This expression occurs three times in this play (see II, i, 215 and III, i, 158), and nowhere else in Shakespeare.

ACT I. SCENE III

1 brought you Caesar home? did you accompany Cæsar to his home? The natural impression produced upon us by this question is that Scene III falls upon the evening following Scene II. This false impression is probably intended by Shakespeare. He thus conceals from view, for the moment, an interval of one month which is empty of any action that concerns us. It is more dramatic and interesting if the action seems to hurry forward. In reality, the last scene took

place upon February 15; while this one falls upon the evening of March 14.

3 all the sway of earth: "all the government and established order of the earth" (Schmidt).

14 anything more wonderful? Is more an adjective qualifying anything? or an adverb qualifying wonderful?

21 glar'd. The Folio has glaz’d.

22 annoying: molesting, injuring. The meaning is very much weaker in present usage. Compare naughty, I, i, 15.

30 These are their reasons. What is the exact force of these? the climate that they point upon: the region, or country, that they point at.

32

35 Clean entirely, completely.

This use of clean is very common in Shakespeare and the Bible, but is now considered inelegant. "Is his mercy clean gone forever?" (Psalms,

lxxvii. 8.)

42 what night is this! This means "What a night is this!" Shakespeare frequently uses what in this way.

48 unbraced: unbuttoned. Again Shakespeare is thinking of the English doublet of his own time.

49 the thunder-stone. The bolt, or stone, which was believed to fall with the lightning was identified with the belemnite, or finger-stone, a kind of fossil cuttle-fish. The damage was thought to be done by this stone. Othello asks:

"Are there no stones in heaven

But what serve for the thunder?" V, ii, 234–235.

50 cross: zig-zag.

60 cast yourself in wonder: "into wonder, as we speak of 'throwing' a person into confusion or amazement" (Innes). 63-64 What ideas need to be understood to fill out the sense of these lines? Is it fitting that Cassius should speak here in this incomplete, broken way?

65 Why old men fool and children calculate. The line reads thus in the Folio: "Why Old men Fooles, and Children calculate." Calculate means "forecast, speculate about the future." It is the technical term for forecasting the future from the position of the heavenly bodies at the time of one's birth, etc.

67 preformed faculties: faculties originally designed for definite purposes.

71 some monstrous state: some unnatural condition of things.

75

As doth the lion in the Capitol.

"That is, roars in the Capitol

as doth the lion" (Craik).

Wright thinks that Shake

speare has the Tower of London in mind when he speaks of the Capitol. There were lions in the Tower.

76* than thyself or me. be I in our present usage. The omission of the verb makes the mistake an easy one. Perhaps Shakespeare felt than vaguely as a preposition; but we must bear in mind that his use of the case forms of the pronouns is decidedly incorrect according to modern standards. Modern speech inherits from the Elizabethan time many expressions to which grammarians object, such as: "between you and I,” “It "Who did you see?" How many of those who read this note say "Whom did you see"? In general, the best modern usage discriminates sharply between the nominative and objective cases of the pronouns; Elizabethan English did not do this.

Parse me and show that the form should

is me,

77 prodigious: portentous.

81 thews: muscles and sinews, bodily strength.

82 woe the while! This abbreviated expression may spring either from "Woe [be to] the while!" or from "Woe (sad) [is] the while!"

102 cancel implies a play upon the bond contained in bondman. 117 fleering: grinning, sneering.

118 factious: active in forming a faction, or party.

123 undergo: undertake.

126 Pompey's porch: the portico of Pompey's theater (see 1. 152). The Theater and Curia of Pompey were in the Campus Martius. It was here, according to Plutarch, that the meeting of the Senate and the assassination of Cæsar took place. Here stood the statue of Pompey. Shakespeare transfers this statue and the assassination with it to the Capitol; but makes Pompey's theater the place where the conspirators met.

128 the complexion of the element: the appearance of the sky. The four elements were earth, air, fire, and water. The air, in which man lives, naturally came to be looked upon as the element.

129 In favour's like. The Folio reads "Is Fauors." The text is usually printed as given here, but "Is feverous" has been suggested.

135

* incorporate. This participle takes no -d partly because it is felt to come from a Latin participle in -atus, and partly because of the many native English verbs in -d or -t which take no ending in the past participle, such as set, meet, etc. Situate, not situated, is still the accepted form in legal documents.

137 on't. See note to I, ii, 71.

138, 148, 155

We have in these lines three cases in which Shakespeare uses a singular verb with a plural subject. In two of them the subject follows the verb; it may therefore be looked upon as still undetermined when the verb is used. This idiom is very common in Shakespeare. In the third case, "three parts of him is ours," the subject may be regarded as singular in sense.

148 Decius Brutus: really Decimus Brutus. Shakespeare copied the erroneous form from the Life of Julius Cæsar in North's Plutarch. In the Life of Octavius the name is printed correctly. It was Decimus Brutus who was the particular friend and favorite of Cæsar, and not Marcus Junius Brutus, as represented in this play.

159 alchemy: the art of changing base metals to gold. 162 conceited: conceived, judged.

ACT II. SCENE I

In the stage direction orchard means "garden." This is the original meaning; the word is equivalent, etymologically, to wort-yard. The modern sense, “an inclosure containing fruit trees," is not found in Shakespeare.

10 It must be by his death. This speech has troubled commentators a great deal. But should we suppose that Brutus really says this? The editor believes that these words represent his unexpressed thought. He is made by Shakespeare to speak thus, simply because the audience cannot otherwise learn his thought at all. To be really influenced by considerations which would startle one if distinctly set forth, is no unusual experience. Such an experience, it seems, Shakespeare wishes to represent here. At least, this line of explanation may furnish some help in the interpretation of this difficult passage.

12 for the general: the general public, the community.

19 Remorse seems to mean here tenderness, pity, as usually in Shakespeare. Sometimes it has the modern sense, compunction of conscience.

20 affections: passions.

21

a common proof: a common truth proved by experience. 26 the base degrees: the low steps. Degrees has here its original

meaning.

28 the quarrel: the cause of complaint against him (Wright). 29 bear no colour: appearance of right, specious pretence, palliation (Schmidt). This meaning of colour is a common one in Shakespeare.

34 And kill him in the shell. This shortened, imperfect line is highly expressive. Says Craik, "The line itself is, as it were, killed in the shell.”

40 the ides of March. By an oversight, the Folio has here "the first of March." A passage in Plutarch's life of Brutus, which speaks of "the first day of the month of March' (No. 8 under I, ii, in the Appendix), may have fixed itself in Shakespeare's mind, and occasioned the mistake. exhalations: meteors.

44

47 etc. If this be expanded to et cetera, the line is of full length.

50

65

The same expansion in l. 51 would make that a line of six measures, an alexandrine. The Folio prints "&c."

* took. The preterit form, or past tense, is here used for the participle. See also mistook in I, ii, 48. In some verbs of the Old Conjugation, which comprised most of the so-called "irregular verbs," the preterit form often intruded into the participle. In stand, stood, stood, and in wake, woke, woke, this intrusion has become permanent, but not in take. a phantasma: an unreal apparition, a phantom.

66 The genius and the mortal instruments: the reason, or the reasonable soul, and the bodily powers. Mortal means deadly. "Shakespeare represents, as I conceive him, the genius or soul consulting with the body, and, as it were, questioning the limbs, the instruments which are to perform this deed of death, whether they can undertake to bear her out in the affair, whether they can screw up their courage to do what she shall enjoin them" (Blakeway). Another explanation is that the reason is debating with the deadly passions, the desires, which urge the man on to the committal of some dangerous deed.

69 The nature of an insurrection: a kind of insurrection.

70 your brother Cassius. Cassius had married Junia, the sister of Brutus.

72

moe: more. * As a rule, Shakespeare uses moe in expressions of number, and more in expressions of size and quantity. As Wright has pointed out, moe appears to be used only with the plural; the phrase "mo diversity of sounds," in the Tempest (V, i, 224), is felt as a plural. The Bible of 1611 has moe in John iv. 1 ("moe disciples") and elsewhere; but later printers have changed this to more. 76 any mark of favour: any peculiarity of outward appearance. Compare I, ii, 91.

83 if thou path: Shakespeare here, as often, makes a verb from a noun. Compare scandal, I, ii, 76; father'd and husbanded, II, i, 297; advantage, III, i, 243. Shakespeare forms a verb from an adjective in the case of to stale, I, ii, 73; IV, i, 38; niggard, IV, iii, 226.

84 Erebus: one of the divisions of the infernal regions, here used for the entire lower world.