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Please see the bottom of the page for commentary.
Next: Julius Caesar, Act 2, Scene 2 _________ Explanatory Notes for Act 2, Scene 1 From Julius Caesar. Ed. Henry Norman Hudson. New York: Ginn and Co., 1908. orchard. Shakespeare generally uses 'orchard' in its original sense of 'garden' (literally 'herb-garden,' Anglo-Saxon ort-geard). 1. What: A common exclamation frequent in Shakespeare. So in V, iii, 72. The 'when' of l. 5 shows increasing impatience. 10. Brutus has been casting about on all sides to find some means to prevent Cæsar's being king, and here admits that it can be done only by killing him. Thus the soliloquy opens in just the right way to throw us back upon his antecedent meditations. In expression and in feeling it anticipates Hamlet, III, i, 56-88. From now onwards the speeches of Brutus strangely adumbrate those of Hamlet. 12. the general: the general public, the community at large. Cf. Hamlet, II, ii, 457, "pleas'd not the million; 't was caviare to the general." See III, ii, 89, and V, v, 71-72. 14. The sunshine of royalty will kindle the serpent in Cæsar. The figure in 32-34 suggests that 'bring forth' may here mean 'hatch.' 17. do danger with: do mischief with, prove dangerous. Cf. Romeo and Juliet, V, ii, 20: "neglecting it May do much danger." 19. Remorse: Constantly in Shakespeare 'remorse' is used for 'pity' or 'compassion.' Here it seems to mean something more, 'conscience,' 'conscientiousness.' So in Othello, III, iii, 468:
Let him command, The possession of dictatorial power is apt to stifle or sear the conscience, so as to make a man literally remorseless. 20. affections sway'd: passions (inclinations) governed. 21. proof: experience. So in Twelfth Night, III, i, 135. 23. Warburton put a hyphen between 'climber' and 'upward.' Delius, however, would connect 'upward' with 'whereto' and 'turns.' 26.: base degrees: lower steps. 'Degrees' is here used in its original, literal sense for the rounds, or steps, of the ladder. 28: prevent: anticipate.--quarrel: cause of complaint. 29-34. colour: pretext, plausible appearance. The general meaning of this somewhat obscure passage is, Since we have no show or pretext of a cause, no assignable ground or apparent ground of complaint, against Cæsar, in what he is, or in anything he has yet done, let us assume that the further addition of a crown will quite upset his nature, and metamorphose him into a serpent. The strain of casuistry used in this speech is very remarkable. Coleridge found it perplexing. On the supposition that Shakespeare meant Brutus for a wise and good man, the speech seems unintelligible. But Shakespeare must have regarded him simply as a well-meaning but conceited and shallow idealist; and such men are always cheating and puffing themselves with the thinnest of sophisms, feeding on air and conceiving themselves inspired, or "mistaking the giddiness of the head for the illumination of the Spirit." 40. The Folio reading 'first of March' cannot be right chronologically, though it is undoubtedly what Shakespeare wrote, for in Plutarch, Marcus Brutus, he read: "Cassius asked him if he were determined to be in the Senate-house the first day of the month of March, because he heard say that Cæsar's friends should move the Council that day that Cæsar should be called king by the Senate." This inconsistency is not without parallels in Shakespeare. Cf. the "four strangers" in The Merchant of Venice, I, ii, 135, when six have been mentioned. In Scott, too, are many such inconsistencies. 44. exhalations: meteors. In Plutarch's Opinions of Philosophers, Holland's translation, is this passage (spelling modernized): "Aristotle supposeth that all these meteors come of a dry exhalation, which, being gotten enclosed within a moist cloud, seeketh means, and striveth forcibly to get forth." Shakespeare uses 'meteor' repeatedly in the same way. So in Romeo and Juliet, III, v, 13. 48. The Folios give this line as it is here. Some editors arrange it as the beginning of the letter repeated ponderingly by Brutus. 49-50. See quotation from Plutarch in note, p. 40, l. 143. 59. fifteen: This, the Folio reading, is undoubtedly correct. Lines 103-104 and 192-193 show that it is past midnight, and Lucius is including in his computation the dawn of the fifteenth day, a natural thing for any one to do, especially a Roman. 64. motion: prompting of impulse. Cf. King John, IV, ii, 255. 65. phantasma: a vision of things that are not. "Shakespeare seems to use it ('phantasma') in this passage in the sense of nightmare, which it bears in Italian."--Clar. What Brutus says here is in the very spirit of Hamlet's speeches. Cf. also the King's speech to Laertes, Hamlet, IV, vii, 115-124, and Macbeth, I, vii, 1-28. 66. Commentators differ about 'Genius' here; some taking it for the 'conscience,' others for the 'anti-conscience.' Shakespeare uses 'genius,' 'spirit,' and 'demon,' as synonymous, and all three, apparently, both in a good sense and in a bad, as every man was supposed to have a good and a bad angel. So, in this play, IV, iii, 282, we have "thy evil spirit"; in The Tempest, IV, i, 27, "our worser genius"; in Troilus and Cressida, IV, iv, 52, "some say the Genius so Cries 'come' to him that instantly must die"; in Antony and Cleopatra, II, iii, 19, "Thy demon, that's thy spirit which keeps thee"; where, as often, 'keeps' is 'guards.' In these and some other cases the words have some epithet or context that determines their meaning, but not so with 'Genius' in the text. But, in all such cases, the words indicate the directive power of the mind. And so we often speak of a man's 'better self,' or a man's 'worser self,' according as one is in fact directed or drawn to good or to evil.--The sense of 'mortal' here is also somewhat in question. Shakespeare sometimes uses it for 'perishable,' or that which dies; but oftener for 'deadly,' or that which kills. 'Mortal instruments' may well be held to mean what Macbeth refers to when he says, "I'm settled, and bend up Each corporal agent to this terrible feat."--As Brutus is speaking with reference to his own case, he probably intends 'Genius' in a good sense, for the spiritual or immortal part of himself. If so, then he would naturally mean by 'mortal' his perishable part, or his ministerial faculties, which shrink from executing what the directing power is urging them to. The late Professor Ferrier of St. Andrews seems to take a somewhat different view of the passage. He says, "In this speech of Brutus, Shakespeare gives a fine description of the unsettled state of the mind when the will is hesitating about the perpetration of a great crime, and when the passions are threatening to overpower, and eventually do overpower, the reason and the conscience." 67-69. Cf. I, ii, 39-47; Macbeth, I, iii, 137-142. 70: brother: Cassius was married to Junia, the sister of Brutus. 72. moe: more. The old comparative of 'many.' In Middle English 'moe,' or 'mo,' was used of number and with collective nouns; 'more' had reference specifically to size. See Skeat. 73. Pope was evidently so disgusted with Shakespeare's tendency to dress his Romans like Elizabethans, that in his two editions he omits 'hats' altogether, indicating the omission by a dash! 76. favour: countenance. So in I, ii, 91; I, iii, 129. 79. evils: evil things. So in Lucrece, l. 1250, we have 'cave-keeping evils.' The line in the text means, When crimes and mischiefs, and evil and mischievous men, are most free from the restraints of law or of shame. So Hamlet speaks of night as the time "when hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world." Cf. l. 265. 83. path: take thy way. Drayton employs 'path' as a verb, both transitively and intransitively, literally and figuratively, in England's Heroicall Epistles (1597-1598). The verb seems to have been in use from the fourteenth century to the close of the seventeenth. 84. Erebus: the region of nether darkness between Earth and Hades. Cf. The Merchant of Venice, V, i, 87: "dark as Erebus." 85. prevention: discovery, anticipation. This, the original sense, would lead to 'prevention,' as the term is used today. 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. 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." 107. growing on: encroaching upon, tending towards. 108. Weighing: if you take into consideration. 110. high: full, perfect. Cf. 'high day,' 'high noon,' etc. 112. all over: one after the other until all have been included. 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 assurance, 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 gods 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 substitutes for 'face' here,--'faith,' 'faiths,' 'fate,' 'fears,' 'yoke,' etc. 115. sufferance: suffering. So in Measure for Measure, III, i, 80; Coriolanus, 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. 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. 123. What need we: why need we. So in Antony and Cleopatra, V, ii, 317; Titus Andronicus, I, i, 189. Cf. Mark, xiv, 63. 125. secret Romans: Romans who had promised secrecy. 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. 129. cautelous: deceitful. The original meaning is 'wary,' 'circumspect.' 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. 130. carrions: carcasses, men as good as dead. 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.] 134. insuppressive: not to be suppressed. The active form with the passive sense. Cf. 'unexpressive,' in As You Like It, III, ii, 10. 135. To think: by thinking. The infinitive used gerundively. 145. opinion: reputation. So in The Merchant of Venice, I, i, 91. 150. break with him: broach the matter to him. This bit of dialogue is very charming. Brutus knows full well that Cicero is not the man to take a subordinate position; that if he have anything to do with the enterprise it must be as the leader of it; and that is just what Brutus wants to be himself. Merivale thinks it a great honor to Cicero that the conspirators did not venture to propose the matter to him. In Plutarch, Marcus Brutus, the attitude of the conspirators to Cicero is described thus: "For this cause they durst not acquaint Cicero with their conspiracy, although he was a man whom they loved dearly and trusted best; for they were afraid that he, being a coward by nature, and age also having increased his fear, he would quite turn and alter all their purpose, and quench the heat of their enterprise (the which specially required hot and earnest execution), seeking by persuasion to bring all things to such safety, as there should be no peril." 164. envy: malice. Commonly so in Shakespeare, as in The Merchant of Venice, IV, i, 10. So 'envious' in the sense of 'malicious' in l. 178. 175-177. So the king proceeds with Hubert in King John. And so men often proceed when they wish to have a thing done, and to shirk the responsibility; setting it on by dark hints and allusions, and then, after it is done, affecting to blame or to scold the doers of it. 180. purgers: healers, cleansers of the land from tyranny. 187. 'Think and die,' as in Antony and Cleopatra, III, xiii, 1, seems to have been a proverbial expression meaning 'grieve oneself to death'; and it would be much indeed, a very wonderful thing, if Antony should fall into any killing sorrow, such a light-hearted, jolly companion as he is. Cf. Hamlet, III, i, 85. 'Thoughtful' (sometimes in the form 'thoughtish') is a common provincial expression for 'melancholy' in Cumberland and Roxburghshire today. 188-189. Here is Plutarch's account in Marcus Antonius, of contemporary criticism of Antony's habits: "And on the other side, the noblemen (as Cicero saith), did not only mislike him, but also hate him for his naughty life: for they did abhor his banquets and drunken feasts he made at unseasonable times, and his extreme wasteful expenses upon vain light huswives; and then in the daytime he would sleep or walk out his drunkenness, thinking to wear away the fume of the abundance of wine which he had taken over night." 190. no fear: no cause of fear. Cf. The Merchant of Venice, II, i, 9. 192. stricken. In II, ii, 114, we have the form 'strucken.' An interesting anachronism is this matter of a striking clock in old Rome. 198. apparent prodigies: evident portents. 'Apparent' in this sense of 'plainly manifest,' and so 'undeniable,' is found more than once in Shakespeare. Cf. King John, IV, ii, 93; Richard II, I, i, 13. 205. Bears are said to have been caught by putting looking-glasses in their way; they being so taken with the images of themselves that the hunters could easily master them. Elephants were beguiled into pitfalls, lightly covered over with hurdles and turf. 206. toils: nets, snares. The root idea of the word is a 'thing woven' (Cf. Spenser's 'welwoven toyles' in Astrophel, xvii, 1), and while it seems to have primary reference to a web or cord spread for taking prey, the old Fr. toile sometimes means a 'stalking-horse of painted canvas.' Shakespeare uses the word several times. Cf. Antony and Cleopatra, V, ii, 351; Hamlet, III, ii, 362. 215. doth bear Cæsar hard: For a discussion of this interesting expression see note, p. 29, l. 310. "Now amongst Pompey's friends there was one called Caius Ligarius, who had been accused unto Cæsar for taking part with Pompey, and Cæsar discharged him. But Ligarius thanked not Cæsar so much for his discharge, as he was offended with him for that he was brought in danger by his tyrannical power: and therefore in his heart he was always his mortal enemy, and was besides very familiar with Brutus, who went to see him being sick in his bed, and said unto him: 'Ligarius, in what a time art thou sick?' Ligarius, rising up in his bed, and taking him by the right hand, said unto him: 'Brutus,' said he, 'if thou hast any great enterprise in hand, worthy of thyself, I am whole.'"--Plutarch, Marcus Brutus. 218. by him: by his house. Make your way home that way. 225. Let not our looks betray our purposes by wearing, or being attired with, any indication of them. Cf. Macbeth, I, vii, 81. 230. The compound epithet, 'honey-heavy,' is very expressive and apt. The 'dew of slumber' is called 'heavy' because it makes the subject feel heavy, and 'honey-heavy,' because the heaviness it induces is sweet. But there may be a reference to the old belief that the bee gathered its honey from falling dew. So in Vergil's Georgics, IV, i, we have "the heavenly gifts of honey born in air." Brutus is naturally led to contrast the free and easy state of the boy's mind with that of his own, which the excitement of his present undertaking is drawing full of visions and images of trouble. 233. Similarities and differences between this scene with Brutus and Portia and that between Hotspur and his wife in 1 King Henry IV, II, iii, will prove a suggestive study. The description of the development of Portia's suspicion here is taken directly from Plutarch. "Out of his house he (Brutus) did so frame and fashion his countenance and looks that no man could discern he had anything to trouble his mind. But when night came that he was in his own house, then he was clean changed: for either care did wake him against his will when he would have slept, or else oftentimes of himself he fell into such deep thoughts of this enterprise, casting in his mind all the dangers that might happen: that his wife, lying by him, found that there was some marvellous great matter that troubled his mind, not being wont to be in that taking, and that he could not well determine with himself."--Plutarch, Marcus Brutus. 250. humour: moody caprice. The word comes to have this meaning from the theory of the old physiologists that four cardinal humors--blood, choler or yellow bile, phlegm, and melancholy or black bile--determine, by their conditions and proportions, a person's physical and mental qualities. The influence of this theory survives in the application of the terms 'sanguine,' 'choleric,' 'phlegmatic,' and 'melancholy' to disposition and temperament. 254. condition: disposition, temper. So in The Merchant of Venice, I, ii, 143: "If he have the condition of a saint and the complexion of a devil, I had rather he should shrive me than wive me." Cf. the term 'ill-conditioned,' still in use to describe an irascible or quarrelsome disposition. In l. 236 'condition' refers to bodily health. 255. Dear my lord: This transposition, common in earnest address, is due to close association of possessive adjective and noun. 266. 'Rheumy' here means that state of the air which causes the unhealthy issue of 'rheum,' a word which was specially used of the fluids that issue from the eyes or mouth. So in Hamlet, II, ii, 529, we have 'bisson rheum' for 'blinding tears.' So in A Midsummer Night's Dream, II, i, 105, Titania speaks of the moon as washing "all the air, That rheumatic diseases do abound." 271. charm: conjure, appeal by charms. So in Lucrece, l. 1681. 279. This speech, and that beginning with l. 291, follow Plutarch very closely: "His wife Porcia ... was the daughter of Cato, whom Brutus married being his cousin, not a maiden, but a young widow after the death of her first husband Bibulus, by whom she had also a young son called Bibulus, who afterwards wrote a book of the acts and gests of Brutus .... This young lady, being excellently well seen[B] in philosophy, loving her husband well, and being of a noble courage, as she was also wise: because she would not ask her husband what he ailed before she had made some proof by her self: she took a little razor, such as barbers occupy to pare men's nails, and, causing her maids and women to go out of her chamber, gave herself a great gash withal in her thigh, that she was straight all of a gore blood: and incontinently after a vehement fever took her, by reason of the pain of her wound. Then perceiving her husband was marvellously out of quiet, and that he could take no rest, even in her greatest pain of all she spake in this sort unto him: 'I being, O Brutus,' said she, 'the daughter of Cato, was married unto thee; not to be thy bed-fellow and companion in bed and at board only, like a harlot, but to be partaker also with thee of thy good and evil fortune. Now for thyself, I can find no cause of fault in thee touching our match: but for my part, how may I shew my duty towards thee and how much I would do for thy sake; if I cannot constantly bear a secret mischance or grief with thee, which requireth secrecy and fidelity? I confess that a woman's wit commonly is too weak to keep a secret safely: but yet, Brutus, good education, and the company of virtuous men, have some power to reform the defect of nature. And for my self, I have this benefit moreover, that I am the daughter of Cato, and wife of Brutus. This notwithstanding, I did not trust to any of these things before, until that now I have found by experience, that no pain or grief whatsoever can overcome me.' With those words she shewed him her wound on her thigh, and told him what she had done to prove herself. Brutus was amazed to hear what she said unto him, and lifting up his hands to heaven, he besought the gods to give him the grace he might bring his enterprise to so good pass, that he might be found a husband, worthy of so noble a wife as Porcia: so he then did comfort her the best he could."--Marcus Brutus. 289-290. This embodies what was known about the circulation of the blood at the close of the sixteenth century. In 1616, the year of Shakespeare's death, William Harvey, born in 1578, lectured on his great discovery, but his celebrated treatise was not published until 1628. The general fact of the circulation was known in ancient times, and Harvey's discovery lay in ascertaining the modus operandi of it, and in reducing it to matter of strict science. 295. Cf. The Merchant of Venice, I, 1, 166:
Her name is Portia, nothing undervalued 309. Editors from Pope down have been busy trying to mend the grammar and the rhythm of this line. But in Shakespeare the full pause has often the value of a syllable, and the omission of the relative is common in Elizabethan literature. See Abbott, § 244. 315. To wear a kerchief: It was a common practice in England for those who were sick to wear a kerchief on their heads. So in Fuller's Worthies, Cheshire, 1662, quoted by Malone: "If any there be sick, they make him a posset and tye a kerchief on his head: and if that will not mend him, then God be merciful to him." 321. I here discard my sickness: Ligarius here pulls off the kerchief. Cf. Northumberland's speech, 2 Henry IV, I, i, 147, "hence, thou sickly quoif! Thou art a guard too wanton for the head." 323. In Shakespeare's time, 'exorcist' and 'conjurer' were used indifferently. The former has since come to mean only 'one who drives away spirits'; the latter, 'one who calls them up.' 324. My mortified spirit: my spirit that was dead in me. So 'mortifying groans' in The Merchant of Venice, I, i, 82, and 'mortified man' in Macbeth, V, ii, 5. Words directly derived from Latin are often used, by Shakespeare and sixteenth century writers, in a signification peculiarly close to the root notion of the word.
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