Part 2

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.