Antony and Cleopatra, 11. 6. 14-18:

"What was't

That moved 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 ?"

Antony's grief over the body of his friend and pity of Brutus's fate are glanced at in Antony and Cleopatra, III. 2. 53-56:

"Why, Enobarbus,

When Antony found Julius Cæsar dead,
He cried almost to roaring; and he wept
When at Philippi he found Brutus slain."

Cæsar's "ambition" is touched on in Cymbeline, III. 1. 49-52. Characters, too, of Julius Cæsar other than the Triumvirs are noticed elsewhere by Shakespeare. Thus the Portia of Belmont (Merchant of Venice, 1. 1. 165, 166) is, in Bassanio's eyes,

"nothing undervalued

To Cato's daughter, Brutus' Portia."

Cassius of the "lean and hungry look" is the "pale Cassius," the "lean and wrinkled Cassius" of Antony and Cleopatra (11. 6. 15, III. II. 37).

tarch."

VI.

MAIN SOURCE OF THE PLOT OF "JULIUS CÆSAR."

The source whence Shakespeare derived the story of North's "Plu- Julius Cæsar, is Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Lives of Cæsar, Brutus, and Antony. His obligations to North, and method of using his materials, are discussed elsewhere1. Some suggestions for Antony's

1 See pp. 169-172.

speech to the citizens in Act III., Scene 2 may have been furnished by Appian's1 history, The Civil Wars, Appian's translated 1578. We do not know whether Shakes- History." peare used any existing play on the same subject, but there were several, as he may hint (III. I. III-116). One was Earlier plays a Latin piece, Epilogus Cæsaris Interfecti, per- on the subject. formed at Oxford in 1582, and perhaps alluded to in Hamlet, III. 2. 104-109 (see p. 196). There is a Tragedie of Julius Casar by the Earl of Stirling (of whose Darius there seems a reminiscence in The Tempest, IV. 152—156), and Malone thought that it preceded Julius Cæsar, arguing that the writer would not have challenged comparison with Shakespeare by treating the same subject. But the Tragedie was not published till 1607 (much too late a date for Julius Cæsar), nor have the plays any resemblance apart from the subject.

VII.

HISTORIC PERIOD.

The historic period of the action of Julius Cæsar is from February 44 B.C. to October 42 B.C.—nearly two

years and three quarters.

The main events of this

Historic events of the

period to which allusion is made in the play, and Period.

their respective dates, were :

The Lupercalia. Cæsar's refusal of the

crown.

they

Feb. 15, 44·

1 Appian was an Alexandrian writer who lived at Rome in the Second Century A.D. and wrote in Greek a Roman history ('Pwμaïká) in 24 books. Books 13 to 21 treated of the civil wars from the time of

VIII.

TIME OF THE PLAY'S ACTION.

The events1 of Julius Cæsar are supposed to happen on Distribution six days, separated by intervals; the arrangement of the action. being as follows:

Brutus is the 'hero' of Julius Cæsar, the character who stands out most prominently in its action. Cæsar himself appears in only three scenes, nor in these does he present an impressive figure. Yet the play is rightly called Why the play is called Fulius Julius Cæsar, not Brutus, for the personality of Cæsar is the real motive-spring of the whole plot,

Cæsar."

Marius and Sulla to the battle of Actium. An English translation of the extant portions of this work was published in 1578.

Appian reports Antony's speech; Plutarch merely mentions its delivery. Whether the speech which Shakespeare assigns to Antony owed anything to Appian's account (the verbal resemblances seem to me very trifling) or was purely imaginative, it gives a true idea of the drift and effect of what Antony said, and of the whole scene.

1 In several points Shakespeare has compressed the action, combining events which were really separated by some interval of time; for these deviations from history see pp. 171, 172.

and the influence which creates and dominates the action. The tragedy is wrought round Cæsar: Cæsar murdered and Cæsar avenged: and though in the external working out of the motives of the plot Brutus, Cassius and Antony all play more conspicuous parts than the Dictator, yet he overshadows them as with the majesty of a presence unseen but not unfelt. Cæsar is the inner, inspiring cause of the whole drama-of the later scenes no less than of the earlier, for death really serves to intensify his power-and he is alone indispensable to it.

even.

X.

ITS CONSTRUCTION.

The construction of Julius Cæsar is remarkably regular and In the first Act we see the hostility to Analysis of the Cæsar-its causes and result, viz. the conspiracy action. against him. The second Act is devoted to the development of the conspiracy, and brings us to the verge of the crisis. Early in the third Act the crisis is reached in the achievement of the conspiracy. Then its outcome, the punishment destined to fall upon the heads of the conspirators, is foreshadowed, and we are made to feel that "Cæsar's spirit, ranging for revenge” (111. 1. 270), will prove even mightier than Cæsar himself. By the close of the third Act the first step towards this revenge has been completed through the expulsion of the conspirators from Rome. The remainder of the play traces their gradual downfall. Cæsar's avengers combine while his murderers disagree in a manner that augurs ill for their cause; and surely the sense of imminent ruin increases. Their friends at Rome are 'proscribed': Portia dies: the apparition warns Brutus, and evil omens dismay the soldiers: Cassius would delay the decisive battle, and on its eve the generals take their sad, "everlasting farewell." Mistakes, mistrust, and "hateful Error" (v. 3. 66, 67) pursue them to the last, until in their self-inflicted deaths the angry spirit of their great victim is appeased and may now be still" (v. 5. 50).

In symmetrical evolution of the story Julius Cæsar stands unsurpassed among Shakespeare's plays. There is The personality of Julius no underplot, and no incident of any importance Casar himself that can be considered irrelevant. Every element point of the of the action springs from and is subordinated to whole play. the central personality of the Dictator. His per

the central

sonality constitutes its unity of interest.

XI.

ITS HISTORICAL TRUTH.

In certain details1 Shakespeare has found it necessary to sacrifice historical accuracy; but substantially the play is true to history and gives a vivid picture of the period and crisis with which it deals. The repulsion which Cæsar's desire to revive the title 'King' aroused: the motives of the conspirators —the personal jealousy which animated some, the futile devotion of others to the ancient republican ideal: the relation of Brutus to Cæsar and to his partners in the plot: the uselessness of their action and its results: the relation again of the Triumvirs to each other and their characters: these, the essential points, are all depicted in Julius Cæsar with no less truth than vividness. Poetic sympathy has enabled Shakespeare to enter into the spirit of Roman politics, and the historian finds little to correct.

XII.

THE SUPERNATURAL IN SHAKESPEARE.

Too much stress is often laid in criticisms of Shakespeare's use of the supernatural upon the fact that in Julius Cæsar and Macbeth the apparition is seen only by one person, and a person whose mental condition at the time predisposes him to hallubeth" and cinations. Thus Gervinus, discussing the supernatural element in Hamlet and Macbeth, writes:

The apparitions in " Fu lius Cæsar" and "Mac

"Hamlet."

1 See pp. 171, 172. It has been well noted that Shakespeare's deviations from history in historical plays are mainly changes of time and place, and do not often involve mispresentation of fact or character.