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JULIUS CESAR.

INTRODUCTION.

HAKESPEARE himself has left us evidence that he knew

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of at least one tragedy based upon the conspiracy against Julius Cæsar earlier than his own. For in Hamlet (Act III. Sc. 2) Polonius says that he "did enact Julius Cæsar," and was

killed in the Capitol" by Brutus. And as he also says that he did this"in the University," and Steevens cites a passage in an Appendix to Peck's Memoirs of Oliver Cromwell, which shows that a Latin tragedy upon this subject was written by Richard Eedes, and played at Oxford in 1582, we know almost with absolute certainty the play that Shakespeare had in mind. The allusions to the story of Julius Cæsar in our early literature are very numerous, and early English plays were doubtless written upon it; but it appears that Shakespeare was indebted for his materials only to the lives of Cæsar, Brutus, Antony, and Cicero in North's Plutarch. Selecting the events to be dramatized with admirable judgment, and arranging them with consummate skill, he followed his authority even to the detail of the little Scene in which Cinna the poet is slain for his name and his bad verses, and often adopted its very language.

As to the time when Julius Cæsar was written, we are without any other evidence than that of its style, which ranges it with Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, and Cymbeline.* It was probably brought out between 1605 and 1608. — It was first printed in the folio of 1623, and with remarkable accuracy.— - The period of its action is from the feast of Lupercal, B. C. 45, to the battle of Philippi, B. C: 42.

* See the last Note upon this play.

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PINDARUS, Servant to Cassius.

CALPURNIA, Wife to Cæsar.

PORTIA, Wife to Brutus.

Senators, Citizens, Guards, Attendants, &c.

SCENE, during the greater part of the Play, at Rome: afterwards at Sardis, and near Philippi.

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THE TRAGEDY OF

JULIUS CESAR.

ACT I.

SCENE I. - Rome. A Street.

Enter FLAVIUS, MARULLUS, and a rabble of Citizens.

FLAVIUS.

ENCE! home, you idle creatures, get you

Hhome.

Is this a holiday? What! know you not,

Being mechanical, you ought not walk

Upon a labouring day without the sign

Of your profession?-Speak, what trade art thou? 1 Citizen. Why, sir, a carpenter.

Marullus. Where is thy leather apron, and thy

rule?

What dost thou with thy best apparel on?
You, sir; what trade are you?

2 Cit. Truly, sir, in respect of a fine workman, I am but, as you would say, a cobbler.

Mar. But what trade art thou? Answer me directly.

2 Cit. A trade, sir, that, I hope, I may use with a safe conscience; which is, indeed, sir, a mender of bad soles.

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Mar.

What trade, thou knave? thou naughty knave, what trade?

2 Cit. Nay, I beseech you, sir, be not out with me: yet, if you be out, sir, I can mend you.

Mar. What mean'st thou by that? Mend me, thou saucy fellow?

2 Cit. Why, sir, cobble you.

Flav. Thou art a cobbler, art thou?

2 Cit. Truly, sir, all that I live by is with the awl: I meddle with no tradesman's matters, nor women's matters but withal I am, indeed, sir, a surgeon to old shoes; when they are in great danger, I re-cover them. As proper men as ever trod upon neats-leather have gone upon my handywork.

Flav. But wherefore art not in thy shop to-day? Why do'st thou lead these men about the streets?

2 Cit. Truly, sir, to wear out their shoes, to get myself into more work. But, indeed, sir, we make holiday, to see Cæsar, and to rejoice in his triumph. Mar. Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings

he home?

What tributaries follow him to Rome,

To grace in captive bonds his chariot wheels?
You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless

things!

cruel men of Rome,
Many a time and oft
walls and battlements,

O, you hard hearts, you
Knew you not Pompey?
Have you climb'd up to
To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops,
Your infants in your arms, and there have sat
The live-long day, with patient expectation,
To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome :
And when you saw his chariot but appear,
Have you not made an universal shout,
That Tyber trembled underneath her banks,

To hear the replication of your sounds
Made in her concave shores?

And do you now put on your best attire?
And do you now cull out a holiday?

And do you now strew flowers in his way
That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood?
Be gone!

Run to your houses, fall upon your knees,
Pray to the gods to intermit the plague
That needs must light on this ingratitude.

Flav. Go, go, good countrymen; and for this fault

Assemble all the poor men of your sort:

Draw them to Tyber banks, and weep your tears
Into the channel, till the lowest stream
Do kiss the most exalted shores of all.

[Exeunt Citizens.

See, whe'r their basest metal be not mov'd;
They vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness.
Go you down that way towards the Capitol :
This way will I. Disrobe the images,
If you do find them deck'd with ceremony.
Mar. May we do so?

You know, it is the feast of Lupercal.
Flav. It is no matter: let no images
Be hung with Cæsar's trophies. I'll about,
And drive away the vulgar from the streets :
So do you too, where you perceive them thick.
These growing feathers pluck'd from Cæsar's wing
Will make him fly an ordinary pitch,

Who else would soar above the view of men,
And keep us all in servile fearfulness.

[Exeunt.

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