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To grace in captive bonds his chariot wheels?
You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!
O, you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,
Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft
Have you climb'd up to walls and battlements,
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,
Madé 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.

6

her banks.] As Tyber is always represented by the figure of a man, the feminine gender is improper. Milton says, that—

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"Rolls o'er Elysian flowers her amber stream."

But he is speaking of the water, and not of its presiding power or genius. Steevens.

Drayton, in his Polyolbion, frequently describes the rivers of Engand as females, even when he speaks of the presiding power of the stream. Spenser on the other hand, represents them more classi'cally, as males. Malone.

The presiding power of some of Drayton's rivers were females; like Sabrina, &c. Steevens.

7 See, whe'r-] Whether, thus abbreviated, is used by Ben Jonson:
"Who shall doubt, Donne, whe'r I a poet be,

"When I dare send my epigrams to thee." Steevens.
Malone.

See Vol. VII, p. 310, n. 6.

Go you down that way towards the Capitol;
This way will I: Disrobe the images,

If

you do find them deck'd with ceremonies.8
Mar. May we do so?

You know, it is the feast of Lupercal. 5-
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.

SCENE JI.

The same. A publick Place.

[Exeunt.

Enter, in Procession, with Musick, CÆSAR; ANTONY, for the course; CALPHURNIA, PORTIA, DECIUS,1 CICERO, BRUTUS, CASSIUS, and CASCA, a great Crowd following; among them a Soothsayer.

Cas. Calphurnia,—

Casca. Peace, ho! Cæsar speaks. [Musick ccases. Cas. Calphurnia,

8

deck'd with ceremonies.] Ceremonies, for religious orna. ments. Thus afterwards he explains them by Casar's trophies; i. e. such as he had dedicated to the gods. Warburton.

Ceremonies are honorary ornaments; tokens of respect. Malone.

Be hung with Caesar's trophies.] Cæsar's trophies, are, I believe, the crowns which were placed on his statues. So, in Sir Thomas North's translation: "- There were set up images of Cæsar in the city with diadems on their heads, like kings. Those the two tribunes went and pulled down." Steevens.

What these trophies really were, is explained by a passage in the next scene, where Casca informs Cassius, that Marullus and Flavius, for pulling scarfs off Cæsar's images, are put to silence.

M. Mason.

1 This person was not Decius, but Decimus Brutus. The poet (as Voltaire has done since) confounds the characters of Marcus and Decimus. Decimus Brutus was the most cherished by Casar of all his friends, while Marcus kept aloof, and declined so large a share of his favours and honours, as the other had constantly accepted. Velleius Patercuius, speaking of Decimus Brutus, says :-" ab iis, quos miserat Antonius. jugulatus est; justissimasque optimè de se merito viro C. Cæsari pœnas dedit. Cujus cum primus omnium

Cal. Here, my lord.

Cas. Stand you directly in Antonius' way,2 When he doth run his course.-Antonius. Ant. Cæsar, my lord.

Cas. Forget not, in your speed, Antonius, To touch Calphurnia: for our elders say, The barren, touched in this holy chase, Shake off their steril curse.

amicorum fuisset, interfector fuit, et fortunæ ex qua fructum tulerat, invidiam in auctorem relegabat, censebatque æquum, quæ acceperat à Cæsare retinere: Cæsarem, quia illa dederat, perîsse." Lib. II, c. lxiv:

"Jungitur his Decimus, notissimus inter amicos

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Cæsaris, ingratus, cui trans-Alpina fuisset

"Gallia Cæsareo nuper commissa favore.
"Non illum conjuncta fides, non nomen amici
"Deterrere potest.-

"Ante alios Decimus, cui fallere, nomen amici
66 Præcipue dederat, ductorum sæpe morantem
"Incitat."- -Supplem. Lucani.

Steevens.

Shakspeare's mistake of Decius for Decimus, arose from the old translation of Plutarch. Farmer.

Lord Sterline has committed the same mistake in his Julius Cæsar: and in Holland's translation of Suetonius, 1606, which I believe Shakspeare had read, this person is likewise called Decius Brutus. Malone.

2

in Antonius' way,] The old copy generally reads-Antonio, Octavio, Flavio. The players were more accustomed to Italian than Roman terminations, on account of the many versions from Italian novels, and the many Italian characters in dramatick pieces formed on the same originals. Steevens.

The correction was made by Mr. Pope -"At that time, (says Plutarch) the feast Lupercalia was celebrated, the which in olde time men say was the feast of Shepheards or heardsmen, and is, much like unto the feast of Lyceians in Arcadia. But howsoever it is, that day there are diverse noble men's sonnes, young men, (and some of them magistrates themselves that govern them) which run naked through the city, striking in sport them they meet in their way with leather thongs.-And many noble women and gentlewomen also go of purpose to stand in their way, and doe put forth their handes to be stricken, persuading themselves that being with childe, they shall have good deliverie; and also being barren, that it will make them conceive with child. Cæsar sat to behold that sport vpon the pulpit for orations, in a chayre of gold, apparelled in triumphant manner. Antonius, who was consul at that time, was one of them that ronne this holy course." North's translation.

We learn from Cicero that Cæsar constituted a new kind of these Luperci, whom he called after his own name, Juliani; and Mark Antony was the first who was so entitled. Malone.

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[Musick.

When Cæsar says, Do this, it is performed.
Cas. Set on; and leave no ceremony out.
Sooth. Cæsar.

Cas. Ha! Who calls?

Casca. Bid every noise be still :--Peace yet again.

[Musick ceases.

Cas. Who is it in the press, that calls on me? I hear a tongue, shriller than all the musick, Cry, Cæsar: Speak; Cæsar is turn'd to hear. Sooth. Beware the ides of March.

Cas.

What man is that?
Bru. A soothsayer, bids you beware the ides of March.
Cas. Set him before me, let me see his face.

Cas. Fellow, come from the throng: Look upon Cæsar.
Cas. What say'st thou to me now? Speak once again.
Sooth. Beware the ides of March.

Ces. He is a dreamer; let us leave him ;-pass.

[Sennet. Exeunt all but BRU. and Cas. Cas. Will you go see the order of the course? Bru. Not I.

Cas. I pray you, do.

Bru. I am not gamesome: I do lack some part Of that quick spirit that is in Antony.

Let me not hinder, Cassius, your desires;

I'll leave you.

Cas. Brutus, I do observe you now of late :4

t.]

3 Sennet. I have been informed that sennet is derived from senneste, an antiquated French tune formerly used in the army; but the Dictionaries which I have consulted exhibit no such word.

In Decker's Satiromastix, 1602:

66

Trumpets sound a flourish, and then a sennet."

In The Dumb Show, preceding the first part of Jeronimo, 1605, is

"Sound a signate and pass over the stage."

In Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of Malta, a synnet is called a flourish of trumpets, but I know not on what authority. See a note on King Henry VIII, Act II, sc. iv, Vol. XI, p. 258, n. 9. Sennet may be a corruption from sonata, Ital. Steevens.

4 Brutus, I do observe you now of late:] Will the reader sustain any loss by the omission of the words-you now, without which the measure would become regular?

I'll leave you.

Cas.

I have not &c.

Brutus, I do observe of late,
Steevens.

I have not from your eyes that gentleness,
And show of love, as I was wont to have:
You bear too stubborn and too strange a hands
Over your friend that loves you.

Bru.

Cassius,

Be not deceiv'd: If I have veil'd my look,
I turn the trouble of my countenance
Merely upon myself. Vexed I am,

Of late, with passions of some difference,6
Conceptions only proper to myself,

Which give some soil, perhaps, to my behaviours:
But let not therefore my good friends be griev'd;
(Among which number, Cassius, be you one ;)
Nor construe any further my neglect,

Than that poor Brutus, with himself at war,
Forgets the shows of love to other men.

Cas. Then, Brutus, I have much mistook your passion ;7

By means whereof, this breast of mine hath buried
Thoughts of great value, worthy cogitations.
Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face?
Bru. No, Cassius: for the eye sees not itself,
But by reflection, by some other things.

Cas. 'Tis just :

And it is very much lamented, Brutus,

That you have no such mirrors, as will turn

5 strange a hand-] Strange, is alien, unfamiliar, such as might become a stranger. Johnson.

6 passions of some difference,] With a fluctuation of discordant opinions and desires. Johnson.

So, in Coriolanus, Act V, sc. iii:

66

thou hast set thy mercy and thy honour "At difference in thee." Steevens.

A following line may prove the best comment on this:

"Than that poor Brutus, with himself at war,—." Ma.ore.

7

- your passion;] i. e. the nature of the feelings from which you are now suffering. So, in Timon of Athens:

8

"I feel my master's passion." Steevens.

the eye sees not itseif,] So, Sir John Davies in his poem entitled Nosce Teipsum, 1599:

"Is it because the mind is like the eye,

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Through which it gathers knowledge by degrees; "Whose rays reflect not, but spread outwardly;

"Not seeing itself, when other things it sees?" Steevens.

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