Notes [When the name of a play is not given, the reference will be understood to be to Julius Cæsar. It has been thought better to omit pagination in order that the pupil may become familiar with the text rather by Act, Scene and line, which are usually the same in most editions, than by the pages of the volumes, which differ materially.] ACT I. This act is largely devoted to shewing how the conspiracy against Julius Cæsar came to be hatched, and how it spread even amongst those who were ranked in the number of Cæsar's friends. SCENE I. The working men of Rome rebuked by their tribunes. I. i. 3. Mechanical=of the artisan class. Cf. Shakespeare's use of the same word in Midsummer Night's Dream, III. ii. 9, "a crew of patches, rude mechanicals." I. i. 3. walk: note the absence of the sign of the infinitive. In Early English the present infinitive was represented by -en (A.S. -an), so that "to walk was "walken," and "to be able to walk " was "he can walken," which form, though rare, is found in Pericles (II. Prologue, l. 12). The -en in time became e, and the -e gradually became mute, thus reducing "walken" to "walk." When the en dropped into disuse, and to was substituted for it, several verbs which we call auxiliary, and which are closely and commonly connected with other verbs, retained the old license of omitting "to," though the infinitival inflection was lost. Cf. Ben Jonson, Sejanus, III. i. 360, "Suffer him speak no more." I. i. 4. Sign of your profession: this is not a reference to the badges of the medieval and Elizabethan guilds, as some editors have argued. The phrase simply implies "without your working garments." The men were attired in holiday garb. I. i. 4. labouring day=day of labour: Milton has a similar reference in Samson Agonistes, 1. 1300— "This idol's day hath been to thee no day of rest, Labouring thy mind more than the working day thy hands." I. i. 5. Speak! what trade art thou: in connection with this speech read 1. 9, " You, sir, what trade are you?" Note the difference of address. "Thou" is generally used by a master to a servant and by a superior to an inferior; but a master or a superior finding fault frequently uses you" in Shakespeare. The use of "thou" was already growing archaic in Shakespeare's time. Cf. Abbott, Shakespearian Grammar, pars. 231-232. I. i. 14. a mender of bad soles. The quibble on soles and souls was a favourite one among Elizabethans, and was more apparent than to us, as the distinction between the words was less marked then than now, soles being spelt soals. Cf. Merchant of Venice, IV. i. 123, 1st. folio, “Not on thy soale but on thy soule, harsh Jew." I. i. 24. All . . . awl: the play on the two words was of course intended to tickle the ear of the groundlings. Shakespeare always wrote apparently with an eye to stage effect, never with the idea that his plays would one day be printed. ... I. i. 25. I meddle with . . . awl: this is a most obscure passage, and Steevens suggests that it should read, "I meddle with no trade; man's matters, nor woman's matters. I. i. 28, 29. As proper men as ever trod on neats-leather: this was a popular saying in Elizabethan days. Shakespeare uses it again in The Tempest (II. ii. 63-73), where he makes the drunken Stephano mix the phrases up into the ludicrous jumble "as proper a man as ever went on four legs," and " a present for any emperor that ever went on neat's leather." Neat is pure Saxon for an ox, and becomes in Scots nowt. Herrick, in the Hesperides, writes "Here thou behold'st thy large sleek neat (The Country Life, l. 35.) I. i. 35. Cæsar's Triumph: This was his fifth triumph, and was celebrated to commemorate his victory in Spain over the sons of Pompey, whom he defeated at the Battle of Munda, March 17, B.C. 45. I. i. 40. senseless: here means "without life," not, as at the present day, "destitute of feeling or intelligence." Cf. Coriolanus, "O noble fellow, who sensibly outdares his senseless sword" (Act I. Sc. iv. 53). I. i. 42. Pompey: Cneius Pompeius, surnamed the Great (106-148 B.C.), the rival of Caesar, and the champion of the aristocratic Old Republican party in Rome. He was defeated by Cæsar at Pharsalia, B.C. 48, and soon after was treacherously murdered in Egypt. I. i. 42. Many a time: many is here used adverbially. Archbishop Trench thought the phrase to be a corruption of " many of times," as "manya-man would be " many of men." But in A.S., whence it is derived, the many man not many a man." Most of the adjectives which idiom was 66 take "a" after them end in ch or lic ("like"), an adverbial termination, which has possibly led to "many a being now considered to have adverbial in place of adjectival force; "a" here is the fragment of O. E. “on.” I. i. 47. pass the streets: note the elision of " through. For a similar elliptical use of this verb cf. King John, V. vi. 40, Passing these flats," also Richard III., I. iv. 45, "I pass'd, me thought, the melancholy flood." 66 I. i. 48. but here means only: the meaning is that the chariot scarcely had made its appearance when the plaudits commenced. But had no fixed place in the Elizabethan sentence. I. i. 50. Tiber . . . her banks: note the feminine pronoun; in Latin poetry the river was always addressed as "Father Tiber," and never was associated with the idea of a feminine divinity, Cf. Horace, Odes, Bk. I. "Vidimus flavum Tiberim." That in this line is equal to ii. 13, that." 66 SO I. i. 51. replication: the echo and re-echo of the shouting. I. i. 52. concave shores: a figure curiously akin to Homer's Toλvpλoloßolo Paλáσons (poluphloisboio thalasses) Iliad, Bk. I. l. 34. I. i. 54. cull out: lit. select and set apart a holiday. This is the only place in Shakespeare where the phrase "cull out" is used. An analogous use is found in King John, II. i. 391, "Fortune shall cull forth out of one side her happy minion. I. i. 55. his way: "his" here has the force of an antecedent to the relative that, viz., "the way of him that comes." over I. i. 56. Pompey's blood: not over Pompey himself defeated or slain was the triumph celebrated, for he had been murdered three years before, but "those of Pompey's blood," viz., his sons Cneius and Sextus, who had been defeated at Munda. As the former was murdered at the close of the battle by one of his own men, the reference might also mean to the blood of Pompey's offspring shed on the occasion. I. i. 62. sort=station or class; cf. Titus Andronicus, I. i. 230, "voices and applause of every sort, Patricians and Plebeians." I. i. 63. Tiber banks: note that Tiber here has adjectival force. Cf. Hamlet, III. i. 164, "the honey of his music vows.' There is another instance in this same play, Act V. Sc. v. 19, "here in Philippi fields.” I. i. 66. whether in order to preserve the correct scansion this must be pronounced whe'r— /See whé'r/their bás/est mét/àl bé/nòt movéd. This practice was common among Elizabethans. Ben Jonson in his Epigrams, No. 96, addressed to John Donne, writes "Who shall doubt, Donne. wh'er I a poet be, The "scarfs" I. i. 70. ceremonies: festal garlands and ornaments. referred to in the next scene, for pulling which off Cæsar's images, Marullus and Flavius were put to silence, would also come under that category. The crowning of Cæsar's statues was another attempt to influence the populace to make him a king. North's Plutarch reads, "There were set up images of Cæsar in the city, with diadems on their heads, like kings." I. i. 72. The feast of Lupercal: Lupercus was one of the old Italian deities, afterwards identified with Pan. He is referred to in the Eneid, VIII. 344 In the Palatine Hill there was a cavern sacred to him, where the feast of the Lupercalia was celebrated on the 15th of every February. After offering sacrifices in this improvised temple, the Luperci, or priests, ran in a semi-nude state throughout Rome, striking all the persons they met with a leathern thong. This was done to purify the land and its inhabitants from sin. The day of the ceremony was called dies Februata, from februo to purify. The month was therefore named Februarius. Cf. Ovid, Fasti, Bk. V. 423. I. i. 75. The vulgar: not only the mob, but the lower orders of the people generally. Cf. Horace, Odes, Bk. III. i. 1, Odi profanum vulgus. Cf. Love's Labour's Lost, I. ii. 51, "So do our vulgar drench their peasant limbs," etc. I. i. 78. fly a pitch: a term in falconry, meaning to fly at a certain level. Cf. 1. Henry VI., II. iv. II, "Between two hawks which flies the higher pitch?"; it is also used metaphorically in Richard II., I. i. 109, "How high a pitch his resolution soars." SCENE II. The procession to view the running of the Luperci ; conversation between Brutus and Cassius regarding Cæsar's aims, finally Casca relates what occurred at the Lupercal when Mark Antony offered the crown to Cæsar. STAGE DIRECTION. - Calphurnia: though Shakespeare certainly wrote the name as above, most modern editors now alter it to Calpurnia. Decius: for this we should read Decimus Brutus. He was the most cherished of all Cæsar's friends (Villeius Paterculus, Bk. II. c. 64). Shakespeare was not alone in reading Decius for Decimus. Cf. The Tragedy of Julius Cæsar by the Earl of Stirling, and Holland's translation of Suetonius. The mistake really arose out of North's Plutarch (first |