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Next: Julius Caesar, Act 5, Scene 2 _________ Explanatory Notes for Act 5, Scene 1 From Julius Caesar. Ed. Henry Norman Hudson. New York: Ginn and Co., 1908. 4. battles: troops, battalions. 'Battle' was used for an 'army,' especially an army embattled, or ordered in battle array. The plural is here used with historical correctness, as Brutus and Cassius had each an army; the two armies of course coöperating, and acting together as one. Cf. 'battle' in l. 16 and 'battles' in V, iii, 108. 5. warn: summon to fight. Cf. King John, II, i, 201. In Richard III, I, iii, 39, we have "warn them to his royal presence." 7. am in their bosoms: am familiar with their intention. 10. bravery: bravado, defiance. The epithet 'fearful' probably means that fear is behind the attempt to intimidate by display and brag. Dr. Wright interprets 'bravery' as 'ostentation,' 'display.' 14. bloody sign: "The next morning, by break of day, the signal of battle was set out in Brutus' and Cassius' camp, which was an arming scarlet coat."--Plutarch, Marcus Brutus. 17. Plutarch tells that Cassius, though the more experienced soldier, allowed Brutus to lead the right wing. "Shakespeare made use of this incident, but transferred to the opposite camp, in order to bring out the character of Octavius which made Antony yield. Octavius really commanded the left wing."--Clar. 19. exigent: exigency. So in Antony and Cleopatra, IV, xiv, 63. 20. I will do so: I will do as I have said. Not 'I will cross you.' At this time Octavius was but twenty-one years old, and Antony was old enough to be his father. At the time of Cęsar's death, when Octavius was in his nineteenth year, Antony thought he was going to manage him easily and have it all his own way with him; but he found the youngster as stiff as a crowbar, and could do nothing with him. Cęsar's youngest sister, Julia, was married to Marcus Atius Balbus, and their daughter Atia, again, was married to Caius Octavius, a nobleman of the plebeian order. From this marriage sprang the present Octavius, who afterwards became the Emperor Augustus. He was mainly educated by his great-uncle, was advanced to the patrician order, and was adopted as his son and heir; so that his full and proper designation at this time was Caius Julius Cęsar Octavianus. The text gives a right taste of the man, who always stood firm as a post against Antony, till the latter finally knocked himself to pieces against him. 33. The posture of your blows: where your blows are to fall.-- are. The verb is attracted into the plural by the nearest substantive. Cf. 'was,' IV, iii, 5. Abbott calls this idiom 'confusion of proximity.' 34.: Hybla, a hill in Sicily, was noted for its thyme and its honey. So Vergil, Eclogues, I, 54-55: "the hedge whose willow bloom is quaffed by Hybla's bees." Cf. 1 Henry IV, I, ii, 47: "As the honey of Hybla, my old lad of the castle." Antony could not be so 'honey-tongued' unless he had quite exhausted thyme-flavored Hybla. 39-44. These graphic details are from Plutarch's two accounts (in Julius Cęsar and Marcus Brutus) of the assassination of Cęsar. 48. Octavius has been a standing puzzle and enigma to the historians, from the seeming contradictions of his character. Merivale declares that the one principle that gave unity to his life and reconciled those contradictions, was a steadfast, inflexible purpose to avenge the murder of his illustrious uncle and adoptive father. 52. goes up: is put into its sheath. Cf. John, XVIII, 11. 53. The number of Cęsar's wounds, according to Plutarch, was three and twenty, and to 'three and twenty' Theobald, craving historical accuracy, changed the 'three and thirty' of the text. 55. Till you, traitors as you are, have added the slaughtering of me, another Cęsar, to that of Julius. See note, p. 145, l. 20. 59. strain: stock, lineage, race. So in Henry V, II, iv, 51:
And he is bred out of that bloody strain 61. Shakespeare often uses 'peevish' in the sense of 'silly,' 'foolish.' So in The Comedy of Errors, IV, i, 93. A foolish schoolboy, joined with a masker and reveler (for Antony's reputation, see I, ii, 204; II, i, 188, 189; II, ii, 116), and unworthy even of that honor. 66. stomachs: appetite, inclination, courage. So in Henry V, IV, iii, 35: "He which hath no stomach to this fight." 72. 'As' is often used redundantly with definitions of time. This is still a provincialism. See Abbott, § 114. "Messala writeth, that Cassius having spoken these last words unto him, he bade him farewell, and willed him to come to supper to him the next night following, because it was his birthday."--Plutarch, Marcus Brutus. 75. Alluding to the battle of Pharsalia, which took place in the year B.C. 48. Pompey was forced into that battle, against his better judgment, by the inexperienced and impatient men about him, who, inasmuch as they had more than twice Cęsar's number of troops, fancied they could easily defeat him if they could but meet him. So they tried it, and he quickly defeated them. 77. I was strongly attached to the doctrines of Epicurus. "Cassius being in opinion an Epicurean, and reasoning thereon with Brutus, spake to him touching the vision thus: 'In our sect, Brutus, we have an opinion, that we do not always feel or see that which we suppose we do both see and feel, but that our senses, being credulous and therefore easily abused ... imagine they see and conjecture that which in truth they do not.'"--Plutarch, Marcus Brutus. 80. former: first. Cf. "former things passed away." "When they raised their camp there came two eagles, that, flying with a marvellous force, lighted upon two of the foremost ensigns, and always followed the soldiers, which gave them meat and fed them, until they came near to the city of Philippes; and there, one day only before the battle, they both flew away."--Plutarch, Marcus Brutus. 111. Two lines in Ff. 105-106. prevent the time: anticipate the full, natural period. To the understanding of this speech, it must be observed that the sense of the words, 'arming myself,' etc., follows next after the words, 'which he did give himself.' In this passage, as Dr. Wright (Clar.) has pointed out, Shakespeare was misled by an error in North's version of Amyot's Plutarch, where we have feis (= fis) translated as if it were from fier: "Brutus answered him, being yet but a young man, and not over greatly experienced in the world; 'I trust (I know not how) a certain rule of philosophy, by the which I did greatly blame ... Cato for killing himself, as being no lawful nor godly act, touching the gods; nor, concerning men, valiant: but, being now in the midst of the danger, I am of a contrary mind.'"--Plutarch, Marcus Brutus. Wright, in his note on this passage, shows how the true meaning is obscured by bad printing and punctuation. Brutus's answer begins really with, 'Being yet but a young man'; and 'I trust' is evidently a past tense (Old English 'truste') which must have been read by Shakespeare as the present. _________
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