Chapter IV: Introduction (1)

NOTE. In citations from Shakespeare's plays and nondramatic poems the numbering has reference to the Globe edition, except in the case of this play, where the reference is to this edition.

I. SOURCES

No event in the history of the world has made a more profound impression upon the popular imagination than the assassination of Julius Cæsar. Apart from its overwhelming interest as a personal catastrophe, it was regarded in the sixteenth century as a happening of the greatest historical moment, fraught with significant public lessons for all time. There is ample evidence that in England from the beginning of Elizabeth's reign it was the subject of much literary and dramatic treatment, and in making the murder of "the mightiest Julius" the climax of a play, Shakespeare was true to that instinct which drew him for material to themes of universal and eternal interest.

THE MAIN STORY

I. _North's Plutarch._ There is no possible doubt that in _Julius Cæsar_ Shakespeare derived the great body of his historical material from _The Life of Julius Cæsar_, _The Life of Marcus Brutus_, and _The Life of Marcus Antonius_ in Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch.[1] This work was first printed in 1579 in a massive folio dedicated to Queen Elizabeth. A second edition appeared in 1595, and in all probability this was the edition read by Shakespeare. The title-page is reproduced in facsimile on page ix. This interesting title-page gives in brief the literary history of North's translation, which was made not directly from the original Greek of Plutarch, but from a French version by Jacques Amyot, bishop of Auxerre.[2] In 1603 appeared a third edition with additional _Lives_ and new matter on the title-page.[3] There were subsequent editions in 1612,[4] 1631, 1656, and 1676. The popularity of this work attested by these reprintings was thoroughly deserved, for North's Plutarch is among the richest and freshest monuments of Elizabethan prose literature, and, apart altogether from the use made of it by Shakespeare, is in itself an invaluable repertory of honest, manly, idiomatic English. No abstract of the Plutarchian matter need be given here, as all the more important passages drawn upon for the play are quoted in the footnotes to the text. These will show that in most of the leading incidents the great Greek biographer is closely followed, though in many cases these incidents are worked out and developed with rare fertility of invention and art. It is very significant that in the second half of _The Life of Julius Cæsar_, which Shakespeare draws upon very heavily, Plutarch emphasizes those weaknesses of Cæsar which are made so prominent in the play. Besides this, in many places the Plutarchian form and order of thought, and also the very words of North's racy and delectable English are retained, with such an embalming for immortality as Shakespeare alone could give.[5]

[Footnote 1: Professor W. W. Skeat's _Shakespeare's Plutarch_ (The Macmillan Company) gives these _Lives_ in convenient form with a text based upon the edition of 1612.]

[Footnote 2: A Latin translation of Plutarch's _Lives_ was printed at Rome as early as 1470, and there is evidence that through a Latin version the work first attracted the attention of Amyot. But his famous French version, first published in 1559, shows thorough familiarity with the original Greek text.]

[Footnote 3: This title-page is given in facsimile as the frontispiece of this volume.]

[Footnote 4: There is a famous copy of this edition in the Greenock Library with the initials "W. S." at the top of the title-page and seventeenth century manuscript notes in _The Life of Julius Cæsar_. See Skeat's _Shakespeare's Plutarch_, Introduction, p. xii.]

[Footnote 5: See Trench's _Lectures on Plutarch_, Leo's _Four Chapters of North's Plutarch_, and Delius's _Shakespeare's Julius Cæsar und seine Quellen in Plutarch_ (_Shakespeare Jahrbuch_, XVII, 67).]

THE LIVES
OF THE NOBLE GRECIANS
AND ROMANES, COMPARED
TOGETHER BY THAT GRAVE LEARNED
PHILOSOPHER AND HISTORIOGRAPHER,
_Plutarch of Chæronea_:
Translated out of Greeke into French by IAMES AMIOT, Abbot of
Bellozane,
Bishop of Auxerre, one of the Kings priuie counsell, and great
Amner of France, and out of French into English, by
_Thomas North_.
Imprinted at London by Richard Field for
Bonham Norton.
1595.

]

In _Julius Cæsar_ Shakespeare's indebtedness to North's Plutarch may be summed up as extending to (1) the general story of the play; (2) minor incidents and happenings, as Cæsar's falling-sickness, the omens before his death, and the writings thrown in Brutus's way; (3) touches of detail, as in the description of Cassius's "lean and hungry look" and of Antony's tastes and personal habits; and (4) noteworthy expressions, phrases, and single words, as in III, ii, 240-241, 246-248; IV, iii, 2; IV, iii, 178; V, i, 80-81; V, iii, 109.

On the other hand, Shakespeare's alteration of Plutarchian material is along the lines of (1) idealization, as in the characters of Brutus and Cassius; (2) amplification, as in the use Antony makes of Cæsar's rent and bloody mantle; and (3) simplification and compression of the action for dramatic effect, as in making Cæsar's triumph take place at the time of "the feast of Lupercal," in the treatment of the quarrel between Brutus and Cassius, which in Plutarch lasts for two days, and in making the two battles of Philippi occur on the same day. See note, p. 159, ll. 109-110. See also below, The Scene of the Assassination.

2. _Appian's Roman Wars._ In 1578 there was published in London an English translation of the extant portions of Appian's _History of the Roman Wars both Civil and Foreign_, with the interesting title page shown in facsimile on page xi.

AN AVNCIENT
Historie and exquisite Chronicle
_of the Romanes warres, both_
Ciuile and Foren.

Written in Greeke by the noble Orator and Historiographer,
_Appian_ of _Alexandria_, one of the learned
Counsell to the most mightie Emperoures,
_Traiane_ and _Adriane_

In the which is declared:

_Their greedy desire conquere others.
Their mortall malice to destroy themselves.
Their seeking of matters to make warre abroad.
Their picking of quarels to fall out at home.
All the degrees of Sedition, and the effects of Ambition.
A firme determination of Fate, thorowe all the changes of Fortune.
And finally, an evident demonstration, That peoples rule must give
place, and Princes power prevayle._

With a continuation, bicause that parte
of _Appian_ is not extant, from the death of _Sextus
Pompeius_, second sonne to _Pompey_ the Great,
_till the overthrow of_ Antonie _and_ Cleopatra,
after the vvhich time, _Octavianus Cæsar_,
had the Lordship of all, alone.

Βασιλίδι χρἁτιϛη, δεσπὁτιδι τ' ἐπιεικἐϛατη

IMPRINTED AT LONDON
_by Raufe Newbery, and_
Henrie Bynniman.
Anno. 1578.

]

In this translation of Appian the events before and after Cæsar's death are described minutely and with many graphic touches. Compare, for example, with the quotation from Plutarch given in the note, p. 68, l. 33, this account of the same incident in Appian: "The day before that Cæsar should go to the senate, he had him at a banquet with Lepidus ... and talking merrily what death was best for a man, some saying one and some another, he of all praised sudden death." Here are some of the marginal summaries in Appian: "Cæsar refuseth the name of King," "A crown upon Cæsar's image by one that was apprehended of the tribunes Marullus and Sitius," "Cæsar hath the Falling-Sickness," "Cæsar's Wife (hath) a fearful Dream," "Cæsar contemneth sacrifices of evil Luck," "Cæsar giveth over when Brutus had stricken him," "The fear of the Conspirators," "The bad Angel of Brutus."

What gives interest and distinction to Appian's translation as a probable source for material in _Julius Cæsar_ is that in it we have speeches by Antony, Brutus, and Lepidus at the time of the reading of Cæsar's will. In this translation Antony's first speech begins, "They that would have voices tried upon Cæsar must know afore that if he ruled as an officer lawfully chosen, then all his acts and decrees must stand in force...." On Antony's second speech the comment is, "Thus wrought Antony artificially." His speech to the Senate begins, "Silence being commanded, he said thus, 'Of the citizens offenders (you men of equal honour) in this your consultation I have said nothing....'" The speech of Lepidus to the people has this setting: "When he was come to the place of speech he lamented, weeping, and thus said, 'Here I was yesterday with Cæsar, and now am I here to inquire of Cæsar's death.... Cæsar is gone from us, an holy and honourable man in deed.'" The effect of this speech is commented on as follows: "Handling the matter thus craftily, the hired men, knowing that he was ambitious, praised him and exhorted him to take the office of Cæsar's priesthood." A long speech by Brutus follows the reading of Cæsar's will. It begins: "Now, O citizens, we be here with you that yesterday were in the common court not as men fleeing to the temple that have done amiss, nor as to a fort, having committed all we have to you.... We have heard what hath been objected against us of our enemies, touching the oath and touching cause of doubt...." The effect of this speech is thus described: "Whiles Brutus thus spake, all the hearers considering with themselves that he spake nothing but right, did like them well, and as men of courage and lovers of the people, had them in great admiration and were turned into their favour."

3. _Earlier Plays._ As already mentioned, England had plays on the subject of Julius Cæsar from the first years of Elizabeth's reign. As not one of these earlier plays is extant, there can be no certainty as to whether Shakespeare drew upon them for materials or inspiration, but, as Professor Herford says, "he seems to be cognisant of their existence." His opening scene is addressed to a public familiar with the history of Pompey and Pompey's sons. Among these earlier plays was one almost contemporary with the first production of _Gorboduc_, the first English tragedy. It is referred to under the name of _Julyus Sesar_ in an entry in Machyn's _Diary_ under February 1, 1562. In _Plays confuted in five Actions_, printed probably in 1582, Stephen Gosson mentions the history of _Cæsar and Pompey_ as a contemporary play. A Latin play on Cæsar's death was acted at Oxford in 1582, and for it Dr. Richard Eedes (Eades, Edes) of Christ Church wrote the epilogue (_Epilogus Cæsaris Intersecti_). In Henslowe's _Diary_ under November 8, 1594, a _Seser and pompie_ is mentioned as a new play. Mr. A. W. Verity (_Julius Cæsar_, The Pitt Press edition) makes the interesting suggestion that in III, i, 111-116, there may be an allusion to these earlier plays. Cf. also _Hamlet_, III, ii, 107-111, quoted below.

THE SCENE OF THE ASSASSINATION

In transferring the assassination of Cæsar from the _Porticus Pompeia_ ("Pompey's porch," I, iii, 126) to the Capitol, Shakespeare departed from Plutarch and historical accuracy to follow a popular tradition that had received the signal imprimatur of Chaucer:

This Iulius to the Capitolie wente
Upon a day, as he was wont to goon,[1]
And in the Capitolie anon him hente[2]
This false Brutus, and his othere foon[3]
And stikede him with boydekins[4] anoon
With many a wounde, and thus they lete him lye;
But never gronte[5] he at no strook but oon,
Or elles at two, but if[6] his storie lye.

_The Monkes Tale_, ll. 715-718. (Skeat's _Chaucer_.)

[Footnote 1: go.]

[Footnote 2: seized.]

[Footnote 3: foes.]

[Footnote 4: daggers.]

[Footnote 5: groaned.]

[Footnote 6: unless.]

This literary and popular tradition is followed in _Hamlet_, III, ii, 107-111:

HAMLET. What did you enact?

POLONIUS. I did enact Julius Cæsar: I was kill'd i' the Capitol:
Brutus kill'd me.

HAMLET. It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there.

So also in _Antony and Cleopatra:_

Since Julius Cæsar,
Who at Philippi the good Brutus ghosted,
There saw you labouring for him. What was 't
That mov'd pale Cassius to conspire; and what
Made the all-honour'd, honest Roman, Brutus,
With the arm'd rest, courtiers of beauteous freedom,
To drench the Capitol; but that they would
Have one man but a man? [II, vi, 12-19.]

We have the same popular tradition in the first scene of the last act of Fletcher's _The Noble Gentleman_. So, too, in the Prologue to Beaumont and Fletcher's, or Fletcher and Massinger's, _The False One_, a tragedy dealing with Cæsar and Cleopatra:

To tell
Of Cæsar's amorous heats, and how he fell
I' the Capitol.

Here the reference is to Shakespeare's play.

"ET TU, BRUTE"

Dyce and other researchers have made clear that in Shakespeare's day "_Et tu, Brute_" was a familiar phrase which had special reference to a wound from a supposed friend. It probably owed its popularity to having been used in the earlier plays on the subject of Julius Cæsar. In _The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of York_ (1595), upon which Shakespeare's _3 Henry VI_ is based, occurs the line,

_Et tu, Brute?_ wilt thou stab Cæsar too?

This line is repeated in S. Nicholson's poem, _Acolastus, his Afterwitte_ (1600). In Ben Jonson's _Every Man out of His Humour_ (1599), Buffone uses "_Et tu, Brute_" in speaking to Macilente (V, iv). In the _Myrroure for Magistrates_ (1587) we find,

And Brutus thou, my sonne, quoth I, whom erst I loved best.

The Latin form of the phrase possibly originated, as Malone suggested, in the Latin play referred to above (Earlier Plays) which was acted at Oxford in 1582. It is easy to see how the Elizabethan tendency to word-quibble and equivoque would help to give currency to the Latin form. Cf. Hamlet's joke on 'brute' quoted above.

BRUTUS'S SPEECH, III, ii

In view of the close connection between _Julius Cæsar_ and _Hamlet_ as regards date of composition and the characterization of Brutus and Hamlet, interest attaches to Professor Gollancz's theory (_Julius Cæsar_, Temple Shakespeare) that the original of the famous speech of Brutus to the assembled Romans (III, ii) may be found in Belleforest's _History of Hamlet_, in the oration which Hamlet makes to the Danes after he has slain his uncle. "The situation of Hamlet is almost identical with that of Brutus after he has dealt the blow, and the burden of Hamlet's too lengthy speech finds an echo in Brutus's sententious utterance. The verbose iteration of the Dane has been compressed to suit 'the brief compendious manner of speech of the Lacedæmonians.'"--Gollancz. As the English translation from which Professor Gollancz quotes in support of his theory is dated 1608, and is the earliest known,[1] it cannot have been from this that Shakespeare drew any suggestions or material. The question arises, Did Shakespeare read the speech in the original French? The volume of Belleforest's _Histoires Tragiques_, which contained the story of Hamlet, was first published in 1570, and there were many reprintings of it before 1600.

[Footnote 1: Reprinted in Collier's _Shakespeare's Library_. This translation shows in more than one place the influence of Shakespeare's play. For example, Hamlet's exclamation before he kills Polonius, "A rat! a rat!" is in the English version, but there is no suggestion of it in the French original.]

II. DATE OF COMPOSITION

Modern editors fix the date of composition of _Julius Cæsar_ within 1601, the later time limit (_terminus ante quem_), and 1598, the earlier time limit (_terminus post quem_). The weight of evidence is in favor of 1600-1601.

EXTERNAL EVIDENCE

1. _Negative._ _Julius Cæsar_ is not mentioned by Meres in the _Palladis Tamia_, published in 1598, which gives a list of twelve noteworthy Shakespeare plays in existence at that time. This establishes 1598 as a probable _terminus post quem_.

2. _Positive._ In John Weever's _Mirror of Martyrs or the Life and Death of Sir John Oldcastle Knight, Lord Cobham_, printed in 1601, are the following lines:

The many-headed multitude were drawne
By _Brutus_ speech that _Cæsar_ was ambitious,
When eloquent _Mark Antonie_ had showne
His vertues, who but _Brutus_ then was vicious?
Man's memorie, with new, forgets the old,
One tale is good, until another's told.

Halliwell-Phillipps was the first to note that here is a very pointed reference to the second scene of the third act of _Julius Cæsar_, as the antithesis brought out is not indicated in any of Shakespeare's historical sources. The fact that Weever states in his Dedication that the _Mirror_ "some two years agoe was made fit for the print" has been held by Mr. Percy Simpson[1] to indicate that the play was not brought out later than 1599, a conclusion supported, he thinks, by a passage in Ben Jonson's _Every Man out of His Humour_, produced in that year, where Clove (III, i) says, "Then coming to the pretty animal, as _Reason long since is fled to animals_, you know," which may be a sneering allusion to Antony's "O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts" (III, ii, 104). The "_Et tu, Brute_" quotation in the same play has been used to strengthen the argument. But the lines from the _Mirror of Martyrs_ quoted above may easily have been inserted by Weever into his poem in consequence of the popularity of Shakespeare's play. This contemporary popularity is well attested. Leonard Digges,[2] in his verses _Upon Master William Shakespeare_ prefixed to the 1640 edition of Shakespeare's Poems, thus compares it with that of Ben Jonson's Roman plays:

So have I seene, when Cesar would appeare,
And on the Stage at halfe-sword parley were
_Brutus_ and _Cassius_: oh how the Audience
Were ravish'd, with what new wonder they went thence,
When some new day they would not brooke a line
Of tedious (though well laboured) _Catiline_;
_Sejanus_ too was irkesome, they priz'de more
Honest _Iago_, or the jealous _Moore_.

[Footnote 1: In _Notes and Queries_, February, 1899.]

[Footnote 2: Leonard Digges also wrote verses "To the Memorie of the deceased Authour Maister W. Shakespeare," prefixed to the First Folio.]

"Fustian" Clove's quotation may apply to references to the Pythagorean doctrine of the transmigration of souls in Shakespeare's earlier plays and other Elizabethan literature; and little can be based upon the "_Et tu, Brute_" quotation, as Ben Jonson may have drawn it from the same source as Shakespeare did.

On the other hand, Henslowe in his _Diary_ under May 22, 1602, notes that he advanced five pounds "in earneste of a Boocke called _sesers Falle_," which the dramatists Munday, Drayton, Webster, Middleton "and the Rest" were composing for Lord Nottingham's Company. _Cæsar's Fall_ was plainly intended to outshine Shakespeare's popular play, but, as Professor Herford comments, "the lost play ... for the rival company would have been a somewhat tardy counterblast to an old piece of 1599." He adds: "_Julius Cæsar_ was certainly not unconcerned in the revival of the fashion for tragedies of revenge with a ghost in them, which suddenly set in with Marston's _Antonio and Mellida_ and Chettle's _Hoffman_ in 1601."

Dr. Furnivall, a strong advocate for 1601 as the date of composition, has suggested[1] that Essex's ill-judged rebellion against Queen Elizabeth, on Sunday, February 8, 1601, was the reason of Shakespeare's producing his _Julius Cæsar_ in that year. "Assuredly," he says, "the citizens of London in that year who heard Shakespeare's play must have felt the force of '_Et tu, Brute_,' and must have seen Brutus's death, with keener and more home-felt influence than we feel and hear the things with now."

Drayton's revised version of his _Mortimeriados_ (1596-1597); published in 1603 under the title of _The Barons' Wars_, has a passage which strongly resembles some lines in Antony's last speech (V, v, 73-74), but common property in the idea that a well-balanced mixture of the four elements (earth, air, fire, and water) produces a perfect man invalidates any argument for the date of the play based upon this evidence. See note, p. 167, l. 73.

INTERNAL EVIDENCE

Dr. W. A. Wright[2] has argued against an earlier date than 1600 for the composition of _Julius Caesar_ from the use of 'eternal' for 'infernal' in I, ii, 160. See note, p. 20, l. 160. Of course there is no certainty that Shakespeare wished to use the word 'infernal,' and, besides, if any substitution was made, it may have been at a later date. But adumbrations of _Hamlet_ everywhere in _Julius Cæsar_, the frequent references to Cæsar in _Hamlet_, the kinship in character of Brutus and Hamlet (see note, p. 46, l. 65), the treatment of the supernatural, and the development of the revenge motive give strong cumulative evidence that the composition of _Julius Cæsar_ is in time very near to that of _Hamlet_, the first Shakespearian draft of which is now generally conceded to date from the first months of 1602. The diction of _Julius Cæsar_, the quality of the blank verse, the style generally (see below, Versification and Diction), all point to 1601 as the probable date of composition. It has been said that a true taste for Shakespeare is like the creation of a special sense; and this saying is nowhere better approved than in reference to his subtile variations of language and style. He began with what may be described as a preponderance of the poetic element over the dramatic. As we trace his course onward, we may discover a gradual rising of the latter element into greater strength and prominence, until at last it had the former in complete subjection. Now, where positive external evidence is wanting, it is mainly from the relative strength of these elements that the probable date of the writing may be argued. In _Julius Cæsar_ the diction is more gliding and continuous, and the imagery more round and amplified, than in the earlier dramas or in those known to belong to Shakespeare's latest period.

[Footnote 1: In _The Academy_, September 18, 1875. See also _The Leopold Shakspere_, Introduction.]

[Footnote 2: _Julius Cæsar_, The Clarendon Press, Introduction, p. viii.]

These distinctive notes are of a nature more easily to be felt than described, and to make them felt examples will best serve. Take then a passage from the soliloquy of Brutus just after he has pledged himself to the conspiracy:

'Tis a common proof,
That lowliness is young ambition's ladder,
Whereto the climber upward turns his face;
But when he once attains the upmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend. [II, i, 21-27.]

Here we have a full, rounded period in which all the elements seem to have been adjusted, and the whole expression set in order, before any part of it was written down. The beginning foresees the end, the end remembers the beginning, and the thought and image are evolved together in an even, continuous flow. The thing is indeed perfect in its way, still it is not in Shakespeare's latest and highest style. Now take a passage from _The Winter's Tale_:

When you speak, sweet,
I'ld have you do it ever: when you sing,
I'ld have you buy and sell so, so give alms,
Pray so; and, for the ordering your affairs,
To sing them too: when you do dance, I wish you
A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that; move still, still so,
And own no other function. [IV, iv, 136-143.]

Here the workmanship seems to make and shape itself as it goes along, thought kindling thought, and image prompting image, and each part neither concerning itself with what has gone before, nor with what is coming after. The very sweetness has a certain piercing quality, and we taste it from clause to clause, almost from word to word, as so many keen darts of poetic rapture shot forth in rapid succession. Yet the passage, notwithstanding its swift changes of imagery and motion, is perfect in unity and continuity.

III. EARLY EDITIONS

FOLIOS

On November 8, 1623, Edward Blount and Isaac Jaggard obtained formal license to print "Mr. William Shakespeere's Comedyes, Histories, and Tragedyes, soe many of the said copies as are not formerly entered to other men." This is the description-entry in _The Stationers' Registers_ of what is now known as the First Folio (1623), designated in the textual notes of this edition F1. _Julius Cæsar_ is one of the plays "not formerly entered,"[1] and it was first printed, so far as is known, in this famous volume. It is more correctly printed than perhaps any other play in the First Folio and, as the editors of the Cambridge Shakespeare suggest, "may perhaps have been (as the preface falsely implied that all were[2]) printed from the original manuscript of the author."[3] It stands between _Timon of Athens_ and _Macbeth_, two very badly printed plays. The running title is _The Tragedie of Julius Cæsar_, but in the "Catalogve of the seuerall Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies contained in this Volume," the title is given as _The Life and Death of Julius Cæsar_.

[Footnote 1: This is strong evidence that the play had not been printed at an earlier date.]

[Footnote 2: "... Absolute in their numbers, as he conceiued them.... His mind and hand went together: And what he thought, he vttered with that easinesse, that wee haue scarse receiued from him a blot in his papers" (Heminge and Condell's Address "To the great Variety of Readers," First Folio).]

[Footnote 3: Mr. F. G. Fleay in his Shakespeare Manual (1876) argues that "this play as we have it is an abridgement of Shakespeare's play made by Ben Jonson."]

The Second Folio, F2 (1632), the Third Folio, F3 (1663, 1664), and the Fourth Folio, F4 (1685), show few variants in the text of _Julius Cæsar_ and none of importance.

THE QUARTO OF 1691

In 1691 _Julius Cæsar_ appeared in quarto form. This Quarto contained one famous text variant, 'hath' for 'path' in II, i, 83. Though the Folio text here offers difficulties, and modern editors have suggested many emendations, no one has been inclined to accept the commonplace reading of the Quarto.

ROWE'S EDITIONS

In the Folios and in the Quarto of 1691 the play is divided into acts, but not into scenes, though the first act is headed _Actus Primus, Scæna Prima_. The first systematic division into scenes was made by Nicholas Rowe, poet laureate to George I, in the edition which he issued in six octavo volumes in 1709. In this edition Rowe, an experienced playwright, marked the entrances and exits of the characters and introduced many stage directions and the list of dramatis personæ which has been the basis for all later lists. A second edition in eight volumes was published in 1714. Rowe followed very closely the text of the Fourth Folio, but modernized spelling, punctuation, and occasionally grammar. These are the first critical editions of Shakespeare's plays.

IV. THE TITLE

It has been justly observed that Shakespeare shows much judgment in the naming of his plays. From this observation several critics have excepted _Julius Cæsar_, pronouncing the title a misnomer, on the ground that Brutus, and not Cæsar, is the hero of it. It is indeed true that Brutus is the hero, but the play is rightly named, for Cæsar is not only the subject but also the governing power of it throughout. He is the center and springhead of the entire action, giving law and shape to everything that is said and done. This is manifestly true in what occurs before his death; and it is true in a still deeper sense afterwards, since his genius then becomes the Nemesis or retributive Providence.

V. DRAMATIC CONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT

_Julius Cæsar_ is a tragedy of a normal Shakespearian type, in which is represented a conflict between an individual, or group of individuals, and certain forces which environ, antagonize, and overwhelm. The unity of action and of interest is the personality of Julius Cæsar. In dramatic technique the play is simple and effective. Out of masses of detail and historical incident the dramatist has shaped a symmetrical and well-defined plot marked by (1) the exposition, or introduction, (2) the complication, or rising action, (3) the climax, or turning point, (4) the resolution, or falling action, and (5) the catastrophe, or conclusion. It is almost a commonplace of criticism that the opening scene of a Shakespeare play strikes the keynote of the action. It certainly does in a remarkable way in _Julius Cæsar_, introducing, on the one side, a group of excited citizens friendly to Cæsar, and, on the other, two tribunes hostile to him. It foreshadows the character-contrasts in the play and the conflict between the state and the individual. The exposition continues through the second scene, in which are introduced the leading characters in significant action and interaction. At the close of this scene Cassius lays his plans to win Brutus over to the conspiracy, and the complication, or rising action, of the drama begins. Through the last scene of the first act and the four scenes of the second act the growth of the complication is continued, with brief intervals of suspense, until, in the first scene of the third act, the climax is reached in the assassination of Cæsar and the wild enthusiasm of the conspirators. With the entry of Antony's servant begins the resolution, or falling action (see note, p. 89, l. 123), and from now, through intervals of long suspense and many vicissitudes,[1] the fortunes of the chief conspirators fall inevitably to the catastrophe.

ANALYSIS BY ACT AND SCENE[2]

[Footnote 1: For an interesting defense of the so-called 'dragging' tendency and episodical character of the third scene of the fourth act, see Professor A. C. Bradley's _Shakespearean Tragedy_, pp. 55-61.]

[Footnote 2: "It must be understood that a play can be analyzed into very different schemes of plot. It must not be thought that one of these schemes is right and the rest wrong; but the schemes will be better or worse in proportion as--while of course representing correctly the facts of the play--they bring out more or less of what ministers to our sense of design."--Moulton.]

I. THE EXPOSITION, OR INTRODUCTION (TYING OF THE KNOT)

_Act I, Scene i._ The popularity of Cæsar with the Roman mob and the jealousy of the official classes--the two motive forces of the play--are revealed. The fickleness of the mob is shown in a spirit of comedy; the antagonism of Marullus and Flavius strikes the note of tragedy.

_Act I, Scene ii, 1-304._ The supreme characters are introduced, and in their opening speeches each reveals his temperament and foreshadows the part which he will play. The exposition of the situation is now complete.

II. THE COMPLICATION, RISING ACTION, OR GROWTH (TYING OF THE KNOT)

_Act I, Scene ii, 305-319._ In soliloquy Cassius unfolds his scheme for entangling Brutus in the conspiracy, and the dramatic complication begins.

_Act I, Scene iii._ Casca, excited by the fiery portents that bode disaster to the state, is persuaded by Cassius to join "an enterprise of honourable-dangerous consequence" (lines 123-124). The conspirators are assigned to their various posts, and Cassius engages to secure Brutus before morning.

_Act II, Scene i._ The humane character of Brutus, as master, husband, and citizen, is elaborated, and his attitude to Cæsar and the conspiracy of assassination clearly shown. He joins the conspirators--apparently their leader, in reality their tool. In lines 162-183 he pleads that the life of Antony be spared, and thus unconsciously prepares for his own ruin.

_Act II, Scene ii._ Cæsar is uneasy at the omens and portents, and gives heed to Calpurnia's entreaties to remain at home, but he yields to the importunity of Decius and starts for the Capitol, thus advancing the plans of the conspirators. The dramatic contrast between Cæsar and Brutus is strengthened by that between Calpurnia in this scene and Portia in the preceding.

_Act II, Scene iii._ The dramatic interest is intensified by the warning of Artemidorus and the suggestion of a way of escape for the protagonist.

_Act II, Scene iv._ The interest is further intensified by the way in which readers and spectators are made to share the anxiety of Portia.

III. THE CLIMAX, CRISIS, OR TURNING POINT (THE KNOT TIED)

_Act III, Scene i, 1-122._ The dramatic movement is now rapid, and the tension, indicated by the short whispered sentences of all the speakers except Cæsar, is only increased by his imperial utterances, which show utter unconsciousness of the impending doom. In the assassination all the complicating forces--the self-confidence of Cæsar, the unworldly patriotism of Brutus, the political chicanery of Cassius, the unscrupulousness of Casca, and the fickleness of the mob--bring about an event which changes the lives of all the characters concerned and threatens the stability of the Roman nation. The death of Cæsar is the climax of the physical action of the play; it is at the same time the emotional crisis from which Brutus comes with altered destiny.

IV. THE RESOLUTION, FALLING ACTION, OR CONSEQUENCE (THE UNTYING OF THE KNOT)

_Act III, Scene i, 123-298._ With Brutus's "Soft! who comes here? A friend of Antony's" begins the resolution, or falling action, of the play. "The fortune of the conspirators, hitherto in the ascendant, now declines, while 'Cæsar's spirit' surely and steadily prevails against them."--Verity. Against the advice of Cassius, Brutus gives Antony permission to deliver a public funeral oration. Antony in a soliloquy shows his determination to avenge Cæsar, and the first scene of the falling action closes with the announcement that Octavius is within seven leagues of Rome.

_Act III, Scene ii--Scene iii._ The orations of Antony, in vivid contrast to the conciliatory but unimpassioned speeches of Brutus, fire the people and liberate fresh forces in the falling action. Brutus and Cassius have to fly the city, riding "like madmen through the gates of Rome." In unreasoning fury the mob tears to pieces an innocent poet who has the same name as a conspirator.

_Act IV, Scene i._ Antony, Octavius, and Lepidus, having formed a triumvirate of which Antony is the master spirit, agree on a proscription list and join forces against Brutus and Cassius, who "are levying powers."

_Act IV, Scene ii._ Brutus and Cassius, long parted by pride and obstinacy, meet to discuss a plan of action.

_Act IV, Scene iii._ This is one of the most famous individual scenes in Shakespeare (see note, page 123). Its intensely human interest is always conceded, but its dramatic propriety, because of what seems a 'dragging' tendency, has been often questioned. The scene opens with Brutus and Cassius bandying recriminations, and the quarrel of the two generals bodes disaster to their cause. As the discussion proceeds, they yield points and become reconciled. Brutus then quietly but with peculiar pathos tells of Portia's death by her own hand. In all the great tragedies, with the notable exception of _Othello_, when the forces of the resolution, or falling action, are gathering towards the dénouement, Shakespeare introduces a scene which appeals to an emotion different from any of those excited elsewhere in the play. "As a rule this new emotion is pathetic; and the pathos is not terrible or lacerating, but, even if painful, is accompanied by the sense of beauty and by an outflow of admiration or affection, which come with an inexpressible sweetness after the tension of the crisis and the first counter-stroke. So it is with the reconciliation of Brutus and Cassius, and the arrival of the news of Portia's death."--Bradley. While the shadow of her tragic passing overhangs the spirits of both, Brutus overhears the shrewd, cautious counsel of Cassius and persuades him to assent to the fatal policy of offering battle at Philippi. That night the ghost of Cæsar appears to Brutus.

_Act V, Scene i._ The action now falls rapidly to the quick, decisive movement of the dénouement. The antagonists are now face to face. Brutus and Cassius have done what Antony and Octavius hoped that they would do. The opposing generals hold a brief parley in which Brutus intimates that he is willing to effect a reconciliation, but Antony rejects his proposals and bluntly charges him and Cassius with the wilful murder of Cæsar. Cassius reminds Brutus of his warning that Antony should have fallen when Cæsar did. Antony, Octavius, and their army retire, and the scene closes with the noble farewell without hope between Brutus and Cassius.

_Act V, Scene ii._ The opposing armies meet on the field, and a final flare-up of hope in the breast of Brutus is indicated by his spirited order to Messala to charge. The scene implies that Cassius was defeated by being left without support by Brutus.

V. DÉNOUEMENT, CATASTROPHE, OR CONCLUSION (THE KNOT UNTIED)

_Act V, Scene iii._ The charge ordered by Brutus has been successful, and Octavius has been driven back, but Cassius is thus left unguarded, and Antony's forces surround him. He takes refuge on a hill and sends Titinius to see "whether yond troops are friend or enemy." Believing Titinius to be slain, he begs Pindarus to stab him, and Cassius dies "even with the sword that kill'd" Cæsar. With the same sword Titinius then slays himself, and Brutus, when Messala bears the news to him, exclaims in words that strike the keynote of the whole falling action and dénouement:

O Julius Cæsar, thou art mighty yet!
Thy spirit walks abroad, and turns our swords
In our own proper entrails.

_Act V, Scene iv._ Like Hamlet, Brutus at the last is a man of supreme action. He rallies his forces for a last attack. With hopeless failure before him, he is at once a heroic figure and one of infinite pathos. Young Cato falls. Lucilius is attacked; assuming the name of Brutus, he is not killed but taken prisoner. Antony recognizes him and gives orders that he be treated kindly.

_Act V, Scene v._ Brutus dies by his own sword, and his last words tell the story of failure and defeat. Like a true Roman, he meets his doom without a murmur of complaint. He had been true to his ideals. The tragic dénouement comes as the inevitable consequence, not of wilful sin, but of a noble mistake. In death he commands the veneration of both Antony and Octavius, who pronounce over his body the great interpretation of his character, and in their speeches the tragedy closes as with a chant of victory for the hero of defeat.

VI. MANAGEMENT OF TIME AND PLACE

1. _Historic time._ Cæsar's triumph over the sons of Pompey was celebrated in October, B.C. 45. Shakespeare makes this coincident with "the feast of Lupercal" on February 15, B.C. 44. In the play Antony delivers his funeral oration immediately after Cæsar's death; historically, there was an interval of days. Octavius did not reach Rome until upwards of two months after the assassination; in III, ii, 261, Antony is told by his servant immediately after the funeral oration that "Octavius is already come to Rome." In November, B.C. 43, the triumvirs met to make up their bloody proscription, and in the autumn of the following year were fought the two battles of Philippi, separated historically by twenty days, but represented by Shakespeare as taking place on the same day.

2. _Dramatic Time._ Historical happenings that extended over nearly three years are represented in the stage action as the occurrences of six days, distributed over the acts and scenes as follows:

Day 1.--I, i, ii.
Interval.
Day 2.--I, iii.
Day 3.--II, III.
Interval.
Day 4.--IV, i.
Interval.
Day 5.--IV, ii, iii.
Interval.
Day 6.--V.

This compression for the purposes of dramatic unity results in action that is swift and throbbing with human and ethical interest.

3. _Place._ Up to the second scene of the fourth act Rome is the natural place of action. The second and third scenes of the fourth act are at Sardis in Asia Minor; the last act shifts to Philippi in Macedonia. The only noteworthy deviation from historical accuracy is in making the conference of the triumvirs take place at Rome and not at Bononia. See note, p. 116. But there is peculiar dramatic effectiveness in placing this fateful colloquy in the city that was the center of the political unrest of the time.

VII. VERSIFICATION AND DICTION

BLANK VERSE

The characteristics of Shakespeare's blank verse--the rhymeless, iambic five-stress (decasyllabic) verse, or iambic pentameter, introduced into England by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, about 1540--and its proportion to rhyme and to prose have been much used in recent years to determine the chronological order of the plays and the development of the poet's art. In blank verse as used by Shakespeare we have really an epitome of the development of the measure in connection with the English drama. In his earlier plays the blank verse is often similar to that of _Gorboduc_, the first English tragedy. The tendency is to adhere to the syllable-counting principle, to make the line the unit, the sentence and phrase coinciding with the line (end-stopped verse), and to use five perfect iambic feet to the line. In plays of the middle period, such as _The Merchant of Venice_ and _As You Like It_, written between 1596 and 1600, the blank verse is more like that of Kyd and Marlowe, with less monotonous regularity in the structure and an increasing tendency to carry on the sense from one line to another without a syntactical or rhetorical pause at the end of the line (run-on verse, _enjambement_). Redundant syllables now abound and the melody is richer and fuller. In Shakespeare's later plays the blank verse breaks away from all bondage to formal line limits, and the organic continuity is found in a succession of great metrical periods.

The verse of _Julius Cæsar_ is less monotonously regular than that of the earlier plays; it is more flexible and varied, more musical and sonorous, but it lacks the superb movement of the verse in _Othello_, _The Winter's Tale_, and _The Tempest_. End-stopped, normally regular iambic pentameter lines often occur (as, for instance, I, i, 37, 41, 44, 62, 76), but everywhere are variations and deviations from the norm, and there is an unusual number of short lines and interjectional lines of two or three stresses. See Abbott's _A Shakespearian Grammar_, §§ 511, 512.

RHYME

Apart from the use of rhyme in songs, lyrics, and portions of masques (as in _The Tempest_, IV, i, 60-138), a progress from more to less rhyme is a sure index to Shakespeare's development as a dramatist and a master of expression. In the early _Love's Labour's Lost_ are more than one thousand rhyming five-stress iambic lines; in _The Tempest_ are only two; in _The Winter's Tale_ not one. _In Julius Cæsar_ are found only thirty-four rhyming lines.

PROSE

If "of the soule the bodie forme doth take," it is small wonder that attempts have been made to explain Shakespeare's distinctive use of verse and prose. Of recent years there have been interesting discussions of the question "whether we are justified in supposing that Shakespeare was guided by any fixed principle in his employment of verse and prose, or whether he merely employed them, as fancy suggested, for the sake of variety and relief."[1] It is a significant fact that in many of Shakespeare's earlier plays there is little or no prose, and that the proportion of prose to blank verse increases with the decrease of rhyme. In _Julius Cæsar_ three kinds of prose may be distinguished: (1) The prose of homely dialogue, as in the talk of the common people in I, i, and III, iii. (2) The prose of serious information as to the nature of a situation, as in Casca's description of the offer of the crown to Cæsar. This kind of prose reaches its highest development in Brutus's famous speech, III, ii, with its dignified defense and laconic exposition of his honesty of purpose. (3) The prose of formal documents, as in the letter of Artemidorus, II, iii, 1-8.

[Footnote 1: Professor J. Churton Collins's _Shakespeare as a Prose Writer_. See Delius's _Die Prosa in Shakespeares Dramen (Shakespeare Jahrbuch_, V, 227-273); Janssen's _Die Prosa in Shakespeares Dramen_; Professor Hiram Corson's _An Introduction to the Study of Shakespeare_, pp. 83-98.]

VIII. THE CHARACTERS

JULIUS CÆSAR

The characterization of this drama in some of the parts is not a little perplexing. Hardly one of the speeches put into Cæsar's mouth can be regarded as historically characteristic; taken all together, they seem little short of a caricature. As here represented, Cæsar appears little better than a braggart; and when he speaks, it is in the style of a glorious vapourer, full of lofty airs and mock thunder. Nothing could be further from the truth of the man, whose character, even in his faults, was as compact and solid as adamant, and at the same time as limber and ductile as the finest gold. Certain critics have seized and worked upon this, as proving Shakespeare's lack of classical knowledge, or carelessness in the use of his authorities. It proves neither the one nor the other.

It is true, Cæsar's ambition was gigantic, but none too much so for the mind it dwelt in; for his character in all its features was gigantic. And no man ever framed his ambition more in sympathy with the great forces of nature, or built it upon a deeper foundation of political wisdom and insight. Now this "last infirmity of noble minds" is the only part of him that the play really sets before us; and even this we do not see as it was, because it is here severed from the constitutional peerage of his gifts and virtues; all those transcendent qualities which placed him at the summit of Roman intellect and manhood being either withheld from the scene or thrown so far into the background that the proper effect of them is lost.

Yet we have ample proof that Shakespeare understood Cæsar thoroughly, and that he regarded him as "the noblest man that ever lived in the tide of times." For example, in _Hamlet_, he makes Horatio, who is one of his calmest and most right-thinking characters, speak of him as "the mightiest Julius." In _Antony and Cleopatra_, again, the heroine is made to describe him as "broad-fronted Cæsar"; and in _King Richard the Third_ the young Prince utters these lines:

That Julius Cæsar was a famous man:
With what his valour did enrich his wit,
His wit set down to make his valour live:
Death makes no conquest of this conqueror. [III, i, 84-87.]

In fact, we need not go beyond Shakespeare to gather that Julius Cæsar's was the deepest, the most versatile, and the most multitudinous head that ever figured in the political affairs of mankind.

Indeed, it is clear from this play itself that Shakespeare did not proceed at all from ignorance or misconception of the man. For it is remarkable that, though Cæsar delivers himself so out of character, yet others, both foes and friends, deliver him much nearer the truth; so that, while we see almost nothing of him directly, we nevertheless get, upon the whole, a just reflection of him. Especially in the marvelous speeches of Antony and in the later events of the drama, both his inward greatness and his right of mastership over the Roman world are fully vindicated. For in the play as in the history, Cæsar's blood hastens and cements the empire which the conspirators thought to prevent. They soon find that in the popular sympathies, and even in their own dumb remorses, he has "left behind powers that will work for him." He proves, indeed, far mightier in death than in life; as if his spirit were become at once the guardian angel of his cause and an avenging angel to his foes.

And so it was in fact. Nothing did so much to set the people in love with royalty, both name and thing, as the reflection that their beloved Cæsar, the greatest of their national heroes, the crown and consummation of Roman genius and character, had been murdered for aspiring to it. Thus their hereditary aversion to kingship was all subdued by the remembrance of how and why their Cæsar fell; and they who, before, would have plucked out his heart rather than he should wear a crown, would now have plucked out their own, to set a crown upon his head. Such is the natural result, when the intensities of admiration and compassion meet together in the human breast.

From all which it may well be thought that Cæsar was too great for the hero of a drama, since his greatness, if brought forward in full measure, would leave no room for anything else, at least would preclude any proper dramatic balance and equipoise. It was only as a sort of underlying potency, or a force withdrawn into the background, that his presence was compatible with that harmony and reciprocity of several characters which a well-ordered drama requires. At all events, it is pretty clear that, where he was, such figures as Brutus and Cassius could never be very considerable, save as his assassins. They would not have been heard of in after times, if they had not "struck the foremost man of all this world"; in other words, the great sun of Rome had to be shorn of his beams, else so ineffectual a fire as Brutus could nowise catch the eye.

Be this as it may, there is no doubt that Shakespeare knew the whole height and compass of Cæsar's vast and varied capacity. It may be regretted that he did not render him as he evidently saw him, inasmuch as he alone, perhaps, of all the men who ever wrote could have given an adequate expression of that colossal man.

It is possible that the policy of the drama may have been to represent Cæsar not as he was indeed, but as he must have appeared to the conspirators; to make us see him as they saw him, in order that they too might have fair and equal judgment at our hands. For Cæsar was literally too great to be seen by them, save as children often see bugbears by moonlight, when their inexperienced eyes are mocked with air. And Shakespeare may well have judged that the best way to set us right towards them was by identifying us more or less with them in mental position, and making us share somewhat in their delusion. For there is scarce anything wherein we are so apt to err as in reference to the characters of men, when time has settled and cleared up the questions in which they lost their way: we blame them for not having seen as we see; while in truth the things that are so bathed in light to us were full of darkness to them, and we should have understood them better, had we been in the dark along with them.

Cæsar, indeed, was not bewildered by the political questions of his time; but all the rest were, and therefore he seemed so to them; and while their own heads were swimming they naturally ascribed his seeming bewilderment to a dangerous intoxication. As for his marvelous career of success, they attributed this mainly to his good luck, such being the common refuge of inferior minds when they would escape the sense of their inferiority. Hence, as generally happens with the highest order of men, his greatness had to wait the approval of later events. He indeed, far beyond any other man of his age, "looked into the seeds of time"; but this was not, and could not be known, till time had developed those seeds into their fruits. Why then may not Shakespeare's idea have been so to order things that the full strength of the man should not appear in the play, as it did not in fact, till after his fall? This view will both explain and justify the strange disguise--a sort of falsetto greatness--under which Cæsar exhibits himself.

Now the seeming contradiction between Cæsar as known and Cæsar as rendered by Shakespeare is what, more than anything else, perplexes. But a very refined, subtile, and peculiar irony pervades this, more than any other of Shakespeare's plays; not intended as such, indeed, by the speakers, but a sort of historic irony,--the irony of Providence, so to speak, or, if you please, of Fate; much the same as is implied in the proverb, "A haughty spirit goeth before a fall." This irony crops out in many places. Thus we have Cæsar most blown with arrogance and godding it in the loftiest style when the daggers of the assassins are on the very point of leaping at him. So too, all along, we find Brutus most confident in those very things where he is most at fault, or acting like a man "most ignorant of what he's most assured"; as when he says that "Antony can do no more than Cæsar's arm when Cæsar's head is off." This, to be sure, is not meant ironically by him, but it is turned into irony by the fact that Antony soon tears the cause of the conspirators all to pieces with his tongue. But, indeed, this sort of honest guile runs all through the piece as a perfusive and permeating efficacy. A still better instance of it occurs just after the murder, when the chiefs of the conspiracy are exulting in the transcendent virtue and beneficence of their deed, and in its future stage celebrity; and Cassius says,--

So often shall the knot of us be call'd
The men that gave their country liberty. [III, i, 118-119.]