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That you have no such mirrors, as will turn
Your hidden worthiness into your eye,

That you might see your shadow. I have heard,
Where many of the best respect in Rome
(Except immortal Cæsar), speaking of Brutus,
And groaning underneath this age's yoke,
Have wish'd that noble Brutus had his eyes.
Bru. Into what dangers would you lead me,
Cassius,

That you would have me seek into myself
For that which is not in me?

Cas. Therefore, good Brutus, be prepar❜d to hear:
And, since you know you cannot see yourself
So well as by reflection, I, your glass,
Will modestly discover to yourself

That of yourself which you yet know not of.
And be not jealous of me, gentle Brutus :
Were I a common laugher, or did use
To stale 5 with ordinary oaths my love
To every new protester: if you know
That I do fawn on men, and hug them hard,
And after scandal them; or if you know
That I profess myself in banqueting
To all the rout, then hold me dangerous.

[Flourish and Shout. Bru. What means this shouting? I do fear, the people

Choose Cæsar for their king.

5 Johnson has erroneously given the meaning of allurement to stale in this place. To stale with ordinary oaths my love,' is 'to prostitute my love, or make it common with ordinary oaths,' &c. The use of the verb to stale here may be adduced as a proof that in a disputed passage of Coriolanus, Acti. Sc. 1, we should read stale instead of scale: see note there. Thus in Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Humour, Act ii. Sc. 1 :

'He's grown a stranger to all due respect,
and not content

To stale himself in all societies,

He makes my house here common as a mart.'

Cas.
Ay, do you fear it?
Then must I think you would not have it so.
Bru. I would not, Cassius; yet I love him well:-
But wherefore do you hold me here so long?
What is it that you would impart to me?
If it be aught toward the general good,
Set honour in one eye, and death i'the other,
And I will look on both indifferently:
For, let the gods so speed me, as I love
The name of honour more than I fear death.
Cas. I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus,
As well as I do know your outward favour.
Well, honour is the subject of my story.-
I cannot tell what you and other men
Think of this life; but, for my single self,
I had as lief not be, as live to be

In awe of such a thing as I myself.
I was born free as Cæsar; so were you:
We both have fed as well: and we can both
Endure the winter's cold, as well as he.
For once, upon a raw and gusty day,
The troubled Tyber chafing with her shores,
Cæsar said to me, Dar'st thou, Cassius, now
Leap in with me into this angry flood,
And swim to yonder point? Upon the word,
Accouter'd as I was, I plunged in,

And bade him follow: so, indeed, he did.
The torrent roar'd; and we did buffet it
With lusty sinews; throwing it aside

And stemming it with hearts of controversy.

6 Shakspeare probably remembered what Suetonius relates of Cæsar's leaping into the sea, when he was in danger by a boat being overladen, and swimming to the next ship with his Commentaries in his hand. Holland's Translation of Suetonius, 1606, p. 26. And in another passage, Were rivers in his way to hinder his passage, cross over them he would, either swimming, or else bearing himself upon blowed leather bottles.' Ibid. p. 24.

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But ere we could arrive the point propos'd,
Cæsar cry'd, Help me, Cassius, or I sink.
I, as Æneas, our great ancestor,

Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder
The old Anchises bear, so, from the waves of Tyber
Did I the tired Cæsar: And this man

Is now become a god; and Cassius is

A wretched creature, and must bend his body,
If Cæsar carelessly but nod on him.

He had a fever when he was in Spain,

And, when the fit was on him, I did mark
How he did shake: 'tis true, this god did shake:
His coward lips did from their colour fly 8;
And that same eye, whose bend doth awe the world,
Did lose his lustre: I did hear him groan:
Ay, and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans
Mark him, and write his speeches in their books,
Alas! it cried, Give me some drink, Titinius,
As a sick girl. Ye gods, it doth amaze me,
A man of such a feeble temper 9 should
So get the start of the majestick world,
And bear the palm alone. [Shout. Flourish.

Bru. Another general shout!

7 But ere we could arrive the point propos'd.' The verb arrive, in its active sense, according to its etymology, was formerly used for to approach, or come near. Milton several times uses it thus without the preposition. Thus in Paradise Lost, b. ii.:

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And in his Treatise of Civil Power, Lest a worse woe arrive him.' Shakspeare has it again in the Third Part of King Henry VI. Act v. So. 3 :

those powers that the queen

Hath rais'd in Gallia, have arriv'd our coast.'

8 This is oddly expressed, but a quibble, alluding to a coward flying from his colours, was intended.

9 Temperament, constitution.

VOL. VIII.

C C

I do believe, that these applauses are

For some new honours that are heap'd on Cæsar. Cas. Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world, Like a Colossus; and we petty men

Walk under his huge legs 10, and

peep about To find ourselves dishonourable graves.

Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

Brutus, and Cæsar: What should be in that Cæsar?
Why should that name be sounded more than yours?
Write them together, yours is as fair a name;
Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well 11;
Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure with them,
Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Cæsar. [Shout.
Now in the names of all the gods at once,
Upon what meat doth this our Cæsar feed,
That he is grown so great? Age, thou art sham'd:
Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!
When went there by an age, since the great flood,
But it was fam'd with more than with one man?
When could they say, till now, that talk'd of Rome,
That her wide walks encompass'd but one man?
Now is it Rome indeed, and room enough,
When there is in it but one only man.

O! you and I have heard our fathers say,
There was a Brutus once, that would have brook'd

10

12

But I the meanest man of many more,
Yet much disdaining unto him to lout,

Or creep between his legs.'

Spenser's Faerie Queene, b. iv. c. x. st. 19.

11 A similar thought occurs in Heywood's Rape of Lucrece :— 'What diapason's more in Tarquin's name

Than in a subject's? Or what's Tullia

More in the sound than should become the name

Of a poor maid?'

12 Lucius Junius Brutus (says Dion Cassius) would as soon have submitted to the perpetual dominion of a dæmon, as to the lasting government of a king.'

The eternal devil to keep his state in Rome,
As easily as a king.

Bru. That you do love me, I am nothing jealous ;
What you would work me to, I have some aim 13;
How I have thought of this, and of these times,
I shall recount hereafter; for this present,

I would not, so with love I might entreat you,
Be
any further mov'd. What you have said,

I will consider; what you have to say,

I will with patience hear: and find a time
Both meet to hear, and answer, such high things.
Till then, my noble friend, chew upon this 14;
Brutus had rather be a villager,

Than to repute himself a son of Rome
Under these hard conditions as 15 this time.

Is like to lay upon us.

Cas. I am glad that my weak words

Have struck but thus much show of fire from Brutus.

Re-enter CESAR, and his Train.

Bru. The games are done, and Cæsar is returning. Cas. As they pass by, pluck Casca by the sleeve; And he will, after his sour fashion, tell you What hath proceeded, worthy note, to-day.

13 i. e. guess. So in the Two Gentlemen of Verona :'But fearing lest my jealous aim might err.'

14 Ruminate on this, consider it at leisure.

15 As, according to Tooke, is an article, and means the same as that, which, or it: accordingly we find it often so employed by old writers; and particularly in our excellent version of the Bible. Thus Lord Bacon also in his Apophthegmes, No. 210:'One of the Romans said to his friend; what think you of such a one, as was taken with the manner in adultery?' Like other vestiges of old phraseology it still lingers among the common people: I cannot say as I did,' &c. for that I did. I will add an example from Langland, who flourished in the middle of the fourteenth century:

The godes of the ground aren like to the grete wawes
As [which] wyndes and wederes walwen aboute.'

Piers Plouhman, ed. 1813, p. 168.

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