CAS. Stand faft, Titinius: We must out and talk. Ocr. Mark Antony, fhall we give fign of battle? ANT. No, Cæfar, we will answer on their charge. Make forth, the generals would have fome words. Ocr. Stir not until the fignal. BRU. Words before blows: Is it fo, countrymen? Ocr. Not that we love words better, as you do. BRU. Good words are better than bad ftrokes, Octavius. ANT. In your bad ftrokes, Brutus, you give good words: Witness the hole you made in Cæfar's heart, CAS. Antony, The posture of your blows are yet unknown; ' ANT. Not ftingless too. BRU. O, yes, and foundless too; For you have ftol'n their buzzing, Antony, And, very wifely, threat before you fting. ANT. Villains, you did not fo, when your vile daggers Hack'd one another in the fides of Cæfar: You fhow'd your teeth like apes, and fawn'd like hounds, 5 The pofture of your blows are yet unknown;] It should be—is yet unknown. But the error was certainly Shakspeare's. MALONE. Rather, the mistake of his tranfcriber or printer; which therefore ought, in my opinion, to be corrected. Had Shakspeare been generally inaccurate on fimilar occafions, he might more juftly have been fufpected of inaccuracy in the prefent inftance. STEEVENS. And bow'd like bondmen, kiffing Cæfar's feet; CAS. Flatterers!-Now, Brutus, thank yourself:* This tongue had not offended fo to-day, If Caffius might have rul'd. Ocr. Come, come, the caufe: If arguing make us fweat, The proof of it will turn to redder drops. I draw a fword against confpirators; When think you that the fword goes up again?— Have added flaughter to the fword of traitors." 6 - - Cafea,] Cafca ftruck Cæfar on the neck, coming like a degenerate cur behind him. JOHNSON. 7-O flatterers!] Old copy, unmetrically,-O you flatterers! STEEVENS. 8 Flatterers!-Now, Brutus, thank yourself:] It is natural to fuppofe, from the defective metre of this line, that our author wrote: Flatterers! Now, Brutus, you may thank yourself. STEEVENS. 9 three and twenty wounds -] [Old copy-three and thirty;] but I have ventured to reduce this number to three and twenty from the joint authorities of Appian, Plutarch, and Suetonius: and I am perfuaded, the error was not from the poet but his tranfcribers. THEOBALD. Beaumont and Fletcher have fallen into a fimilar mistake, in their Noble Gentleman: "So Cæfar fell, when in the Capitol, 66 They gave his body two and thirty wounds." RITSON. 2 till another Cæfar Have added flaughter to the faword of traitors.] A fimilar idea has already occurred in King John: "Or add a royal number to the dead, "With flaughter coupled to the name of kings." STEEVENS. BRU. Cæfar, thou can'ft not die by traitors' hands, Unless thou bring'ft them with thee. Ост. So I hope ; I was not born to die on Brutus' fword. BRU. O, if thou wert the noblest of thy strain, Young man, thou could'ft not die more honourable. CAS. A peevish fchoolboy, worthlefs of fuch honour, Join'd with a masker and a reveller. ANT. Old Caffius ftill! Ост. Come, Antony; away. Defiance, traitors, hurl we in your teeth: If you dare fight to-day, come to the field; [Exeunt OCTAVIUS, ANTONY, and their Army. CAS. Why now, blow, wind; fwell, billow; and fwim, bark! The ftorm is up, and all is on the hazard. 1 8 Defiance, traitors, hurl we-] Whence perhaps Milton, Paradife Loft, B. I. v. 669: 66 Hurling defiance toward the vault of Heaven." Hurl is peculiarly expreffive. The challenger in judicial combats was faid to hurl down his gage, when he threw his glove down as a pledge that he would make good his charge against his adverfary. So, in King Richard II: "And interchangeably hurl down my gage Upon this over-weening traitor's foot." HOLT WHITE. CAS. This is my birth-day; as this very day Meffala,9 Was Caffius born. Give me thy hand, Meffala: Be thou my witness, that, against my will, As Pompey was, am I compell❜d to fet 9 Meffala, &c.] Almost every circumftance in this speech is taken from Sir Thomas North's Tranflation of Plutarch. "But touching Caffius, Meffala reporteth that he supped by himfelfe in his tent with a few of his friendes, and that all fupper tyme he looked very fadly, and was full of thoughts, although it was against his nature: and that after fupper he tooke him by the hande, and holding him faft (in token of kindnes as his manner was) told him in Greeke, Meffala, I proteft vnto thee, and make thee my witnes, that I am compelled against my minde and will (as Pompey the Great was) to ieopard the libertie of our contry, to the hazard of a battel. And yet we must be liuely, and of good corage, confidering our good fortune, whom we fhould wronge too muche to mistrust her, although we follow euill counfell. Meffala writeth, that Caffius hauing fpoken thefe last wordes vnto him, he bad him farewell, and willed him to come to fupper to him the next night following, bicause it was his birth-day.' 2 our former enfign. pofe, rightly. Former is foremost. STEEVENS. Thus the old copy, and, I fupShakspeare fometimes ufes the comparative inftead of the pofitive and fuperlative. See King Lear, Aa IV. fc. iii. Either word has the fame origin; nor do I perceive why former should be lefs applicable to place than time. STEEVENS. Former is right; and the meaning-our fore enfign. So, in Adlyngton's Apuleius, 1596: “ Firft hee inftructed me to fit at the table vpon my taile, and howe I fhould leape and daunce, holding up my former feete." Again, in Harrison's Defcription of Britaine: " It [i. e. brawn] is made commonly of the fore part of a tame bore fet uppe for the purpose by the space of an whole year or two. Afterwarde he is killed, and then of his former partes is our brawne made.” RITSON. Two mighty eagles fell; and there they perch'd, This morning are they fled away, and gone; Our army lies, ready to give up the ghost. CAS. I but believe it partly; BRU. Even fo, Lucilius. CAS. Now, most noble Brutus, BRU. Even by the rule of that philosophy,* I once thought that for the fake of distinction the word should be fpelt foremer, but as it is derived from the Saxon Forma, first, I have adhered to the common spelling. MALONE. 2 as we were fickly prey ;] So, in King John: "As doth a raven on a fick-fall'n beast, 3 The very last time we shall speak together: STEEVENS. What are you then determined to do?] i. e. I am refolved in fuch a cafe to kill myself. What are you determined of? WARBURTON. of that philofophy,] There is an apparent contradiction between the fentiments contained in this and the following speech which Shakspeare has put into the mouth of Brutus. In this, Brutus declares his refolution to wait patiently for the determina |