DEC. Shall no man elfe be touch'd, but only Cæfar?

CAS. Decius, well urg'd:-I think, it is not meet,

Mark Antony, fo well belov'd of Cæfar,
Should outlive Cæfar: We fhall find of him
A fhrewd contriver; and, you know, his means,
If he improve them, may well ftretch fo far,
As to annoy us all which to prevent,

Let Antony, and Cæfar, fall together.

BRU. Our courfe will feem too bloody, Caius
Caffius,

To cut the head off, and then hack the limbs;
Like wrath in death, and envy afterwards: '
For Antony is but a limb of Cæfar.

Let us be facrificers, but not butchers, Caius.
We all ftand up against the spirit of Cæfar;
And in the spirit of men there is no blood:
O, that we then could come by Cæfar's fpirit,*
And not difmember Cæfar! But, alas,

Cæfar muft bleed for it! And, gentle friends,
Let's kill him boldly, but not wrathfully;
Let's carve him as a difh fit for the gods,'

3 and envy afterwards :] Envy is here, as almost always in Shakspeare's plays, malice. See Vol. XI. p. 61, n. 9; and p. 101, n. 9.

MALONE.

40, that we then could come by Cæfar's fpirit, &c.] Lord Sterline has the fame thought: Brutus remonftrating against the taking off Antony, fays:

"Ah! ah! we must but too much murder fee,

"That without doing evil cannot do good;

"And would the gods that Rome could be made free,
"Without the effufion of one drop of blood!"

as a difh fit for the gods, &c.]

Gradive, dedifti,

"Ne qua manus vatem, ne quid mortalia bello

MALONE,

Not hew him as a carcafe fit for hounds: "
And let our hearts, as fubtle masters do,
Stir up their fervants to an act of rage,

And after feem to chide them. This fhall make
Our purpose neceffary, and not envious:
Which fo appearing to the common eyes,
We shall be call'd purgers, not murderers.
And for Mark Antony, think not of him;
For he can do no more than Cæfar's arm,
When Cæfar's head is off.

CAS.
Yet I do fear him : &
For in the ingrafted love he bears to Cæfar,—
BRU. Alas, good Caffius, do not think of him:
If he love Cæfar, all that he can do

Is to himself; take thought,' and die for Cæfar:

"Lædere tela queant, fanctum et venerabile Diti

"Funus erat." Stat. Theb. VII. 1. 696. STEEVENS. 6 Not hew him as a carcafe fit for bounds :] Our author had probably the following paffage in the old tranflation of Plutarch in his thoughts: "Cæfar turned himfelfe no where but he was ftricken at by fome, and still had naked fwords in his face, and was hacked and mangled among them as a wild beaft taken of hunters.”

MALONE.

6 Yet I do fear him:] For the fake of metre I have supplied the auxiliary verb. So, in Macbeth:

7

there is none but him

"Whofe being I do fear." STEEVENS.

take thought,] That is, turn melancholy. JOHNSON.

So, in Antony and Cleopatra:

"What fhall we do, Ænobarbus ?

"Think and die.

Again, in Holinfhed, p. 833:

now they were without fervice, which caufed them to take thought, infomuch that fome died by the way," &c. STEEVENS.

The precife meaning of take thought may be learned from the following paffage in St. Matthew, where the verb spieva, which fignifies to anticipate, or forebode evil, is fo rendered: "Take no thought for the morrow: for the morrow fhall take thought for the things of itfelf; fufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

And that were much he fhould; for he is given
To fports, to wildness, and much company.

TREB. There is no fear in him; let him not die; For he will live, and laugh at this hereafter.

BRU. Peace, count the clock.
CAS.

[Clock ftrikes.

The clock hath ftricken three.

TREB. 'Tis time to part.

CAS. But it is doubtful yet, Whe'r Cæfar will come forth to-day, or no: For he is fuperftitious grown of late; Quite from the main opinion he held once Of fantasy, of dreams, and ceremonies : "

Caffius not only refers to, but thus explains, the phrafe in question, when, in answer to the affertion of Brutus concerning Antony, A& III:

"I know that we shall have him well to friend."

he replies:

"I wish we may : but yet I have a mind
"That fears him much; and my misgiving ftill
"Falls fhrewdly to the purpofe.'

To take thought then, in this inftance, is not to turn melancholy, whatever think may be in Antony and Cleopatra:

See Vol. IV. p. 75, n. 6. MALONE.

HENLEY.

8 -company.] Company is here ufed in a difreputable sense. See a note on the word companion, A&t IV. HENLEY.

9 Quite from the main opinion he held once

Offantafy, of dreams, and ceremonies:] Main opinion, is nothing more than leading, fixed, predominant opinion. JOHNSON.

Main opinion, according to Johnfon's explanation, is sense; but mean opinion would be a more natural expreffion, and is, I believe, what Shakspeare wrote. M. MASON.

The words main opinion occur again in Troilus and Creffida, where (as here) they fignify general eftimation:

Why then we should our main opinion crush

"In taint of our best man."

There is no ground therefore for fufpecting any corruption in the text. MALONE.

It may be, these apparent prodigies,
The unaccustom'd terror of this night,
And the perfuafion of his augurers,
May hold him from the Capitol to-day.

DEC. Never fear that: If he be fo refolv'd,
I can o'erfway him: for he loves to hear,
That unicorns may be betray'd with trees,
And bears with glaffes, elephants with holes,*

Fantafy was in our author's time commonly used for imagination, and is fo explained in Cawdry's Alphabetical Table of hard words, 8vo. 1604. It fignified both the imaginative power, and the thing imagined. It is used in the former fenfe by Shakspeare in The Merry Wives of Windsor:

"Raife up the organs of her fantasy.”

In the latter, in the prefent play:

"Thou haft no figures, nor no fantafies."

Ceremonies means omens or figns deduced from facrifices, or other ceremonial rites. So, afterwards:

"Cæfar, I never ftood on ceremonies,

"Yet now they fright me."

2 That unicorns may be betray'd with trees,

And bears with glasses, elephants with holes.] Unicorns are faid to have been taken by one who, running behind a tree, eluded the violent push the animal was making at him, fo that his horn fpent its force on the trunk, and stuck faft, detaining the beaft till he was defpatched by the hunter.

So, in Spenfer's Faery Queen, B. II. ch. v: "Like as a lyon whofe imperiall powre

"A prowd rebellious unicorne defies;

"T'avoid the rafh affault and wrathfull ftowre
"Of his fiers foe, him to a tree applies:

"And when him running in full courfe he fpies,
"He flips afide; the whiles the furious beaft

"His precious horne, fought of his enemies,
"Strikes in the ftocke, ne thence can be releaft,
"But to the mighty victor yields a bounteous feast."

Again, in Buffy D'Ambois, 1607:

"An angry unicorne in his full career

"Charge with too fwift a foot a jeweller

"That watch'd him for the treasure of his brow,

"And e'er he could get fhelter of a tree,

"Nail him with his rich antler to the earth."

Lions with toils, and men with flatterers:
But, when I tell him, he hates flatterers,
He fays, he does; being then most flattered.
Let me work: 3

For I can give his humour the true bent;
And I will bring him to the Capitol.

CAS. Nay, we will all of us be there to fetch him. BRU. By the eighth hour: Is that the uttermoft? CIN. Be that the uttermoft, and fail not then. MET. Caius Ligarius doth bear Cæfar hard,* Who rated him for, fpeaking well of Pompey; I wonder, none of you have thought of him.

BRU. Now, good Metellus, go along by him: ' He loves me well, and I have given him reafons; Send him but hither, and I'll fashion him.

Bears are reported to have been furprised by means of a mirror, which they would gaze on, affording their purfuers an opportunity of taking the furer aim. This circumftance, I think, is mentioned by Claudian. Elephants were feduced into pitfalls, lightly covered with hurdles and turf, on which a proper bait to tempt them, was expofed. See Pliny's Nat. Hift. B. VIII. STEEVENS.

3 Let me work:] Thefe words, as they ftand, being quite unmetrical, I fuppofe our author to have originally written:

Let me to work.

i. e. go to work. STEEVENS.

4

bear Cæfar hard,] Thus the old copy, but Meffieurs Rowe, Pope, and Sir Thomas Hanmer, on the authority of the fecond and latter folios, read-hatred, though the fame expreffion appears again in the firft fcene of the following act: " -I do befeech you, if you bear me hard;" and has already occurred in

a former one:

"Cæfar doth bear me hard, but he loves Brutus."

STEEVENS.

Hatred was fubftituted for hard by the ignorant editor of the fecond folio, the great corrupter of Shakspeare's text. MALONE. by him:] That is, by his houfe. Make that your way home. Mr. Pope fubftituted to for by, and all the fubfequent edi tors have adopted this unnecessary change. MALONE.

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