The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Cæsar

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William Shakespeare

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Title: The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar

Author: William Shakespeare

Commentator: Henry Norman Hudson

Editor: Ebenezer Charlton Black

Other: Andrew Jackson George

Release Date: March 15, 2009 [EBook #28334]

Language: English

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Title-Page of North's Plutarch, Third Edition

Reproduced from the copy in the Boston Public Library

THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE

JULIUS CÆSAR

INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY

HENRY NORMAN HUDSON, LL.D.

EDITED AND REVISED BY

EBENEZER CHARLTON BLACK LL.D. (GLASGOW)

WITH THE COÖPERATION OF

ANDREW JACKSON GEORGE LITT.D. (AMHERST)

GINN AND COMPANY

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO LONDON

ATLANTA DALLAS COLUMBUS SAN FRANCISCO

Entered at Stationers' Hall

Copyright, 1908

By

GINN AND COMPANY

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

424.12

The Athenæum Press

GINN AND COMPANY PROPRIETORS BOSTON U.S.A.

Transcriber's Note:

Two types of notes appear in the original book: text variants, printed immediately below the text on each page, and editor's notes, printed at the bottom of each page; both types reference the text by line number. In this HTML version, all of the notes are collected together towards the end, before the index, and instead of referencing line numbers, they are numbered sequentially. There are separate sequences for notes to the Introduction and to each of the five Acts. Anchors in the text are hyperlinked. In some cases, the original references to text line numbers have been preserved.

A list of the abbreviations used in the notes for cited editions can be found on page lv.

As in the original, throughout the text Cæsar is spelled with the ligature æ, except for one instance: composition of _Julius Caesar_.

PREFACE

The text of this edition of Julius Cæsar is based upon a collation of the seventeenth century Folios, the Globe edition, and that of Delius. As compared with the text of the earlier editions of Hudson's Shakespeare, it is conservative. Exclusive of changes in spelling, punctuation, and stage directions, very few emendations by eighteenth century and nineteenth century editors have been adopted; and these, with every variation from the First Folio, are indicated in the textual notes. These notes are printed immediately below the text so that a reader or student may see at a glance the evidence in the case of a disputed reading and have some definite understanding of the reasons for those differences in the text of Shakespeare which frequently surprise and very often annoy. A consideration of the more poetical, or the more dramatically effective, of two variant readings will often lead to rich results in awakening a spirit of discriminating interpretation and in developing true creative criticism. In no sense is this a textual variorum edition. The variants given are only those of importance and high authority.

The spelling and the punctuation of the text are modern, except in the case of verb terminations in -ed, which, when the e is silent, are printed with the apostrophe in its place. This is the general usage in the First Folio. Modern spelling has to a certain extent been followed in the text variants; but the original spelling has been retained wherever its peculiarities have been the basis for important textual criticism and emendation.

With the exception of the position of the textual variants, the plan of this edition is similar to that of the old Hudson Shakespeare. It is impossible to specify the various instances of revision and rearrangement in the matter of the Introduction and the interpretative notes, but the endeavor has been to retain all that gave the old edition its unique place and to add the results of what seems vital and permanent in later inquiry and research.

While it is important that the principle of suum cuique be attended to so far as is possible in matters of research and scholarship, it is becoming more and more difficult to give every man his own in Shakespearian annotation. The amount of material accumulated is so great that the identity-origin of much important comment and suggestion is either wholly lost or so crushed out of shape as to be beyond recognition. Instructive significance perhaps attaches to this in editing the works of one who quietly made so much of materials gathered by others. But the list of authorities given on page li will indicate the chief source of much that has gone to enrich the value of this edition. Professor W.P. Trent, of Columbia University, has offered valuable suggestions and given important advice; and to Mr. M. Grant Daniell's patience, accuracy, and judgment this volume owes both its freedom from many a blunder and its possession of a carefully arranged index.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

Note.

In citations from Shakespeare's plays and nondramatic poems the numbering has reference to the Globe edition, except in the case of this play, where the reference is to this edition.

I. SOURCES

No event in the history of the world has made a more profound impression upon the popular imagination than the assassination of Julius Cæsar. Apart from its overwhelming interest as a personal catastrophe, it was regarded in the sixteenth century as a happening of the greatest historical moment, fraught with significant public lessons for all time. There is ample evidence that in England from the beginning of Elizabeth's reign it was the subject of much literary and dramatic treatment, and in making the murder of the mightiest Julius the climax of a play, Shakespeare was true to that instinct which drew him for material to themes of universal and eternal interest.

The Main Story

I. North's Plutarch. There is no possible doubt that in Julius Cæsar Shakespeare derived the great body of his historical material from The Life of Julius Cæsar, The Life of Marcus Brutus, and The Life of Marcus Antonius in Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch. [1] This work was first printed in 1579 in a massive folio dedicated to Queen Elizabeth. A second edition appeared in 1595, and in all probability this was the edition read by Shakespeare. The title-page is reproduced in facsimile on page ix.

This interesting title-page gives in brief the literary history of North's translation, which was made not directly from the original Greek of Plutarch, but from a French version by Jacques Amyot, bishop of Auxerre. [2] In 1603 appeared a third edition with additional Lives and new matter on the title-page. [3] There were subsequent editions in 1612, [4] 1631, 1656, and 1676. The popularity of this work attested by these reprintings was thoroughly deserved, for North's Plutarch is among the richest and freshest monuments of Elizabethan prose literature, and, apart altogether from the use made of it by Shakespeare, is in itself an invaluable repertory of honest, manly, idiomatic English. No abstract of the Plutarchian matter need be given here, as all the more important passages drawn upon for the play are quoted in the footnotes to the text. These will show that in most of the leading incidents the great Greek biographer is closely followed, though in many cases these incidents are worked out and developed with rare fertility of invention and art. It is very significant that in the second half of The Life of Julius Cæsar, which Shakespeare draws upon very heavily, Plutarch emphasizes those weaknesses of Cæsar which are made so prominent in the play. Besides this, in many places the Plutarchian form and order of thought, and also the very words of North's racy and delectable English are retained, with such an embalming for immortality as Shakespeare alone could give. [5]

In Julius Cæsar Shakespeare's indebtedness to North's Plutarch may be summed up as extending to (1) the general story of the play; (2) minor incidents and happenings, as Cæsar's falling-sickness, the omens before his death, and the writings thrown in Brutus's way; (3) touches of detail, as in the description of Cassius's lean and hungry look and of Antony's tastes and personal habits; and (4) noteworthy expressions, phrases, and single words, as in III, ii, 240-241, 246-248; IV, iii, 2; IV, iii, 178; V, i, 80-81; V, iii, 109.

On the other hand, Shakespeare's alteration of Plutarchian material is along the lines of (1) idealization, as in the characters of Brutus and Cassius; (2) amplification, as in the use Antony makes of Cæsar's rent and bloody mantle; and (3) simplification and compression of the action for dramatic effect, as in making Cæsar's triumph take place at the time of the feast of Lupercal, in the treatment of the quarrel between Brutus and Cassius, which in Plutarch lasts for two days, and in making the two battles of Philippi occur on the same day. See note, p. 159, ll. 109-110. See also below, The Scene of the Assassination.

2. Appian's Roman Wars. In 1578 there was published in London an English translation of the extant portions of Appian's History of the Roman Wars both Civil and Foreign, with the interesting title page shown in facsimile on page xi.

In this translation of Appian the events before and after Cæsar's death are described minutely and with many graphic touches. Compare, for example, with the quotation from Plutarch given in the note, p. 68, l. 33, this account of the same incident in Appian: The day before that Cæsar should go to the senate, he had him at a banquet with Lepidus ... and talking merrily what death was best for a man, some saying one and some another, he of all praised sudden death. Here are some of the marginal summaries in Appian: Cæsar refuseth the name of King, A crown upon Cæsar's image by one that was apprehended of the tribunes Marullus and Sitius, Cæsar hath the Falling-Sickness, Cæsar's Wife (hath) a fearful Dream, Cæsar contemneth sacrifices of evil Luck, Cæsar giveth over when Brutus had stricken him, The fear of the Conspirators, The bad Angel of Brutus.

What gives interest and distinction to Appian's translation as a probable source for material in Julius Cæsar is that in it we have speeches by Antony, Brutus, and Lepidus at the time of the reading of Cæsar's will. In this translation Antony's first speech begins, They that would have voices tried upon Cæsar must know afore that if he ruled as an officer lawfully chosen, then all his acts and decrees must stand in force.... On Antony's second speech the comment is, Thus wrought Antony artificially. His speech to the Senate begins, Silence being commanded, he said thus, 'Of the citizens offenders (you men of equal honour) in this your consultation I have said nothing....' The speech of Lepidus to the people has this setting: When he was come to the place of speech he lamented, weeping, and thus said, 'Here I was yesterday with Cæsar, and now am I here to inquire of Cæsar's death.... Cæsar is gone from us, an holy and honourable man in deed.' The effect of this speech is commented on as follows: Handling the matter thus craftily, the hired men, knowing that he was ambitious, praised him and exhorted him to take the office of Cæsar's priesthood. A long speech by Brutus follows the reading of Cæsar's will. It begins: Now, O citizens, we be here with you that yesterday were in the common court not as men fleeing to the temple that have done amiss, nor as to a fort, having committed all we have to you.... We have heard what hath been objected against us of our enemies, touching the oath and touching cause of doubt.... The effect of this speech is thus described: Whiles Brutus thus spake, all the hearers considering with themselves that he spake nothing but right, did like them well, and as men of courage and lovers of the people, had them in great admiration and were turned into their favour.

3. Earlier Plays. As already mentioned, England had plays on the subject of Julius Cæsar from the first years of Elizabeth's reign. As not one of these earlier plays is extant, there can be no certainty as to whether Shakespeare drew upon them for materials or inspiration, but, as Professor Herford says, he seems to be cognisant of their existence. His opening scene is addressed to a public familiar with the history of Pompey and Pompey's sons. Among these earlier plays was one almost contemporary with the first production of Gorboduc, the first English tragedy. It is referred to under the name of Julyus Sesar in an entry in Machyn's Diary under February 1, 1562. In Plays confuted in five Actions, printed probably in 1582, Stephen Gosson mentions the history of Cæsar and Pompey as a contemporary play. A Latin play on Cæsar's death was acted at Oxford in 1582, and for it Dr. Richard Eedes (Eades, Edes) of Christ Church wrote the epilogue (Epilogus Cæsaris Intersecti). In Henslowe's Diary under November 8, 1594, a Seser and pompie is mentioned as a new play. Mr. A. W. Verity (Julius Cæsar, The Pitt Press edition) makes the interesting suggestion that in III, i, 111-116, there may be an allusion to these earlier plays. Cf. also Hamlet, III, ii, 107-111, quoted below.

The Scene of the Assassination

In transferring the assassination of Cæsar from the Porticus Pompeia (Pompey's porch, I, iii, 126) to the Capitol, Shakespeare departed from Plutarch and historical accuracy to follow a popular tradition that had received the signal imprimatur of Chaucer:

This Iulius to the Capitolie wente

Upon a day, as he was wont to goon, [6]

And in the Capitolie anon him hente [7]

This false Brutus, and his othere foon [8]

And stikede him with boydekins [9] anoon

With many a wounde, and thus they lete him lye;

But never gronte [10] he at no strook but oon,

Or elles at two, but if [11] his storie lye.

The Monkes Tale, ll. 715-718. (Skeat's Chaucer.)

This literary and popular tradition is followed in Hamlet, III, ii, 107-111:

Hamlet.

What did you enact?

Polonius.

I did enact Julius Cæsar: I was kill'd i' the Capitol: Brutus kill'd me.

Hamlet.

It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there.

So also in Antony and Cleopatra:

Since Julius Cæsar,

Who at Philippi the good Brutus ghosted,

There saw you labouring for him. What was 't

That mov'd pale Cassius to conspire; and what

Made the all-honour'd, honest Roman, Brutus,

With the arm'd rest, courtiers of beauteous freedom,

To drench the Capitol; but that they would

Have one man but a man?

[II, vi, 12-19.]

We have the same popular tradition in the first scene of the last act of Fletcher's The Noble Gentleman. So, too, in the Prologue to Beaumont and Fletcher's, or Fletcher and Massinger's, The False One, a tragedy dealing with Cæsar and Cleopatra:

To tell

Of Cæsar's amorous heats, and how he fell

I' the Capitol.

Here the reference is to Shakespeare's play.

Et Tu, Brute

Dyce and other researchers have made clear that in Shakespeare's day "Et tu, Brute" was a familiar phrase which had special reference to a wound from a supposed friend. It probably owed its popularity to having been used in the earlier plays on the subject of Julius Cæsar. In The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of York (1595), upon which Shakespeare's 3 Henry VI is based, occurs the line,

Et tu, Brute? wilt thou stab Cæsar too?

This line is repeated in S. Nicholson's poem, Acolastus, his Afterwitte (1600). In Ben Jonson's Every Man out of His Humour (1599), Buffone uses "Et tu, Brute" in speaking to Macilente (V, iv). In the Myrroure for Magistrates (1587) we find,

And Brutus thou, my sonne, quoth I, whom erst I loved best.

The Latin form of the phrase possibly originated, as Malone suggested, in the Latin play referred to above (Earlier Plays) which was acted at Oxford in 1582. It is easy to see how the Elizabethan tendency to word-quibble and equivoque would help to give currency to the Latin form. Cf. Hamlet's joke on 'brute' quoted above.

Brutus's Speech

, III, ii

In view of the close connection between Julius Cæsar and Hamlet as regards date of composition and the characterization of Brutus and Hamlet, interest attaches to Professor Gollancz's theory (Julius Cæsar, Temple Shakespeare) that the original of the famous speech of Brutus to the assembled Romans (III, ii) may be found in Belleforest's History of Hamlet, in the oration which Hamlet makes to the Danes after he has slain his uncle. The situation of Hamlet is almost identical with that of Brutus after he has dealt the blow, and the burden of Hamlet's too lengthy speech finds an echo in Brutus's sententious utterance. The verbose iteration of the Dane has been compressed to suit 'the brief compendious manner of speech of the Lacedæmonians.'—Gollancz. As the English translation from which Professor Gollancz quotes in support of his theory is dated 1608, and is the earliest known, [12] it cannot have been from this that Shakespeare drew any suggestions or material. The question arises, Did Shakespeare read the speech in the original French? The volume of Belleforest's Histoires Tragiques, which contained the story of Hamlet, was first published in 1570, and there were many reprintings of it before 1600.

II. DATE OF COMPOSITION

Modern editors fix the date of composition of Julius Cæsar within 1601, the later time limit (terminus ante quem), and 1598, the earlier time limit (terminus post quem). The weight of evidence is in favor of 1600-1601.

External Evidence

1. Negative. Julius Cæsar is not mentioned by Meres in the Palladis Tamia, published in 1598, which gives a list of twelve noteworthy Shakespeare plays in existence at that time. This establishes 1598 as a probable terminus post quem.

2. Positive. In John Weever's Mirror of Martyrs or the Life and Death of Sir John Oldcastle Knight, Lord Cobham, printed in 1601, are the following lines:

The many-headed multitude were drawne

By Brutus speech that Cæsar was ambitious,

When eloquent Mark Antonie had showne

His vertues, who but Brutus then was vicious?

Man's memorie, with new, forgets the old,

One tale is good, until another's told.

Halliwell-Phillipps was the first to note that here is a very pointed reference to the second scene of the third act of Julius Cæsar, as the antithesis brought out is not indicated in any of Shakespeare's historical sources. The fact that Weever states in his Dedication that the Mirror some two years agoe was made fit for the print has been held by Mr. Percy Simpson [13] to indicate that the play was not brought out later than 1599, a conclusion supported, he thinks, by a passage in Ben Jonson's Every Man out of His Humour, produced in that year, where Clove (III, i) says, "Then coming to the pretty animal, as Reason long since is fled to animals, you know, which may be a sneering allusion to Antony's O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts (III, ii, 104). The Et tu, Brute" quotation in the same play has been used to strengthen the argument. But the lines from the Mirror of Martyrs quoted above may easily have been inserted by Weever into his poem in consequence of the popularity of Shakespeare's play. This contemporary popularity is well attested. Leonard Digges, [14] in his verses Upon Master William Shakespeare prefixed to the 1640 edition of Shakespeare's Poems, thus compares it with that of Ben Jonson's Roman plays:

So have I seene, when Cesar would appeare,

And on the Stage at halfe-sword parley were

Brutus and Cassius: oh how the Audience

Were ravish'd, with what new wonder they went thence,

When some new day they would not brooke a line

Of tedious (though well laboured) Catiline;

Sejanus too was irkesome, they priz'de more

Honest Iago, or the jealous Moore.

Fustian Clove's quotation may apply to references to the Pythagorean doctrine of the transmigration of souls in Shakespeare's earlier plays and other Elizabethan literature; and little can be based upon the "Et tu, Brute" quotation, as Ben Jonson may have drawn it from the same source as Shakespeare did.

On the other hand, Henslowe in his Diary under May 22, 1602, notes that he advanced five pounds "in earneste of a