1 SCENE IV.-Rome. A public Place. Enter MENENIUS and SICINIUS. Men. See you yond' coign o' the Capitol; yond' corner-stone? Sic. Why, what of that? Men. If it be possible for you to displace it with your little finger, there is some hope the ladies of Rome, especially his mother, may prevail with him. But I say there is no hope in 't; our throats are sentenced, and stay upon execution. Sic. Is 't possible that so short a time can alter the condition of a man? Men. There is differency between a grub and a butterfly; yet your butterfly was a grub. This Marcius is grown from man to dragon: he has wings; he 's more than a creeping thing. Sic. He loved his mother dearly. Men. So did he me: and he no more remembers his mother now than an eight-year old horse. The tartness of his face sours ripe grapes. When he walks, he moves like an engine, and the ground shrinks before his treading. He is able to pierce a corslet with his eye; talks like a knell, and his hum is a battery. He sits in his state, as a thing made for Alexander. What he bids be done is finished with his bidding. He wants nothing of a god but eternity, and a heaven to throne in. Sic. Yes, mercy, if you report him truly. Men. I paint him in the character. Mark what mercy his mother shall bring from him: There is no more mercy in him than there is milk in a male tiger; that shall our poor city find: and all this is long of you. Sic. The gods be good unto us! Men. No, in such a case the gods will not be good unto us. When we banished him we respected not them and he returning to break our necks, they respect not us. : Enter a Messenger. Enter the Ladies, accompanied by Senators, Patricians, Call all your tribes together, praise the gods, 1 Sen. Behold our patroness, the life of Rome: [A flourish with drums and trumpets. SCENE V.-Antium. A public Place. [Exeunt Attendants. Enter three or four Conspirators of Aufidius' faction. Most welcome! 1 Con. How is it with our general? Even so 2 Con. Mess. Sir, if you'd save your life, fly to your house; Of your great danger. The plebeians have got your fellow-tribune, And hale him up and down; all swearing, if Art thou certain this is true? is it most certain? A sea and land full: You have pray'd well to-day; Auf. 3 Con. The people will remain uncertain whilst Twixt you there 's difference; but the fall of either Makes the survivor heir of all. Auf. A good construction. I rais'd him, and I pawn'd He bow'd his nature, never known before 3 Con. Sir, his stoutness, When he did stand for consul, which he lost Auf. That I would have spoke of: 1 Con. Auf. [Drums and trumpets sound, with great 1 Con. Your native town you enter'd like a post, And had no welcomes home; but he returns Splitting the air with noise. 2 Con. 3 Con. Auf. Here come the lords. Say no more; Enter the Lords of the City. Lords. You are most welcome home. But, worthy lords, have you with heed perus'd Lords. Auf. No more. Ha! Cor. Measureless liar, thou hast made my heart Too great for what contains it. Boy! O slave!Pardon me, lords, 't is the first time that ever I was forc'd to scold. Your judgments, my grave lorda Must give this cur the lie: and his own notion (Who wears my stripes impress'd on him, that must bear My beating to his grave) shall join to thrust The lie unto him. 1 Lord. Peace, both, and hear me speak. Cor. Cut me to pieces, Volces; men and lads, Stain all your edges on me.-Boy! False hound! you have writ your annals true, 't is there, That like an eagle in a dove-cote, I If father. Con. Let him die for 't. [Several speak at once. Cit. [Speaking promiscuously.] Tear him to pieces, I have not deserv'd it; do it presently. He killed my son ;-my daughter;— He killed my cousin Marcus ;-He killed my 2 Lord. Peace, ho!-no outrage;-peace! The man is noble, and his fame folds in And grieve to hear it. This orb o' the earth. His last offences to us Shall have judicious hearing.-Stand, Aufidius, And trouble not the peace. We have. 1 Lord. Enter CORIOLANUS, with drums and colours; a crowd of Citizens with him. Cor. Hail, lords! I am return'd your soldier; Than shame to the Romans: and we here deliver, Auf. Read it not, noble lords; But tell the traitor, in the highest degree Auf. Cor. Ay, traitor, Marcius. Marcius! Auf. Ay, Marcins, Caius Marcius: Dost thou think I'll grace thee with that robbery, thy stol'n name Coriolanus in Corioli? You lords and heads of the state, perfidiously Bear from hence his body, And mourn you for him: let him be regarded As the most noble corse that ever herald Did follow to his urn. 2 Lord. His own impatience Takes from Aufidius a great part of blame. Let's make the best of it. Auf. [Exeunt, bearing the body of CORIOLANUS A dead march sounded. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 'THE Tragedy of Julius Cæsar' was first printed in the folio collection of 1623. The text is divided into acts; and the stage directions are full and precise. Taken altogether, we know no play of Shakspere's that presents so few difficulties arising out of inaccuracies in the original edition. Years, perhaps centuries, have rolled on since the æra of Coriolanus.' Rome had seen a constitution which had reconciled the differences of the patricians and the plebeians. The two orders had built a temple to Concord. Her power had increased; her territory had extended. In compounding their differences the patricians and the plebeians had appropriated to themselves all the wealth and honours of the state. There was a neglected class that the social system appeared to reject, as well as to despise. The aristocratic party was again brought into a more terrible conflict with the impoverished and the destitute. Civil war was the natural result. Sulla established a short-lived constitution. The dissolution of the Republic was at hand: the struggle was henceforth to be not between classes, but individuals. The death of Julius Cæsar was soon followed by the final termination of the contest between the republican and the monarchical principle. Shakspere saw the grandeur of the crisis; and he seized upon it for one of his lofty expositions of political philosophy. He has treated it as no other poet would have treated it, because he saw the exact relations of the contending principle to the future great history of mankind. The death of Cæsar was not his catastrophe: it was the death of the Roman Republic at Philippi. Of all Shakspere's characters none require to be studied with more patient attention than those of Brutus and Cassius, that we may understand the resemblances and the differences of each. The leading distinctions between these two remarkable men, as drawn by Shakspere, appear to us to be these: Brutus acts wholly upon principie; Cassius partly upon impulse. Brutus acts only when he has reconciled the contemplation of action with his speculative opinions; Cassius allows the necessity of some action to run before and govern his opinions. Brutus is a philosopher; Cassius is a parti facts of history with a remarkable fidelity. A few hard figures are painted upon a canvas; the outlines are distinct, the colours are strong; but there is no art in the composition, no grouping, no light and shadow. This is the historian's picture. We turn to the poet We recognise the same figures, but they appear to live; they are in harmony with the entire scene in which they move; we have at once the reality of nature, and the ideal of art, which is a higher nature. Yet the art of the poet is so subtle that many have fancied that they could detect a want of art; and the character of Cæsar, as drawn by Shakspere, has been held not only to be tame, and below the historical conception of the great dictator, but as representing him in a false light. We believe that Shakspere was wholly right. At the exact period of the action of this drama, Cæsar, possessing the reality of power, was haunted by the weakness of passionately desiring the title of king. Plutarch says—“The chiefest cause that made him mortally hated was the covetous desire he had to be called king." This is the pivot upon which the whole action of Shakspere's tragedy turns. There might have been another mode of treating the subject. The death of Julius Cæsar might have been the catastrophe. The republican and the monarchical principles might have been exhibited in conflict. The republican principle would have triumphed in the fall of Cæsar; and the poet would have previously held the balance between the two principles, of have claimed, indeed, our largest sympathies for the principles of Cæsar and his friends, by a true exhibition of Cæsar's greatness and Cæsar's virtues. The poc chose another course. And are we then to talk, with ready flippancy, of ignorance and carelessness-that he wanted classical knowledge-that he gave himself to trouble? 66 The fault of the character is the fault of the plot," says Hazlitt. It would have been nearer the truth had he said-the character is determined by the plot. While Cæsar is upon the scene, it was for the poet, largely interpreting the historian, to show the in ward workings of “the covetous desire he had to be called king;" and most admirably, according to cur notions of characterization, has he shown them. Alte gether we profess to receive Shakspere's characterization of Cæsar with a perfect confidence that he produced that character upon fixed principles of art. It is not the prominent character of the play; and it was m meant to be so. It is true to the narrative upon which Shakspere founded it; but, what is of more importance, it is true to every natural conception of what Cæsar must have been at the exact moment of his fall. Appears, Act III. sc. 1. Act IV. sc. 1. CICERO, a senator. Appears, Act I. sc. 2; sc. 3. PUBLIUS, a senator. Appears, Act II. sc. 2. Act III. sc. 1. POPILIUS LENA, a senator. MARCUS BRUTUS, a conspirator against Julius Cæsar. Appears, Act I. se. 2. Act II sc. 1; sc. 2. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 2. sc. 3; sc. 4; sc. 5. CASSIUS, a conspirator against Julius Cæsar. Appears, Act I. sc. 2; sc. 3. Act II. sc. 1. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act IV. se. 2; sc. 3. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 3. CASCA, a conspirator against Julius Cæsar. TREBONIUS, a conspirator against Julius Cæsar. DECIUS BRUTUS, a conspirator against Julius Cæsar. Appears, Act II. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act III. sc. 1. Appears, Act I. sc. 3. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act III. sc. 1. FLAVIUS, a tribune. Appears, Act I. sc. 1. MARULLUS, a tribune. Appears, Act I. sc. 1. ARTEMIDORUS, a sophist of Cnidos. Appears, Act I. c. 2. Act II. sc. 4. Act III. sc. 1. Appears, Act III. sc. 3. A Poet. Appears, Act IV. sc. 3. LUCILIUS, a friend to Brutus and Cassius. Appears, Act IV. sc. 2; sc. 3. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 3; sc. 4; sc. 5. TITINIUS, a friend to Brutus and Cassius. Appears, Act IV. sc. 2; sc. 3. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 3. MESSALA, a friend to Brutus and Cassius Appears, Act IV. sc. 3. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. 3; sc. 5. Young CATO, a friend to Brutus and Cassius. Appears, Act V. sc. 3; sc. 4. VOLUMNIUS, a friend to Brutus and Cassius. CLITUS, servant to Brutus. CLAUDIUS. servant to Brutus. Appears, Act IV. sc. 3. LUCIUS, servant to Brutus. Appears, Act II. sc. 1; sc. 4. Act IV. sc. 2; sc. 3. Appears, Act V. sc. 5. PINDARUS, servant to Cassius. CALPHURNIA, wife to Cæsar. PORTIA, wife to Brutus. Appears, Act I. sc. 2; Act II. sc. 1; sc. 4. Senators, Citizens, Guards, Attendants, &c. —during a GREAT PART OF THE PLAY AT ROME: AFTERWARDS AT SARDIS; AND NEAR PHILIPPI, SCENE, ACT I. SCENE I.-Rome. A Street. Enter FLAVIUS, MARULLUS, and a rabble of Citizens. Flav. Hence; home, you idle creatures, get you home; Is this a holiday? What! know you not, Of your profession ?-Speak, what trade art thou? 1 Cit. Why, sir, a carpenter. Mar. Where is thy leather apron, and thy rule? 2 Cit. Truly, sir, in respect of a fine workman, I am but, as you would say, a cobbler. Mar. But what trade art thou? Answer me directly. 1 2 Cit. A trade, sir, that I hope I may use with a safe conscience; which is, indeed, sir, a mender of bad soles. Flav. What trade, thou knave? thou naughty knave, what trade? 2 Cit. Nay, I beseech you, sir, be not out with me: yet if you be out, sir, I can mend you. Mar. What meanest thou by that? Mend me, thou saucy fellow? 2 Cit. Why, sir, cobble you. a The modern editors give this speech to Marullus; and the propose other changes in the allotment of the speeches to the tribunes. They assume that only one should take the lead; whereas it is clear that the dialogue is more natural, certainly more dramatic. according to the original arrangement, where Flavius and Marulius alternately rate the people, like two smiths smiting on the same anvil. |