Thoughts of great value, worthy Cogitations. For the eye fees not it selfe but by reflection, By fome other things. Caffius. 'Tis iuft, And it is very much lamented Brutus, 60. face] eye Upton (Obs., p. 237). 61-63. No Caffius...other things] Two lines, ending: felfe...things Rowe et seq. 62. it felfe] himselfe F2. himself, F3. himself: F4. 60 65 63. By] from Pope,+, Ran. of Sta. conj. things] thing Walker (Crit. i, 243), Wh. i, Dyce ii, iii, Coll. iii. 60. Can you see your face] J. HUNTER: Cassius is now proceeding to move Brutus to conspiracy. Observe how artfully he employs the considerations of his affection for Brutus; of the respect in which Brutus is held by others, and in which he should hold his own honour; of the republican principles which Brutus cherishes; and of his being a descendant of that Brutus who drove Tarquin from the throne; and then observe the result which manifests itself in the speech: "That you do love me,' etc. 62. the eye sees not it selfe] STEEVENS: So, Sir John Davies (Nosce Teipsum, 1599): 'Is it because the Mind is like the Eye (Through which it gathers knowledge by degrees), Whose rays reflect not but spread outwardly, Not seeing itself, when other things it sees?' [p. 48, ed. Arber].[Steevens quotes also a passage from Marston's Parisitaster which contains this same idea; and MALONE gives another from Davies' second part of Nosce Teipsum, which is, perhaps, more nearly parallel to the present line in Julius Cæsar: 'Mine eyes which see all objects nigh and far, Look not into this little world of mine; Nor see my face, wherein they fixed are' (p. 51, ed. Arber).-CRAIK compares 'Nor doth the eye itself, That most pure spirit of sense, behold itself'-Tro. & Cress., III, iii, 105, 106-and adds: 'It may be worth noting that these lines appear only in the two original quarto editions of the play (1609), and are not in any of the Folios.'-Ed.] 62, 63. by reflection... other things] CRAIK (p. 150): The 'other things' must apparently, if we interpret the words with reference to their connection, be the reflectors or mirrors spoken of by Cassius. Taken by itself, however, the expression might rather seem to mean that the eye discovers its own existence by its power of seeing other things. The verse in the present speech is ingeniously broken up in the original edition [by the colon after 'Cassius' and the comma after 'reflection']. It may still be suspected that all is not quite right, and possibly some words have dropped out. 'By reflection, by some other things' is hardly Shakespeare's style. It is not customary with him to employ a word which he finds it necessary thus to attempt immediately to amend, or supplement, or explain by another.-WRIGHT, referring to the foregoing note by Craik, says: 'I do not see why "by," in the sense of by means of, does not give a very good meaning, even if we connect it closely with reflection.'-[More reliance might be placed upon the punctuation of the Folio were we sure that it was from Shakespeare's own hand. Wright's interpretation, based upon the removal of the printer's comma, shows how needless the latter point is.-ED.] 66 I 'hat you haue no fuch Mirrors, as will turne I haue heard, Where many of the best respect in Rome, 70 Bru. Into what dangers, would you Lead me Caffius? 75 That you would haue me feeke into my selfe, Caf. Therefore good Brutus, be prepar'd to heare: 78 73. eyes.] eyes- Johns. 66. Mirrors] mirror Walker (Crit. i, 243), Dyce ii, iii, Huds. 68, 69. That...heard] One line Rowe, Pope, Theob. Han.+. 74, 75. Into...Caffius?] One line Rowe et seq. 74. dangers] daungers F2. 69, 70. I haue heard... best respect in Rome] BOISSIER (p. 301): The conspirators were but little over sixty in number, but they had all Rome for their accomplice. 'All the honest men,' said Cicero (Philip, ii, 12), 'in so far as they could, have killed Cæsar. Some wanted the means, others the resolution, several the opportunity; no one wanted the will.' 71. speaking of Brutus] MARK HUNTER: The repetition of 'Brutus' immediately afterwards is by no means natural or graceful. I believe the 'Brutus' in 1. 72 caught the printer's eye, and he substituted it for some other word. 73. Haue wish'd... Brutus had his eyes] DELIUS: That is, the Romans mourned the fact that Brutus did not see, and wished that he might but use the eyes nature had given him in order to recognise the needs of the times.— WRIGHT: I should rather suppose that 'his' was written carelessly for their, as if what precedes had been 'Many a one . . . hath wish'd,' etc. The speakers wished Brutus to see himself as they saw him, and to recognize his own importance at such a crisis. This seems to be the whole point of Cassius' appeal. Of course, 'to have one's eyes' does occur, in the sense in which Delius takes it, in other passages of Shakespeare; as, for instance: 'Nay, indeed, if you had your eyes, you might fail of the knowing me.'-Mer. of Ven., II, ii, 79. Again: 'If you saw yourself with your eyes, or knew yourself with your judgment.'-As You Like It, I, ii, 185. 78. Therefore good Brutus] CRAIK (p. 151): The eager, impatient temper of Cassius, absorbed in his own one idea, is vividly expressed by his thus continuing his argument as if without appearing to have even heard Brutus' interrupting question; for such is the only interpretation which his 'therefore' would seem to admit of. [Craik is doubtless right regarding the impetuous temper of Cassius, but in the present instance is his interpretation of 'therefore' the only one? does not 'therefore' here introduce the answer to the foregoing question? Brutus asks: Why do you ask me to search within myself for something which does not exist? Cassius replies: Since you yourself cannot, after seeking, find it, therefore be pre And fince you know, you cannot fee your felfe 80 That of your felfe, which you yet know not of. To ftale with ordinary Oathes my loue 82. you yet] yet you F3F4, Rowe,+, Varr. Ran. Cap. 83. on] of Rowe,+, Varr. Mal. Ran. Steev. Varr. Sing. i. 85 84. Laughter] talker Kinnear (p. 363). lover Herr (p. 7). laugher Rowe et seq. pared to have me tell you 'That of yourself, which you yet know not of' (1. 82).— ED. MARK HUNTER: It is plain that Cassius' vehemence, his outspoken envy, do not and cannot appeal to a person of Brutus' temperament, and that Brutus' more philosophic doubts can win no sympathy from Cassius. He does not understand them. Thus Brutus scarcely seems to hear all that Cassius says to him, and Cassius attends to nothing that Brutus says save where it seems to coincide with his own thoughts. 83. on me] For examples of 'on' meaning of, see Shakespeare passim. 84. a common Laughter] CRAIK (p. 153): The necessity or propriety of [Rowe's] change is, perhaps, not so unquestionable as it has been generally thought. Neither word seems to be perfectly satisfactory. 'Were I a common laughter' might seem to derive some support from the expression of the same speaker in IV, iii, 126: 'Hath Cassius lived to be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus?'HEATH (p. 435): Seward, in his notes on Beaumont and Fletcher (Note 10 of the Faithful Shepherdess), thinks ['laughter'] 'a stronger word to express a low buffoon than laugher. But he seems to have misunderstood the drift of the poet; a low buffoon, who is commonly laughed at, is not the idea he intended, but one who, without regard to friendship or any other consideration, abuses the confidence of his friends in order to expose them to the laughter of the first company he comes into.-HUDSON: 'Laughter' may possibly be right in the sense of laughing-stock. Some one has proposed 'a common lover' [see Text. Notes]; and so, I have hardly any doubt, we ought to read. This would make common emphatic, and give it the sense of indiscriminate or promiscuous; which quite accords with the context.— WRIGHT: I do not feel quite certain that the Folio reading may not be correct, 'laughter' being used in the sense of laughing-stock. Whether Cassius were a common buffoon or a common butt, he would be equally untrustworthy; but he appeals here to what Brutus knows of his habits of speech.-Miss PORTER and Miss CLARKE: Rowe's change . . . is a misrepresentation of the meaning. Cassius means to say: 'were I an object of laughter, as a man like Antony is,' his whole conversation glancing at Antony as standing for all Brutus is opposed to. . . . 'Antony,' says Plutarch, 'was laughed at. For he would further every man's love and . . . not be angry that men should merrily tell him of those he loved.' Cassius says, therefore, that he is not given, like Antony, to 'fawn on men, and hug them hard, And after scandal them.'-[MURRAY (N. E. D.) does not apparently give any example of the use of 'laughter' in the sense of the object laughed at.—ED.] 85. To stale] JOHNSON: That is, to invite every new protester to my affection by the stale or allurement of customary oaths.-HUDSON: 'To stale' a thing is to make 86 To euery new Protefter: if you know, That I do fawne on men, and hugge them hard, To all the Rout, then hold me dangerous. Flourish, and Shout. Bru. What meanes this Showting ? I do feare, the People choose Cafar Caffi. I, do you feare it? Then must I thinke you would not haue it fo. 90 95 Bru. I would not Caffius, yet I loue him well: But wherefore do you hold me heere so long? What is it, that you would impart to me? 86. Protefter] Ktly here marks an omission. 89. my felfe] Om. Ff. 91. Flourish, and Shout] Shout with in. Cap. Jen. 99 92-95. What meanes...feare it?] Two lines, ending: People...feare it? Rowe et seq. it common or stale by indiscriminate use. Compare: 'Out of use and staled by other men,' IV, i, 43.-[R. G. WHITE accepts Johnson's explanation; but that given by Hudson seems preferable, and has been generally followed.-ED.] 88. scandall] CRAIK (p. 153): We have lost the verb 'scandal' altogether, and we scarcely use the other form, to scandalize, except in the sense of Hellenistic skandalizo, to shock, to give offence. Both had formerly also the sense of to defame or traduce. 91. Flourish, and Shout] MOULTON (Sh. as Dram. Art., p. 190): All through the conversation between Brutus and Cassius the shouting of the mob reminds of the scene which is at the moment going on in the Capitol, while the conversation is interrupted for a time by the returning procession of Cæsar. In this action behind the scenes, which thus mingles with the main incident, Cæsar is committing the one fault of his life: this is the fault of 'treason,' which can be justified only by being successful and so becoming 'revolution,' whereas Cæsar is failing, and deserving to fail from the vacillating hesitation with which he sins. Moreover, unfavourable as such incidents would be in themselves to our sympathy with Cæsar, yet it is not the actual facts that we are permitted to see, but they are further distorted by the medium through which they reach us-the cynicism of Casca which belittles and disparages all he relates. 97. I loue him well] FERRERO (ii, 312, foot-note): The affection and intimacy between Cæsar and Brutus have been much exaggerated. It must be remembered that from Pharsalia down to Cæsar's return from Spain they can only have been together for quite a short time, during 47 in the East; afterwards Cæsar went to Africa and Brutus spent the whole of 46 as Governor of Cisalpine Gaul. When Brutus returned to Rome Cæsar had already left for Spain. If it be ought toward the generall good, 100. ought] aught Theob. et seq. 100 104 102. both] death Warb. Theob. Han. Quincy MS. 100. If it be ought toward] CRAIK (p. 154): All that the prosody demands here is that the word 'toward' be pronounced in two syllables; the accent may be either on the first or on the second. 'Toward' when an adjective has, I believe, always the accent on the first syllable in Shakespeare; but its customary pronunciation may have been otherwise in his day when it was a preposition, as it is here. Milton, however, in the few cases in which he does not run the two syllables into one, always accents the first. And he uses both 'toward' and towards.WRIGHT: When 'toward' is a preposition I find only the following lines in which the accent could be placed on the last syllable: 'Toward that shade I might behold addrest.'-Love's Labour's Lost, V, ii, 92; ‘And sigh'd his soul toward the Grecian tents.'-Mer. of Ven., V, i, 5; ' Toward Peloponnesus are they come.'-Ant. & Cleo., III, x, 31. But even in these lines such an accentuation is not necessary, and, as it is contrary to Shakespeare's usage and also to analogy, I believe it to be wrong. 100. the generall good] VERITY: This is the keynote of the action of Brutus. He is influenced by 'no personal cause': what he believes to be the 'common good to all' is his sole motive-as Antony himself allows (V, v, 83, 84). 102. And I... on both indifferently] WARBURTON: What a contradiction to this are the lines immediately succeeding! If he lov'd Honour more than he fear'd Death, how could they be both indifferent to him? Honour thus is but in equal Balance to Death, which is not speaking at all like Brutus; for, in a soldier of any ordinary pretension, it should always preponderate. We must certainly read: 'I will look on Death indifferently.' What occasion'd the corruption, I presume, was the transcriber's margining; the adverb 'indifferently' must be applied to two things oppos'd. But the use of the word does not demand it; nor does Shakespeare always apply it so. In the present passage it signifies neglectingly; without fear or concern. And so Casta afterwards again in this Act employs it: 'And dangers are to me indifferent,' i. e., I weigh them not; am not deterred on the score of danger.-JOHNSON: Warburton has a long note on this occasion, which is very trifling. When Brutus first names 'honour' and 'death,' he calmly declares them indifferent; but as the image kindles in his mind, he sets honour above life. Is not this natural?-UPTON (Crit. Obs., p. 293): That is, whatever comes in competition with the general good, will weigh nothing; death and honour are to me things of an indifferent nature; but, however, I freely acknowledge that, of these indifferent things, honour has my greatest esteem, my choice and love; the very name of honour I love, more than I fear even death.-HEATH (p. 435): I entirely concur in Warburton's emendation. . . . What appears decisive in this point is the causal particle 'for,' which introduces the two following lines, and the express declaration which Brutus therein makes of the superior influence which the love of honour had with him beyond the fear of death.-CAPELL (i, 97): Here the editor must play |