Part 1
# The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Cæsar ### By Shakespeare, William
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THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE
JULIUS CÆSAR
INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY HENRY NORMAN HUDSON, LL.D.
EDITED AND REVISED BY EBENEZER CHARLTON BLACK LL.D. (GLASGOW) WITH THE COÖPERATION OF ANDREW JACKSON GEORGE LITT.D. (AMHERST)
GINN AND COMPANY BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO LONDON ATLANTA DALLAS COLUMBUS SAN FRANCISCO
ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL
COPYRIGHT, 1908
BY GINN AND COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
424.12
_The Athenæum Press_ GINN AND COMPANY PROPRIETORS BOSTON U.S.A.
[Illustration:
THE LIVES OF THE NOBLE GRECIANS AND ROMAINES, COMPARED TOGETHER BY THAT GRAVE LEARNED PHILOSOPHER AND HISTORIOGRAPHER, _Plutarke of Chæronea._ Translated out of Greeke into French by IAMES AMIOT Abbot and great Amner of France. With the liues of HANNIBAL and of SCIPIO AFRICAN: translated out of Latine into French by CHARLES de l'ESCLVSE, and out of French into English, _By Sir Thomas North Knight._ _Hereunto are also added the lives of_ Epaminondas, _of_ Philip _of Macedon, of_ Dionysius _the elder, tyrant of Sicilia, of_ Augustus Cæsar, _of_ Plutarke, _and of_ Seneca: _with the liues of nine other excellent Chiefetaines of warre: collected out of_ Æmylius Probus, _by_ S. G. S. _and Englished by the aforesaid Translator._ Imprinted at London by RICHARD FIELD for GEORGE BISHOP 1603.
]
TITLE-PAGE OF NORTH'S PLUTARCH, THIRD EDITION
Reproduced from the copy in the Boston Public Library
PREFACE
The text of this edition of _Julius Cæsar_ is based upon a collation of the seventeenth century Folios, the Globe edition, and that of Delius. As compared with the text of the earlier editions of Hudson's Shakespeare, it is conservative. Exclusive of changes in spelling, punctuation, and stage directions, very few emendations by eighteenth century and nineteenth century editors have been adopted; and these, with every variation from the First Folio, are indicated in the textual notes. These notes are printed immediately below the text so that a reader or student may see at a glance the evidence in the case of a disputed reading and have some definite understanding of the reasons for those differences in the text of Shakespeare which frequently surprise and very often annoy. A consideration of the more poetical, or the more dramatically effective, of two variant readings will often lead to rich results in awakening a spirit of discriminating interpretation and in developing true creative criticism. In no sense is this a textual variorum edition. The variants given are only those of importance and high authority.
The spelling and the punctuation of the text are modern, except in the case of verb terminations in _-ed_, which, when the _e_ is silent, are printed with the apostrophe in its place. This is the general usage in the First Folio. Modern spelling has to a certain extent been followed in the text variants; but the original spelling has been retained wherever its peculiarities have been the basis for important textual criticism and emendation.
With the exception of the position of the textual variants, the plan of this edition is similar to that of the old Hudson Shakespeare. It is impossible to specify the various instances of revision and rearrangement in the matter of the Introduction and the interpretative notes, but the endeavor has been to retain all that gave the old edition its unique place and to add the results of what seems vital and permanent in later inquiry and research.
While it is important that the principle of _suum cuique_ be attended to so far as is possible in matters of research and scholarship, it is becoming more and more difficult to give every man his own in Shakespearian annotation. The amount of material accumulated is so great that the identity-origin of much important comment and suggestion is either wholly lost or so crushed out of shape as to be beyond recognition. Instructive significance perhaps attaches to this in editing the works of one who quietly made so much of materials gathered by others. But the list of authorities given on page li will indicate the chief source of much that has gone to enrich the value of this edition. Professor W. P. Trent, of Columbia University, has offered valuable suggestions and given important advice; and to Mr. M. Grant Daniell's patience, accuracy, and judgment this volume owes both its freedom from many a blunder and its possession of a carefully arranged index.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PAGE
I. SOURCES vii
THE MAIN STORY vii
NORTH'S _PLUTARCH_ vii
APPIAN'S _ROMAN WARS_ xii
EARLIER PLAYS xiii
THE SCENE OF THE ASSASSINATION xiv
"_ET TU, BRUTE_" xvi
BRUTUS'S SPEECH, III, ii. xvi
II. DATE OF COMPOSITION xvii
EXTERNAL EVIDENCE xviii
INTERNAL EVIDENCE xx
III. EARLY EDITIONS xxiii
FOLIOS xxiii
THE QUARTO OF 1691 xxiv
ROWE'S EDITIONS xxiv
IV. THE TITLE xxv
V. DRAMATIC CONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT xxv
ANALYSIS BY ACT AND SCENE xxvi
VI. MANAGEMENT OF TIME AND PLACE xxx
HISTORIC TIME xxx
DRAMATIC TIME xxxi
PLACE xxxi
VII. VERSIFICATION AND DICTION xxxii
BLANK VERSE xxxii
RHYME xxxiii
PROSE xxxiii
VIII. THE CHARACTERS xxxiv
JULIUS CÆSAR xxxiv
BRUTUS xli
BRUTUS AND CASSIUS xlvii
PORTIA xlix
ANTONY li
THE PEOPLE liii
IX. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS liii
AUTHORITIES (WITH ABBREVIATIONS) lv
CHRONOLOGICAL CHART lvi
DISTRIBUTION OF CHARACTERS lx
THE TEXT
## ACT I 3
## ACT II 42
## ACT III 79
## ACT IV 116
## ACT V 144
INDEX
I. WORDS AND PHRASES 169
II. QUOTATIONS FROM PLUTARCH 173
INTRODUCTION
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).]
[Illustration:
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.
[Illustration:
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.