaking of Brutus] MARK HUNTER: The repetition of 'Brutus' immediately afterwards is by no means natural or graceful. I believe the 'Brutus' in 1. 72 caught the printer's eye, and he substituted it for some other word. 73. Haue wish'd... Brutus had his eyes] DELIUS: That is, the Romans mourned the fact that Brutus did not see, and wished that he might but use the eyes nature had given him in order to recognise the needs of the times.— WRIGHT: I should rather suppose that 'his' was written carelessly for their, as if what precedés had been 'Many a one hath wish'd,' etc. The speakers wished Brutus to see himself as they saw him, and to recognize his own importance at such a crisis. This seems to be the whole point of Cassius' appeal. Of course, 'to have one's eyes' does occur, in the sense in which Delius takes it, in other passages of Shakespeare; as, for instance: 'Nay, indeed, if you had your eyes, you might fail of the knowing me.'-Mer. of Ven., II, ii, 79. Again: 'If you saw yourself with your eyes, or knew yourself with your judgment.'-As You Like It, I, ii, 185. 78. Therefore good Brutus] CRAIK (p. 151): The eager, impatient temper of Cassius, absorbed in his own one idea, is vividly expressed by his thus continuing his argument as if without appearing to have even heard Brutus' interrupting question; for such is the only interpretation which his 'therefore' would seem to admit of. [Craik is doubtless right regarding the impetuous temper of Cassius, but in the present instance is his interpretation of 'therefore' the only one? does not 'therefore' here introduce the answer to the foregoing question? Brutus asks: Why do you ask me to search within myself for something which does not exist? Cassius replies: Since you yourself cannot, after seeking, find it, therefore be pre And fince you know, you cannot fee your felfe 80 That of your felfe, which you yet know not of. 85 And be not iealous on me, gentle Brutus : To ftale with ordinary Oathes my loue 82. you yet] yet you F3F4, Rowe,+, Varr. Ran. Cap. 83. on] of Rowe,+, Varr. Mal. Ran. Steev. Varr. Sing. i. 84. Laughter] talker Kinnear (p. 363). lover Herr (p. 7). laugher Rowe et seq. pared to have me tell you 'That of yourself, which you yet know not of' (1. 82).— ED.]-MARK HUNTER: It is plain that Cassius' vehemence, his outspoken envy, do not and cannot appeal to a person of Brutus' temperament, and that Brutus' more philosophic doubts can win no sympathy from Cassius. He does not understand them. Thus Brutus scarcely seems to hear all that Cassius says to him, and Cassius attends to nothing that Brutus says save where it seems to coincide with his own thoughts. 83. on me] For examples of 'on' meaning of, see Shakespeare passim. 84. a common Laughter] CRAIK (p. 153): The necessity or propriety of [Rowe's] change is, perhaps, not so unquestionable as it has been generally thought. Neither word seems to be perfectly satisfactory. 'Were I a common laughter' might seem to derive some support from the expression of the same speaker in IV, iii, 126: 'Hath Cassius lived to be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus?'— HEATH (p. 435): Seward, in his notes on Beaumont and Fletcher (Note 10 of the Faithful Shepherdess), thinks [‘laughter'] 'a stronger word to express a low buffoon than laugher. But he seems to have misunderstood the drift of the poet; a low buffoon, who is commonly laughed at, is not the idea he intended, but one who, without regard to friendship or any other consideration, abuses the confidence of his friends in order to expose them to the laughter of the first company he comes into.-HUDSON: 'Laughter' may possibly be right in the sense of laughing-stock. Some one has proposed ‘a common lover' [see Text. Notes]; and so, I have hardly any doubt, we ought to read. This would make common emphatic, and give it the sense of indiscriminate or promiscuous; which quite accords with the context.WRIGHT: I do not feel quite certain that the Folio reading may not be correct, 'laughter' being used in the sense of laughing-stock. Whether Cassius were a common buffoon or a common butt, he would be equally untrustworthy; but he appeals here to what Brutus knows of his habits of speech.—Miss PORTER and Miss CLARKE: Rowe's change . . . is a misrepresentation of the meaning. Cassius means to say: 'were I an object of laughter, as a man like Antony is,' his whole conversation glancing at Antony as standing for all Brutus is opposed to. . . . ‘Antony,' says Plutarch, 'was laughed at. For he would further every man's love and . . . not be angry that men should merrily tell him of those he loved.' Cassius says, therefore, that he is not given, like Antony, to 'fawn on men, and hug them hard, And after scandal them.'-[MURRAY (N. E. D.) does not apparently give any example of the use of 'laughter' in the sense of the object laughed at.—ED.] 85. To stale] JOHNSON: That is, to invite every new protester to my affection by the stale or allurement of customary oaths.-HUDSON: 'To stale' a thing is to make |