INTRODUCTION. I. DATES OF THE PUBLICATION AND COMPOSITION OF THE PLAY. Julius Cæsar was first published, so far as we know, in 1623, in the 1st Folio edition of Shakespeare's plays. Published in There is no evidence that it had been issued 1623. previously in Quarto. or 1601. The play was written probably in 1600 or 1601. Written proThe chief evidence as to the date of its composition bably in 1600 is the following passage in Weever's Mirror of Evidence Martyrs, a work published in 1601: "The many-headed multitude were drawne date. His vertues, who but Brutus then was vicious?" of It is reasonable to regard these lines as an allusion to Act III., Scene 2 of Julius Cæsar; we know no other work to which they could refer. The style1, versification2 and general 1 "In the earliest plays the language is sometimes as it were a dress put upon the thought—a dress ornamented with superfluous care; the idea is at times hardly sufficient to fill out the language in which it is put; in the middle plays (Julius Cæsar serves as an example) there seems a perfect balance and equality between the thought and its expression. In the latest plays this balance is disturbed by the preponderance or excess of the ideas over the means of giving them utterance."-Dowden. 2 According to Mr Fleay's 'Metrical Table' Julius Cæsar contains 34 rhyming lines and 2241 lines of blank verse. This paucity of rhyme tone of Julius Cæsar belong to the period 1600-1601 of Shakespeare's career. It may be noted that the play is not mentioned by Meres in Palladis Tamia, 1598. Another passage which bears upon the date is a stanza of Drayton's poem, The Barons' Wars, 1603: "Such one he was, of him we boldly say, In whose rich soul all sovereign powers did suit, In whom in peace the elements all lay So mixt, as none could sovereignty impute; As all did govern, yet all did obey: His lively temper was so absolute, That 't seemed when heaven his model first began, In him it showed perfection in a man." These verses resemble Antony's last speech (v. 5. 73-75) over the dead body of Brutus, and as in a later edition of The Barons' Wars the passage was altered into a form which increased the resemblance, we may fairly assume that Drayton, not Shakespeare, was the imitator. Having, however, the more striking allusion in the Mirror of Martyrs, which points so strongly to 1600-1601, we need not lay great stress upon Drayton's lines. II. SUPPOSED POLITICAL ALLUSION. Assuming that 1601, not 1600 (which, however, is an equally probable date), was the year of its composition, Dr Furnivall has put forward the theory that Shakespeare intended Julius Cæsar to have a political significance. The reRebellion of Essex, 1601: bellion of Essex, the Queen's favourite, took place has Julius Casar" refer in February, 1601; and, according to Dr Furnivall's view, Shakespeare wished to draw a comparison between the conduct of Brutus towards his friend Cæsar and ence to it? shows that the play belongs to that 'middle period' when Shakespeare had gone far towards abandoning rhyme. The number of lines with a 'double' or 'feminine' ending (i.e. an extra syllable at the end), a characteristic of his mature work is considerable, viz. 369. that of Essex towards his patroness Elizabeth, and to express his own opinion as to the merits of the rebellion and the justice of the fate of those who took part in it. Dr Furnivall notes that the Lord Southampton to whom Shakespeare dedicated Venus and Adonis and Lucrece was imprisoned for his share in the rebellion—a fact which must have brought the matter vividly home to the poet—and reminds us of the (doubtful) story which connects Richard II. with Essex's attempt. We must, however, be cautious about accepting theories of this kind. They rest upon conjecture, not evidence, and conjecture may easily find in Shakespeare's lines contemporary allusions where he never intended any allusion at all. That there was some resemblance between the action and fate of Brutus and of Essex, and that for Elizabethan audiences this resemblance would invest Julius Cæsar with extra interest, may be admitted. Further than this admission we cannot venture. III. "" JULIUS CÆSAR" COMPARED WITH "HAMLET." Julius Cæsar does not belong to any special group of Shakespeare's plays. Rather, it must be classed apart with Hamlet (1602-1603). These two "tragedies of reflection" separate Shakespeare's three great masterpieces in the vein of graceful, genial comedy, viz. Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night, which all come within the period 1598— 1601, from the later group of the three gloomy tragi-comedies, All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, and Troilus and Cressida. Points of resemblance between" Julius Casar" Between Julius Cæsar and Hamlet there are several links of connection. Their respective heroes, Brutus and Hamlet, are much alike, each being an unpractical, philosophic man whom circumstances impel to take an active part in critical affairs, and each failing— Brutus because he acts ill-advisedly, Hamlet because he has scarcely the will to act at all. Portia "falls distract," and "Hamlet." and dies, through her relation to Brutus as Ophelia through her connection with Hamlet. Loyal friendship is exemplified very noticeably in Antony and Horatio. The supernatural is introduced in both plays, and with the similar notion of revenge. Two1 passages in Hamlet seem to show that the story of Cæsar occupied Shakespeare's thoughts at the time when he wrote the later tragedy: indeed, one of them reads like a direct allusion to Julius Cæsar. IV. ITS RELATION TO ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA." Another play linked with Julius Cæsar by some community of interest-but not of style-is Antony and Cleowith Antony patra. Here the Triumvirs, Antony, Octavius and and Cleo- Lepidus, all reappear, and the development of their patra." Connection characters and relation to each other foreshadowed in Julius Cæsar is fulfilled. Antony, the "masker and reveller"," has degenerated into a voluptuary, while his youthful colleague who assumes so calmly his position, with all its dangers, as Cæsar's heir, has grown into an iron-willed ruler. That note of antagonism between them on the plains of Philippi deepens into 1 Hamlet, I. 1. 113--118 (quoted on p. 117 of the Notes to this play), and III. 2. 104-109 (see p. 196). Other points of connection between the two plays might be cited. Thus the scene where Brutus addresses the citizens (111. 2) finds a parallel in the old prose story of Hamlet which perhaps· Shakespeare used. Again, in Plutarch's Life of Brutus there is a curious word which occurs in a precisely similar context in Hamlet and in no other play of Shakespeare. Cf. North's Plutarch, Antony thinking good that [Cæsar's] body should be honourably buried, and not in huggermugger"; and Hamlet, IV. 5. 83, 84, "We have done but greenly, In hugger-mugger to inter him "; i.e. secretly and in haste. 2 Julius Cæsar, v. 1. 62. deadly hostility. Lepidus, who has proved the "slight unmeritable man1" of Antony's contemptuous estimate, is "made use of 2" by Octavius, and eventually deposed from the Triumvirate by him, as Antony proposed. The two plays, therefore, have several points of association; but in all the qualities of workmanship and metre Antony and Cleopatra is much the maturer. V. OTHER REFERENCES IN SHAKESPEARE TO THE HISTORY OF JULIUS CÆSAR. Evidence that the character and story of Julius Cæsar appealed strongly to Craik justly remarks: "It is evident that the character and history of Julius Cæsar had taken a strong hold of Shakespeare's imagination. There is perhaps no other historical character who is so repeatedly alluded to throughout his plays." Several of these allusions, as might be expected, illustrate details of Shakespeare. Julius Cæsar3. Thus for the "triumph" mentioned in the first Scene we may turn to Measure for Measure, III. 2. 45, 46, "What, at the wheels of Cæsar? art thou led in triumph ?" The omens preceding Cæsar's death are mentioned in that passage (1. 1. 113-118) of Hamlet to which reference has been made already. The death itself, the scene, and the share in it of Brutus, are illustrated by the following extracts :— 2 Henry VI. IV. I. 135—137: "A Roman sworder and banditto slave Murder'd sweet Tully; Brutus' bastard hand 1 Julius Cæsar, IV. I. 12. 2 Antony and Cleopatra, III. 5. 7. 3 For notable allusions in other plays see 2 Henry IV. IV. 3. 45, 46, As You Like It, v. 2. 34, 35 and Cymbeline, III. 1. 23, 24, which all refer to Cæsar's famous despatch-" Veni, vidi, vici”-to the Senate after the battle of Zela; and Cymbeline, 11. 4. 20-23, III. I. 22-29, where Cæsar's expedition to Britain is mentioned. |