Yet now they fright me. There is one within, Besides the things that we have heard and seen, Recounts most horrid sights seen by the watch. A lioness hath whelped in the streets; And graves have yawn'd, and yielded up their dead:3 Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds, "The devil hath provided in his covenant, The original thought is in the old translation of Plutarch: "Calphurnia, until that time, was never given to any fear or superstition." STEEVENS. 3 And graves have yawn'd, and yielded up their dead: &c.] So, in a funeral Song in Much Ado about Nothing: "Graves yawn, and yield your dead." Again, in Hamlet: "A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, "The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds, MALONE. In ranks, and squadrons, and right form of war,] So, in Tacitus, Hist. B. V:" Visæ per cœlum concurrere acies, rutilantia arma, & subito nubium igne collucere" &c. STEEVENS. Again, in Marlowe's Tamburlaine, 1590: "I will persist a terror to the world; "And break their burning launces in the ayre, "For honour of my wondrous victories." MALONE. 5 The noise of battle hurtled in the air,] To hurtle is, I suppose, to clash, or move with violence and noise. So, in Selimus, Emperor of the Turks, 1594: "Here the Polonian he comes hurtling in, "Under the conduct of some foreign prince." Horses did neigh," and dying men did groan; And ghosts did shriek, and squeal about the streets." O Cæsar! these things are beyond all use, And I do fear them. CES. What can be avoided, Whose end is purpos'd by the mighty gods? Yet Cæsar shall go forth: for these predictions Are to the world in general, as to Cæsar. CAL. When beggars die, there are no comets seen; The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of Again, ibid: "To toss the spear, and in a warlike gyre "To hurtle my sharp sword about my head." Shakspeare uses the word again in As you like it: in which hurtling, "From miserable slumber I awak'd." STeevens. Again, in The History of Arthur, P. I. c. xiv: “ They made both the Northumberland battailes to hurtle together." BOWLE. To hurtle originally signified to push violently; and, as in such an action a loud noise was frequently made, it afterwards seems to have been used in the sense of to clash. So, in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, v. 2618: "And he him hurtleth with his hors adoun." MALONE. "Horses did neigh,] Thus the second folio. Its blundering predecessor reads: And ghosts did shriek, and squeal about the streets.] So, in Lodge's Looking Glasse for London and England, 1598: "The ghosts of dead men howling walke about, Crying Ve, Ve, woe to this citie, woe." TODD. • When beggars die, there are no comets seen; The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.] "Next to the shadows and pretences of experience, (which have been met withall at large,) they seem to brag most of the strange events which follow (for the most part,) after blazing starres ; 1 CES. Cowards die many times before their deaths;9 The valiant never taste of death but once. Will come, when it will come. as if they were the summoners of God to call princes to the seat of judgment. The surest way to shake their painted bulwarks of experience is, by making plaine, that neyther princes always dye when comets blaze, nor comets ever [i. e. always] when princes dye." Defensative against the Poison of supposed Prophecies, by Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton, 1583. Again, ibid: "Let us look into the nature of a comet, by the face of which it is supposed that the same should portend plague, famine, warre, or the death of potentates." MALONE. 9 Cowards die many times before their deaths;] So, in the ancient translation of Plutarch, so often quoted: "When some of his friends did counsel him to have a guard for the safety of his person; he would never consent to it, but said, it was better to die once, than always to be affrayed of death." STEEVENS. So, in Marston's Insatiate Countess, 1613: "Fear is my vassal; when I frown, he flies, "A hundred times in life a coward dies." Lord Essex, probably before any of these writers, made the same remark. In a letter to Lord Rutland, he observes, "that as he which dieth nobly, doth live for ever, so he that doth live in fear, doth die continually." MALONE. 1 that I yet have heard,] This sentiment appears to have been imitated by Dr. Young in his tragedy of Busiris, King of Egypt 66 Didst thou e'er fear? "Sure 'tis an art; I know not how to fear : Thy master is immortal." STEEVENS. death, a necessary end, &c.] This is a sentence derived from the stoical doctrine of predestination, and is therefore improper in the mouth of Cæsar. JOHNSON. Re-enter a Servant. What say the augurers? SERV. They would not have you to stir forth to-day. Plucking the entrails of an offering forth, CES. The gods do this in shame of cowardice:$ Cæsar should be a beast without a heart, If he should stay at home to-day for fear. We were two lions litter'd in one day, 3 in shame of cowardice:] The ancients did not place courage but wisdom in the heart. JOHNSON. We were-] In old editions: We heare The copies have been all corrupt, and the passage, of course, unintelligible. But the slight alteration I have made, [We were] restores sense to the whole; and the sentiment will neither be unworthy of Shakspeare, nor the boast too extravagant for Cæsar in a vein of vanity to utter: that he and danger were two twinwhelps of a lion, and he the elder, and more terrible of the two. THEOBALD. Mr. Upton recommends us to read: We are This resembles the boast of Otho: Experti invicem sumus, Ego et Fortuna. Tacitus. STEEVENS. It is not easy to determine, which of the two readings has the best claim to a place in the text. If Theobald's emendation be adopted, the phraseology, though less elegant, is perhaps more Shakspearian. It may mean the same as if he had written-We two lions were litter'd in one day, and I am the elder and more terrible of the two. MALONE. And Cæsar shall go forth.5 CAL. Alas, my lord, Your wisdom is consum'd in confidence. Do not go forth to-day: Call it my fear, CES. Mark Antony shall say, I am not well; And, for thy humour, I will stay at home. Enter DECIUS. Here's Decius Brutus, he shall tell them so. I come to fetch you to the senate-house. CES. And you are come in very happy time, To bear my greeting to the senators, And tell them, that I will not come to-day: Cannot, is false; and that I dare not, falser; I will not come to-day: Tell them so, Decius. Cæsar shall go forth.] Any speech of Cæsar, throughout this scene, will appear to disadvantage, if compared with the following sentiments, put into his mouth by May, in the seventh Book of his Supplement to Lucan: Plus me, Calphurnia, luctus "Et lachrymæ movere tuæ, quam tristia vatum "Si nunc inciperem, quæ non mihi tempora posthac "Aut quæ 66 (Dum nec luce frui, nec mortem arcere licebit) STEEVENS. |