upon it, and so ran himself through, and died presently1....Now Antonius having found Brutus' body, he caused it to be wrapped up in one of the richest coat-armours2 he had. Afterwards Antonius sent the ashes of his body unto Servilia his mother."

"The noblest Roman of them all." Scene 5. 68–75.

47. "Brutus, for his virtue and valiantness, was well beloved of the people and his own, esteemed of noblemen, and hated of no man, not so much as of his enemies; because he was a marvellous lowly and gentle person, noble-minded, and would never be in any rage, nor carried away with pleasure and covetousness, but had ever an upright mind with him, and would never yield to any wrong or injustice; the which was the chiefest cause of his fame, of his rising, and of the goodwill that every man bare him: for they were all persuaded that his intent was good....For it was said that Antonius spake it openly divers times, that he thought, that of all them that had slain Cæsar, there was none but Brutus only that was moved to do it, as thinking the act commendable of itself: but that all the other conspirators did conspire his death for some private malice or envy, that they otherwise did bear unto him."

48. "Messala, that had been Brutus' great friend, became afterwards Octavius Cæsar's friend: so, shortly after, Cæsar being at good leisure, he brought Strato, Brutus' friend, unto him, and weeping said: 'Cacar, behold here is he that did the last service to my Brutus.' Cæsar welcomed him at that time, and afterwards he did him as faithful service in all his affairs as any Grecian else he had about him, until the battle of Actium."

APPENDIX.

I.

THE SCENE OF CÆSAR'S MURDER.

The real scene of Cæsar's murder, which Shakespeare places in the Capitol, was the Curia Pompeiana, adjoining the Porticus of Pompey's theatre; see p. 108.

This Curia was a "hall, with one side curved and furnished with tiers of seats. It was used for meetings of the Senate, and in it Cæsar was murdered at the foot of a colossal statue of Pompey, which stood in the centre.... During the outburst of grief caused by the death of Julius Cæsar the Curia Pompeiana was burnt, and the scene of the murder decreed by the Senate to be a locus sceleratus. The statue of Pompey was saved from the fire, and was set by Augustus on a marble arch at the entrance to the Porticus." (J. H. Middleton, The Remains of Ancient Rome, 11. 68.)

Shakespeare diverges from the true, historical account in Plutarch, and gives the Capitol, not this Curia, as the place where the murder happened, because of the old literary tradition to that effect; cf. Chaucer, The Monk's Tale:

"This Iulius to the Capitolie wente

Upon a day, as he was wont to goon,

And in the Capitolie anon him hente [seized]

This false Brutus, and his othere foon,

And stikede him with boydekins [bodkins] anoon

With many a wounde, and thus they lete him lye."

So in Hamlet, III. 2. 104-108: "You played once i' the university, you say?...I did enact Julius Cæsar: I was killed i' the Capitol; Brutus killed me" and in Antony and Cleopatra, 11. 6. 14-18.

It is therefore purely for the sake of the literary association that Shakespeare selects the Capitol, not the Curia Pompeiana.

Cæsar fell at the foot of the statue of his great and vanquished rival -surely one of the most wonderful pieces of the irony of fortune in all history. Shakespeare cannot lose so fine a dramatic incident: hence he transfers the statue from its real site in the Curia to the Capitol: a good illustration, I think, of his way of preferring dramatic effect to accuracy of historic detail.

In one of the palaces of Rome (the Palazzo Spada) is a colossal marble statue, found in 1553, which is commonly supposed to be this very statue of Pompey.

But Professor Middleton says, "there is little ground for this belief. The original statue of Pompey was probably of bronze." Rolfe quotes the allusion to this tradition in Byron's Childe Harold.

II.

"Know, Cæsar doth not wrong, nor without cause
Will he be satisfied." Act III. Sc. 1. ll. 47, 48.

The gist of these lines is: 'I was right in banishing Metellus Cimber -since "Cæsar doth not wrong": and if I am to recall him, you must satisfy me with some good reason for changing-since Cæsar is not to be moved with empty flattery.' The tone of the speech is egotistical, and the egotism reaches its climax in the statement that he is incapable of doing wrong—is, in fact, an infallible, an impeccable being, a deity almost. There is a strong emphasis (note its position at the end of the line) on cause: Metellus has been trying to alter Cæsar's purpose by means of "sweet words" and "base fawning" but these things are no cause," nor do they appeal to Cæsar at all: when he changes his mind, it must be for some strong reason.

:

By satisfied he means convinced that he may with propriety do that which is asked of him: i.e. change his mind, as the whole context shows.

Probably no discussion would have arisen over the passage but for the fact that Ben Jonson quotes it twice in a form different from the reading of the 1st Folio. In the Induction to one of Jonson's last comedies The Staple of News (acted 1625) a character says, "I can do that too, if I have cause, to which the reply is made, "Cry you mercy, you never did wrong, but with just cause. That is a clear allusion to

this passage in Julius Cæsar. Again in his prose-work called Discoveries Jonson writes:

"I remember, the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, Would he had blotted a thousand. Which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this, but for their ignorance, who chose that circumstance to commend their friend by, wherein he most faulted; and to justify mine own candour: for I loved the man, and do honour his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any. He was (indeed) honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent phantasy, brave notions, and gentle expressions; wherein he flowed with that facility, that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped: Sufflaminandus erat1, as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power: would the rule of it had been so too! Many times he fell into those things [that] could not escape laughter: as when he said in the person of Cæsar, one speaking to him, 'Cæsar, thou dost me wrong,' he replied, 'Cæsar did never wrong but with just cause,' and such like; which were ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned."

Now there is no satisfactory way of reconciling these two allusions with the text of the passage as printed in the 1st Folio. Some editors infer from Jonson's account that in its original form the passage stood thus : "Metellus. Cæsar.

Cæsar, thou dost me wrong.

Know, Cæsar doth not wrong, but with just cause,

Nor without cause will he be satisfied:"

i.e. that at line 46 Metellus interrupted Cæsar. It has been argued that the paradoxical character of the passage in that form excited contemporary notice and perhaps ridicule else why was it referred to in The Staple of News?—and that for this reason it was altered to its present form by the editors of the 1st Folio. But the Folio reading is to my mind much the finer and therefore the more likely to be Shakespeare's own work. The autocratic "Cæsar doth not wrong" seems to me to be spoilt by the qualification "but with just cause." I can only suppose therefore that Ben Jonson simply misquoted the passage, and that the Folio gives us the true reading.

1 'He should have been checked.'

III.

"ET TU, BRUTE.'

Act III. Sc. I. 1. 77.

There appears to be no historical authority for these words. Plutarch states that Cæsar, when assailed by the conspirators, called out in Latin to Casca, "O vile traitor, Casca, what doest thou?"; but he does not record that Cæsar said anything to Brutus. Shakespeare therefore had not the authority of Plutarch. Suetonius, again, states that Cæsar did address Brutus, but in Greek, his words being "kal σVTÉKVOV ”='and thou too, my son ?' None of the other writers of antiquity who have narrated the death of Cæsar mention the words " Et tu, Brute?" The saying, however, had become almost proverbial among Elizabethan writers, and for that reason Shakespeare employed it. Editors mention three works published earlier than Julius Cæsar which contain the words.

I. The old Latin play Cæsaris interfecit, 1582, by Dr Richard Eedes, performed at Christ Church College, Oxford; see Introduction. 2. The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, 1595; in this play occurs the line

"Et tu, Brute? wilt thou stab Cæsar too?"

3. A poem called Acolastus his Afterwitte, 1600, by S. Nicholson, in which this same line is found:

"Et tu Brute? wilt thou stab Cæsar too?

Thou art my friend, and wilt not see me wrong'd."

And to these Dyce adds Cæsar's Legend, Mirror for Magistrates, 1587;

"O this, quoth I, is violence: then Cassius pierc'd my breast; And Brutus thou, my sonne, quoth I, whom erst I loved best." It seems likely that "Et tu, Brute?" originated with the Latin play, and was adapted from the "Kai σù TÉкVOV" of Suetonius: the name "Brute" being introduced for the sake of clearness, i.e. to show who was addressed. Whether this be so or not, we may reasonably assume that the immediate source which suggested the saying to Shakespeare was the play of The True Tragedie, since that is the work on which the third part of Henry VI. is based. In recasting The Tragedie Shakespeare came across-and remembered-the famous words attributed to the dying Dictator.