1.-JULIUS CÆSAR.

[The play of Julius Cæsar, written about 1600, is the noblest of that series of historical dramas in which Shakespeare so marvelously reproduced the ancient Roman world. The historical facts are taken throughout from Plutarch's Lives, in an English translation published during Shakespeare's time, and of which the poet is known to have possessed a copy.

In order to bind together the scenes here given, they are framed in a brief prose narrative.]

PART I.

It was high holiday in Rome (44 B.C.), and the streets were filled with crowds eager to welcome Julius Cæsar, who was to make his triumphal entry into the city, on his return from a victorious campaign. Cæsar was the most famous soldier of his time. He had conquered Gaul (now France); and he had twice visited Britain with an army, and had made it known to the civilized world.

He had now returned from Spain, where he had crushed a rebellion raised by the sons of Pompey, his late rival; and the Roman senate and Roman people vied with each other in heaping honors on him. He had been made. Consul (or head of the Republic) for ten years, and then Dictator for life; and all Rome had turned out into the streets to applaud the conquering hero.

But there were some among the foremost men in the state who were jealous of Cæsar's great power. He had all the authority of an emperor, and many suspected him of desiring the title also. Among the leading men, the one most jealous of him was a general named Caius Cassius, a man of an envious and fiery spirit. He formed a conspiracy against Cæsar, and was anxious to draw the noble Brutus into it.

While Cæsar is passing in triumph through the crowded streets, Cassius takes the opportunity to talk with Brutus, in order to sound him. While they stand together in conversation, a noise of shouting is heard. This attracts the attention of Brutus.

BRUTUS. What means this shouting? I do fear, the people

Choose Cæsar for their king.

CASSIUS. Ay, do you fear it?

Then must I think you would not have it so.
BRUTUS. I would not, Cassius; yet I love him well.-
But wherefore do you hold me here so long?
What is it that you would impart to me?
If it be aught toward the general good,
Set honor in one eye1 and death i' the other,
And I will look on both indifferently;

For let the gods so speed3 me as I love
The name of honor more than I fear death.

CASSIUS. I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus,
As well as I do know your outward favor.5
Well, honor is the subject of my story.-

I can not tell what you and other men
Think of this life; but, for my single self,
I had as lief7 not be, as live to be
In awe of such a thing as I myself.

1 in one eye, before the view of

one eye.

2 indifferently, impartially.

3 speed, prosper.

4 that virtue. What is the reference here?

5 your outward favor, your personal appearance.

6 what you ... life. Of what verb is this clause the object?

"I had as lief. Explain the phrase.

I was born free as Cæsar; so were you :
We both have fed as well, and we can both
Endure the winter's cold as well as he.
For once, upon a raw and gusty day,
The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores,
Cæsar said to me, "Darest thou, Cassius, now
Leap in with me into this angry flood,
And swim to yonder point?" Upon the word,
Accoutered as I was, I plunged in,

And bade him follow: so indeed he did.
The torrent roared, and we did buffet it
With lusty 2 sinews, throwing it aside
And stemming it with hearts of controversy;
But, ere we could arrive the point proposed,*
Cæsar cried, "Help me, Cassius, or I sink!"
I, as Æneas, our great ancestor,

3

Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber Did I the tired Cæsar. And this man

Is now become a god, and Cassius is

A wretched creature, and must bend his body

If Cæsar carelessly but nod on him!

He had a fever when he was in Spain;

And, when the fit was on him, I did mark
How he did shake: 'tis true, this god did shake!
His coward lips did from their color fly,1

And that same eye whose bend2 doth awe the world
Did lose his luster. I did hear him groan;
Ay, and that tongue of his that bade the Romans
Mark him and write his speeches in their books,
Alas, it cried, "Give me some drink, Titinius ! " 4
As a sick girl.-Ye gods! it doth amaze me,
A man of such a feeble temper 5 should
So get the start of the majestic world,
And bear the palm alone.

BRUTUS. Another general shout!

I do believe that these applauses are

[Cheering is heard.

For some new honors that are heaped on Cæsar. CASSIUS. Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world

Like a colossus,7 and we petty men

8 his luster: his=its. In early 7 a colossus. "Colossus" was English, his was the possessive of the general name for any gigantic the neuter (hit) as well as of the statue; but the name was specialmasculine (he); and in Shake-ly applied to the famous Colossus speare's time its had not come into of Apollo at Rhodes, which was general use. seventy cubits high, and spanned

4 Titinius was one of the friends the entrance to the harbor, so that of Cassius. large ships could sail "under his 5 temper temperament, dispo- huge legs." Hence the English sition, organization. word colossal.

Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonorable graves.

Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.1

Brutus, and Cæsar: what should be in that "Cæsar"?
Why should that name be sounded more than yours?
Write them together, — yours is as fair a name;

it doth become the mouth as well;

66

Sound them,
Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure with 'em -
"Brutus" will start a spirit as soon as Cæsar."
Now, in the names of all the gods at once,
Upon what meat doth this our Cæsar feed,
That he is grown 2 so great?-Age, thou art shamed!
Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!
When went there by an age, since the great flood,
But it was famed with 3 more than with one man?
When could they say till now, that talked of Rome,
That her wide walls encompassed but one man?
Now is it Rome indeed and room enough,1
When there is in it but one only man.

Oh, you and I have heard our fathers say,
There was a Brutus 5 once that would have brooked

1 underlings, inferiors, serfs. The termination -ling marks a contemptuous diminutive.

The

5 There was a Brutus. reference here skillfully made is to the ancestor of Marcus Brutus,

What is the mod- viz., Lucius Junius Brutus, who

2 is grown. ern form of the verb?

=

3 famed with famed for. 4 Rome and room enough. This is a pun, or play on words, "Rome" having been in Shakespeare's time pronounced as "room."

brought about the expulsion of the Tarquins. Cassius' aim is, by recalling the memory of the Elder, to induce the Younger Brutus to emulate the patriotism of his ancestor.