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Shakespeare's Julius Cæsar in the Light of Some Other Versions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Extract

Some four years ago I was set the task of tracing the origin of two Dutch plays on Julius Cæsar which up to that time had received no critical attention. The examination of the dramatic treatment of Cæsar in various ages and literatures involved in the solution of this problem led me to the belief that we possessed a body of plays on this subject which might be made to yield some little light on Shakespeare's treatment of the character. His after all is only one of many. Cæsar has to the succeeding generations of men been everything from Satyr to Hyperion: from the “divus Julius” of Valerius Maximus to the arch-destroyer and brilliant opportunist of Professor Ferrero; from the execrated oppressor of Roman liberties of Lucan to the demi-god of Mommsen; from the perfect knight of Jehan de Tuin to the silly tyrant of Hans Sachs; and finally Dante's desperate resort to the last refuge of embarrassed compliment—“ What fine eyes he has;” almost every view, in short, has been held of him except that he was an inconsiderable or negligible person. A priori, then, the conjunction of great subject and great poet in the case of Shakespeare was auspicious, but the result, from Ben Jonson to Mr. Bernard Shaw, has seldom passed unchallenged. It is not, however, with what Shakespeare might have made of Cæsar, and has not, that I am here concerned; but rather with the attempt to explain, if it is possible, how he came to make of him what he did. At the risk, then, of saying some fairly trite things, I propose to examine Shakespeare's treatment of the character of Cæsar as it appears in his immediate source, Plutarch, with a view to showing at what points other dramatic treatments of the character serve, in my opinion at least, to explain Shakespeare's.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1910

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References

page 183 note 1 They are: De Doodt van Julius Cœzar of H. Verbiest, Amsterdam, 1650, and De Dood van Brutus en Cassius of P. Zeeryp, Amsterdam, 1653. The first proves to be a translation of Scudéry's La Mort de César, Paris, 1636, and the second of Guérin de Bouscal's La Mort de Brute et de Porcie ou La Vengeance de la Mort de César, Paris, 1637. (See Beauchamps, Recherches sur les Théâtres de France, Paris, 1735, ii, 167.) So much may now be found in the lists given by J. A. Worp, Geschiedenis van het Drama en van het Tooneel in Nederland, Groningen, 1908, ii, pp. 121, 126. It may be added that the translators, in the main faithful, make occasional additions to their originals, e. g., in Verbiest's version the conspirators swear an oath (Act iii) and Cæsar's own ghost appears to him predicting disaster (Act ii); Zeeryp introduces a rather ineffective quarrel scene between Brutus and Cassius (Act i) and definitely identifies the apparition that appeared to Brutus—in the French, following Plutarch, simply “son mauvais Génie”—as the ghost of Cæsar, whom Brutus recognizes as such.

page 184 note 1 Cesare armato con gli occhi grifagni. Inf., iv, 123.

page 185 note 1 F. G. Fleay, Trans. New Shak. Soc., 1874, pp. 339–366. Also his Life of Shak., N. Y., 1886, p. 214 f. Some of the more extravagant features of Mr. Fleay's theory are disposed of by Dr. Furnivall and Mr. Hales. Trans. New Shak. Soc., 1874, p. 498 f. See also, A. H. Thorndike, Hamlet and Contemporary Revenge Plays, Pub. Mod. Lang. Ass., xvii (1902), p. 131. The currency of this part of Mr. Fleay's guess is due among other things to the fact that in a measure it seems to account for a certain diffusion of interest in Acts iv and v of Shakespeare's play.

page 185 note 2 The Works of John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave, Marquis of Normanby and Duke of Buckingham, London, 1726, i, pp. 113 ff. and 177 ff. Cf. [Genest], Some Account of the English Stage from the Restoration in 1660 to 1830, Bath, 1832, iii, 89 ff.

page 187 note 1 G. P. Baker, The Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist, N. Y., 1907, pp. 271 f., 281.

page 187 note 2 A. H. Thorndike, Tragedy, p. 155.

page 187 note 3 Three Plays for Puritans, p. xxx.

page 188 note 1 See below, pp. 226 f.

page 188 note 2 For a recent attempt to show Shakespeare indebted in a few details to Appian, Golding's Ovid, Suetonius, Dio, and Michel le Noir's translation (1515) of Boccaccio's Life of Cæsar, see the notes in Professor F. H. Sykes's edition of Julius Cæsar in the Scribner English Classics, New York, 1909.

page 188 note 3 References to Plutarch are made to , Graece et Latine rec. Theod. Doehner, Parisiis, mdcccxlvii, and to Sir Thomas North's English version (1579) as it appears in the Dent ed., 10 vols., London, 1899.

page 189 note 1 . Vit. Cæs., lii; Dent, vii, p. 189.

page 189 note 2 Though he does speak “bigly” to Metellus. Vit. Cæs., xxxv; Dent, vii, p. 168.

page 190 note 1 Vit. Pomp., xxviii.

page 190 note 2 Vit. Cæs., lviii; Dent, vii, p. 195.

page 190 note 3 Ibid., lvii.

page 190 note 4 Quotations are from Shakespeare's Complete Works, Cambridge edition, ed. by W. A. Neilson, Boston and New York, 1906.

page 192 note 1 Dent ed., vii, p. 206.

page 193 note 1 Prof. W. A. Neilson, Shakespeare, p. 867, says, “The later section [of Plutarch's Life] taken alone conveys very much the same impression of Cæsar's pomposity and weakness as is given by the earlier part of the play.”

page 194 note 1 “There cannot be a stronger proof of Shakespeare's deficiency in classical knowledge than the boastful language he has put in the mouth of the most accomplished man of all antiquity, who was not more admirable for his achievements, than for the dignified simplicity with which he recorded them.” Boswell in Malone's Shakespeare, 1821, xii, p. 64. The case against Shakepeare's Cæsar is fully set forth in George Brandes, William Shakespeare, A Critical Study, N. Y., 1902, Bk. ii, Ch. viii, pp. 303 ff.

page 194 note 2 Holland's translation, 86, where for “crazy” in its older, less specialized sense, we should probably substitute something like “broken down.”

page 195 note 1 See the remarks on paranoia reformatoria by Dr. Allan McLane Hamilton in the North American Review, March, 1908.

page 195 note 2 I am indebted to Professor Kittredge for the suggestion of this line of thought and, specifically, for the Latin proverb and the first reference to Antony and Cleopatra below.

page 195 note 3 This form of the sentence seems to come from a fragment attributed to Euripides (quoted by the scholiast on Sophocles, Antigone, 620 f.):

It is entered in the “index prior” of Joshua Barnes's Euripides (Cambridge, 1694, p. [531]), as,

“Deus quos vult perdere, dementai priùs.”

It is not very different from Publilius Syrus'

“Stultum facit Fortuna, quem vult perdere,”

(ed. R. A. H. Bickford Smith, London, 1895, p. 38. In Woelfflin's and in Meyer's edd., No. 612.)

For some further citations, see Jebb and Schuckburgh's ed. of Antigone, Cambridge, 1902, p. 144.

page 196 note 1 Thomas Davidson, The Parthenon Frieze and Other Essays, London, 1882, p. 180 f.

page 196 note 2 The Tragedies of Sophocles, tr. by Sir R. C. Jebb, Cambridge, 1904, p. 200. I quote from the Ajax of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, Cambridge, 1907:

page 196 note 3 Jebb's tr., p. 191. The original is:

page 196 note 4 Jebb's tr., p. 180. The original is:

page 197 note 1 He mentions Ate, the goddess of strife, four times, once in Julius Cæsar itself, (iii, i, 271). See Schmidt's Shakespeare Lexicon, s. v.

page 197 note 2 Troilus and Cressida, v, iii, is strikingly similar to this scene in Julius Cæsar. Hector insists on rushing to his doom in spite of Andromache's dreams:

page 199 note 1 The Soke named the Gouvernour, Devised by Sir Thomas Elyot, Knight, (1551), ed. Croft, London, 1883, ii, pp. 47 f.

page 199 note 2 See H. Wesemann, Cæsarfabeln des Mittelalters, Löwenberg i. Schl., 1897, Progr. no. 190; Arturo Graf, Roma nella Memoria e nelle Immaginazioni del Medio Evo, Torino, 1882, v. i, ch. viii; Robert Dernedde, Über die den altfranzösischen Dichtern bekannten epischen Stoffe aus dem Altertum, Erlangen, 1887, pp. 145 ff.; E. G. Parodi, Le Storie di Cesare nella Letteratura Italiana dei Primi Secoli: Studj di Fetologia Romanza, iv, 237–503; Friedrich. Gundelfinger, Cozsar in der deutschen Literatur, (Palaestra, xxxiii) Berlin, 1904; H. N. MacCracken, Studies in the Life and Writings of John Lydgate, ch. v. (in Harvard University Library).

page 199 note 3 Gundelfinger, p. 10 f.; Graf, p. 271 and note 48; Dernedde, pp. 146–7; MacCracken, p. 472; Shakespeare, Rich. III, iii, i, 68 ff.; Rich. II, v, i, 1 ff.

page 199 note 4 Graf, pp. 201, 279; Dernedde, p. 147; L. A. Fisher, Shakespeare and the Capitol: Mod. Lang. Notes, June, 1907, pp. 177–182.

page 200 note 1 See conveniently, F. E. Schelling, Elizabethan Drama, 1558–1642, Boston and New York, 1908, ii, pp. 21–22.

page 200 note 2 “The furst day of Feybruary at nyght was the goodlyest masket and dyvers goodly men of armes in gylt harnes and July us Sesar played.” Diary of Henry Machyn, ed. for Camden Society by J. G. Nichols, London, 1848, p. 276. The editor adds in a note: “the word played has been added in another hand, and, though resembling the old, may be an imitation and not contemporary.” A. W. Ward approves this doubt: Hist. of Eng. Dram. Lit., London, 1899, i, 207.

page 200 note 3 See English Drama and Stage under the Tudor and Stuart Princes, Roxburghe Library, London, 1869, p. 188.

page 200 note 4 Schelling thinks this is doubtless the same with a storie of pompie acted before the Queen on Twelfth Night of that year, (1581); op. cit., ii, 21.

page 200 note 5 The fullest account of it I have noticed is quoted from Steevens in Malone's Shakespeare, 1821, xii, p. 2. “It appears from Peck's Collection of divers historical Pieces, etc. (appended to his Memoirs of Oliver Cromwell) p. 14, that a Latin play on this subject had been written: Epilogus Cæsaris interfecti, quomodo in scenam prodiit ea res, acta, in Ecclesia Christi, Oxon. Qui Epilogus a Magistro Ricardo Eedes, et scriptus et in proscenio ibidem dictus fuit. A. D. 1682.” “Doctor Edes of Oxforde” is mentioned by Meres among “our best for Tragedie” (Wits Treasury, 1598; see Shakespeare Allusion Books, ed. C. M. Ingleby, pp. 160–1). Fleay prefers to call him Geddes, Chron. Eng. Drama, i, 214. Of ‘Edes’ he says, “even the names of his plays are lost” (ibid., p. 162).

page 201 note 1 The entries are as follows (see ed. W. W. Gregg, London, 1904, i, pp. 20 ff.):

ye 8 of novembз 1594 ne. . R) at seser & pompie, . iijll ijs

ye 14 of novembз 1594 R) at seser & pompie, . xxxvs

ye 25 of novembз 1594 R) at seser & pompie, . xxxijs

ye 10 of desembз 1594 R) at seser, ….. xijs

ye 18 of Jenewary 1594 R) at seaser, ….. xxvs

ye j of febreary 1594 R) at seaser, ….. xxiiijs

ye 6 of marche 1594 R) at seaser, ….. xxs

ye 18 of June 1595 ne. R) at the 2 pte of sesore, lvs

ye 25 of June 1595 R) at the j pte of seaser, xxijs

ye 26 of June 1595 R) at the 2 pte of seaser, xxs

In 1602 Henslowe apparently projected another Cæsar play (i, p. 166):

Cf. Henslowe's Diary, Part II, The Commentary, 1908, p. 222, No. 236.

page 201 note 2 Prolegomena, 1821, ii, pp. 448–9.

page 201 note 3 Hamlet, iii, ii, 104 ff.

page 202 note 1 London Shakespeare Society, 1841, pp. 44–45.

page 202 note 2 Nero played Hercules (Suetonius, Nero, 21) but I do not find that hisacting went to these lengths of realism.

page 203 note 1 Citations are from the reprint of David Kuhnken's text in his M. Antonii Mureti Opera Omnia, Lugduni Batavorum, mdcclxxxix, forming Anhang II to G. A. O. Collischon's Jacques Grévin's Tragödie “Cæsar” in ihrem Verhältniss zu Muret, Voltaire und Shakespere, in Stengel's Ausgaben und Abhandlungen aus dem Gebiete der Romanischen Philologie, lii, Marburg, 1886, pp. 75–86. Julius Cæsar, Tragoedia, was first published in the author's Juvenilia, 1553. (See Charles Dejob, M. A. Muret, Thèse, Paris, 1881, p. 21.) The Praefatio is dated Lutetiae. viii. Kalend. Decembr. mdlii. (For it see M. A. Mureti Opera Omnia, ed. Frotscher, Lipsiae, 1834, ii, pp. 241 ff.) L. Petit de Julleville, Hist. de la Langue et de la Littérature Française, Paris, 1897, iii, 262, gives the date 1544 for the composition of the play.

page 204 note 1 Cf. “nec quemquam iam ferre potest Cæsare priorem Pompeiusve parem.” (Pharsalia, i, 125–6.)

This description of the battle field was very likely suggested by that of Lucan, Phars., vii, 822 ff. In this connection it may be remarked that there seem to be touches of the Senecan Hercules in some of the speeches Lucan puts into the mouths of Pompey and Cæsar. Take this speech of Cæsar's (Phars., v, 660 ff.):

“… sat magna peregi:
Arctoas domui gentes, inimica subegi
Arma metu, vidit Magnum mihi Borna secundum,
Iussa plebe tuli fasces per bella negates;
Nulla meis aberit tutulis Romana potestas.“

And this of Pompey (Phars., ii, 583 f.):

“Pars mundi mihi nulla vacat; sed tota tenetur
Terra meis, quocumque jacet sub sole, tropæis“ etc.

Cf. further, for Lucan's dependence on the works of his uncle Seneca, C. Hosius, Jahrbücher f. Class. Phil. (Fleckeisen), 1892, pp. 337 ff. The Senecan influence on Muret, then, may very well have been reinforced by Lucan's treatment of Cæsar.

page 206 note 1 Amicis quoque stipatoribus ipsum uti jubentibus, et operam suam offerentibus, recusavit, dicens: Præstat semel mortem oppetere, quam semper metuere. (Vit. Cæs., lvii.)

page 207 note 1 Cf. e. g., (Et., 111, 117, 228 f., 443; (Ed., 87 f.; Agam., 605 f.; Troad., 869; Med., 159. Lucan, too, was naturally quick to seize on this characteristic of Cæsar; cf. Phars., v, 656 f.

page 207 note 2 Plutarch, of course, supplies Muret with the hint for Brutus' state of mind: “volvere secum grave aliquod perplexumque consilium” (Vit. Brut., xiii.). This is worth noting because of an unguarded statement of Collischon's which has frequently been repeated, “Ferner ist zu bemerken, dass Muret nur Plutarch's Biographie von Cäsar herangezogen hat, während Grévin auch die von Brutus und Antonius benutzte” (op. cit., p. 8). Most, indeed, of Brutus' speech does come from the life of Cæsar, but there is no mention there of Portia's self-inflicted wound (M. 108–9) nor any hint of Brutus' mental struggles.

page 207 note 3 Cf. Ulysses in Troad., 607 ff.; Andromache, ibid., 649 ff., and Medea in Med., 932 ff.; and further, a piece of stichic dialogue which Muret evidently had in mind, that between Octavia and her nurse concerning Nero's affair with Poppæa, Oct., 183–188.

page 208 note 1 Possibly suggested by Dejanira's violent determination to be revenged on Hercules and Iole, Œt. 344 f. Cf. also Her. Fur. 920 f. and Thyest. 491 f.

page 208 note 2 Cassius' proposal to kill Antony (M., 184 ff.) is mentioned in the Life of Brutus (xviii) and of Antony (xiii) but not in that of Cæsar; further evidence of the unwisdom of circumscribing Muret's reading in Plutarch. See p. 207, note 2.

page 208 note 3 Octavia, 690 ff. Calpurnia's opening words are reminiscent rather of Dejanira's (Œt., 706 f.) in so far as they relate to the description of physical terror; cf., though, Oct., 735–6. Cf. also Buchanan's Jepthes, in Opera Omnia, Lugduni Batavorum, mdccxxv, Tom. ii, pp. 173–213, Scene i, between Storge and Iphis; especially

“sed metus, veluti recens
Quoties recordor, concutit formidine
Mentem,“ (ll. 88–90.)

with Muret's

“Horror artus concutit,
Corpusque totum frigidus sudor lavat,
Quoties recordor.“ (241 f.)

Cf. further: Œt., 234 f.; Agam., 108 f.; Phœd., 85 f.; Med., 116 f.; and especially Troad., 409 f.

page 209 note 1 Agam., 138 ff.; Thyest., 436 ff.; Phœd., 181 ff.; Œd., 207 ff. It is hardly necessary to point out the apparent imitation of Æn., i, 83, in the passage from Muret.

page 209 note 2 Plut. Cæs., xxxii.

page 210 note 1 Cf. Creon's defiance of Tiresias, Antigone, ll. 1034 ff., Jebb's tr.

page 210 note 2 The Tragedies of Seneca, tr. E. I. Harris, London, 1904, Hercules Furens, ll. 1040 ff.

page 211 note 1 E. g. Suetonius, Cæs., lxxxviii; Plutarch, Cæs., lxix; Appian, Civil Wars, ii, 146 ff.

page 211 note 2 An examination of this passage would have saved M. Faguet the statement: “Nous voyons César apporté sanglant prononçant lui-même son apothéose, ce qui est bien peu historique, mais assez théâtrale.” (Tragédie française au XVI. siècle, p. 79). Hercules is apparently conceived as visible toward the end of the scene (“cessit, ex oculis, abit,” l. 1977) though at first he is not (l. 1940). Cæsar remains but an invisible thing, a voice, throughout.

page 212 note 1 G. A. O. Collischon, Jacques Grévin's Tragödie “Cæsar” in ihrem Verhältniss zu Muret, Voltaire und Shakespere, in Stengel's Ausgaben und Abhandlungen, lii, Marburg, 1886. Lucien Pinvert's Jacques Grévin, sa Vie, ses Ecrits, ses Amis, Paris, 1898, is, so far as it deals with César (pp. 135–164), based largely on Collischon.

page 212 note 2 Pinvert, pp. 26, 43.

page 212 note 3 Op. cit., p. 162.

page 212 note 4 Pinvert, p. 136.

page 212 note 5 On the relative advantages of clemency and severity in a prince, a characteristic Senecan situation, cf. Thyest., 176 ff.; Octavia, 437 ff. In Seneca the sovereign is the upholder of the Macchiavellian dictum that “it is safer to be feared than to be loved” (Il Principe, xvii), and the counsellor or slave is the adviser of clemency. But Cæsar's clemency is so well testified to by Plutarch that in Grévin the rôles are reversed and Antony must take the side of the argument upheld in Seneca by Atreus and Nero.

page 212 note 6 He displays to the soldiers the bloody garment of Cæsar and laments that Cæsar

page 213 note 1 Collischon, p. 7.

page 215 note 1 My copy has the following title-page: Il Cesare / Tragedia / D'Orlando Pescetti / Dedicata/ Al Sereniss. Principe / Donno Alfonso II. D'Este/Duca di Ferrara, &c. / [Device] In Verona / nella Stamparia di Girolamo Discepolo. / M D X C IIII.

The dedication is dated, “Di Verono il di 19. di Febraio 1594.”

The facts of Pescetti's life may be found in Gerini, Gli Scrittori Pedagogici Italiani del Secolo Decimo Settimo, 1900, pp. 112–118.

page 215 note 2 Of course one on the lookout for parallels to Shakespeare can find them here, as in every Cæsar play. Take, for instance, Brutus' rejection of Cassius' proposal to kill Antony, because he is a man

“al ventre
Dedito, e al sonno, e ne' piacer venerei,“ etc. (p. 25.)

Shakespeare has

“for he is given
To sports, to wildness and much company.“ (ii, i, 188 f.)

There is no hint for this line of argument in Plutarch. Brutus argues further, again without Plutarchian authority,

“Col troncar della testa all'altre membra
Troncasi ogni vigore, ogni possanza.“ (p. 27.)

and Shakespeare's Brutus in the same context urges

“For he can do no more than Cæsar's arm.
When Cæsar's head is off.“ (ii, i, 182 f.)

I cite this simply as the type of parallelism one finds at every turn, to which it is difficult to attach any significance at all.

page 216 note 1 I regret that I have had no opportunity to examine Michael Virdungus' Brutus (1596) and Caius Julius Cæsar Tragædia … Autore M. Casparo Brülovio (1616). For summaries of them, see Gundelfinger, Cæsar in der deutschen Literatur, Berlin, 1904, pp. 49 ff.

page 217 note 1 Ed. Wendelin Foerster, Heilbronn, 1883, reprinting the edition of. 1585.

page 217 note 2 Based on Plut. Cæs., xv; Dent, vii, p. 138.

page 217 note 3 Of other borrowings, the chorus (ll. 985–1064), from Muret (ll. 52–97), and the chorus (ll. 1237–1392) from Muret (ll. 196–239), matter which is not in Grévin, may be cited. When the matter is in both Muret and Grévin, Garnier is closer to Muret:

“O rem pudendam! mollis et vix vir satis,
Regit Quirites Martis ortos sanguine,
Totumque nutu pathicus orbem temperat.“ (M., 142 ff.)

[Note 3 cont'd.] “O chose trop indigne! un homme effeminé,
Que le Roy Nicomede a jeune butiné,
Commande à l'Univers, la terre tient en bride,
Et maistre donne loy au peuple Romulide,
Aux enfans de dieu Mars.“ (Garnier, ll. 1217 ff.)
“N'endurons plus sur nous regner un Ganymede, Et la moitié du lict du Roy Nicomede.” (Grévin, ll. 485–6.)

Cf. further Muret, 127–9; Garnier, 1209 ff.; and Grévin, 359 ff.

page 218 note 1 First printed in London in 1604 (according to Beumelburg, p. 14; see below.) It appeared again in The Monarchike Tragedies, newly enlarged, etc., London, 1607; reprinted in The Poetical Works of Sir William Alexander, Earl of Sterling, &c., Glasgow, 1870–72, vol. ii, pp. 211–324, here quoted.

This play has engaged the momentary attention of critics because Malone (1821, xii, p. 2, and Prolegomena, ii, 445), thought Shakespeare had borrowed from it. Dates, if nothing else, make this all but impossible.

The only striking agreement between the two is afforded by the lines:

“Then Cassius, Brutus and the rest began With that great emperours blood to die their hands,”
(v, ii, p. 316.)

which recalls Shakespeare's

“Stoop, Romans, stoop
And let us bathe our hands in Cæsar's blood
Up to the elbows.“ (iii, i, 105 ff.)

Yet as the resemblance stands practically by itself (see H. Beumelburg, Sir William Alexander, Graf von Stirling, als Dramatischer Dichter, Halle, 1880, p. 68, for some very doubtful ones) and as Sir William is usually a generous borrower, we must, I think, set it down to chance or to the possibility that he had heard an account of Shakespeare's play.

page 219 note 1 Translations of Garnier appear, further, in Antony's reply to this speech of Cæsar's (A., pp. 227–8; G., 1383–1387) and in the dialogue between Cæsar and Antony, developed perhaps along Senecan lines from Grévin's hint (see p. 212), in which Antony urges Cæsar to take repressive measures for his personal safety, and Cæsar advocates clemency and a disregard of threatened danger (A., p. 233; G., 1403–16). Part of this dialogue in Garnier is given by Alexander to Cæsar and Calpurnia (A., pp. 287–8; G., 1445 ff.) Alexander also gets material for the long political debates between Cicero and Decius Brutus (ii, i), and between M. Brutus and Cassius (iii, i) from similar debates in the fourth act of Gamier.

page 219 note 2 Alexander seems to follow Kyd in a mistranslation of Garnier:

(Gamier.) “Cæs. Je ne crains point ceux-là qui restent de la guerre. Ant. Je les crains plus que ceux qu'ensevelist la terre.” (1417 f.)

(Kyd.) “I fear my foe until he be intered.” (l. 1423.)
(Alexander.) “I would have all my foes brought to their ends.” (p. 232.)

And in a slight addition to Garnier's sense:

(G.) “Ayez à vostre porte, Et a l'entour de vous une garde bien forte.” (1446 f.)
(K.) “As befits your state Maintaine a watchfull guard about your gate.” (1451 f.)
(A.) “All threatned dangers to prevent provide And use for safety, what to state is due.” (p. 287.)

Quotations are from Cornelia von Thomas Kyd. Nach dem Drucke vom Jahre 1594 herausgegeben von Dr. Heinrich Gassner, München, 1894.

page 220 note 1 Columbia University Press, p. 87.

page 221 note 1 In the Library of Harvard University. I am indebted for transcripts of the pertinent passages to the kindness of Dr. H. de W. Fuller.

page 221 note 2 The British Museum copy (press-mark, C. 34. b. 7.) has the following title-page: The / Tragedie / of / Cæsar / and Pompey. / or / Cæsars / Revenge. / Privately acted by the Studentes of Trinity / Colledge in Oxford. / At London/Imprinted for Nathaniel Fosbrooke and John Wright and are / to be sould in Paules Church-yard at the / signe of the Helmet. / 1607. The copy in the Dyce Collection, South Kensington Museum (No. 1730), has: The / Tragedie / of / Cæsar and Pompey / or / Cæsars / Revenge. [Device.] At London / Imprinted by G. E. for John Wright and are to bee / sould at his shop at Christ-church Gate. [No date]. The two copies seem to differ only in the title-page, so far as I can judge from transcripts made for me by Miss E. J. Hastings (see W. W. Greg, English Plays before 1700, p. 134).

It was entered in the Stationers' Register, June 5, 1606. See Arber's Transcript, iii, p. 140.

The British Museum Catalogue (s. Cæsar) can hardly be right in attributing it to Chapman. It bears no resemblance to his Cæsar and Pompey (1631.) See A. Kern, George Chapman's Tragödie Cæsar und Pompey und ihre Quellen, Halle a. S., 1901, p. 6.

page 222 note 1 G. L. Craik, English of Shakespeare, etc., p. 47; A. W. Ward, English Dram. Lit., ii, 140, Schelling, op. cit., ii, 22. W. W. Greg, Henslowe's Diary, Part II, 1908, p. 171, says there is no reason whatever to connect them.

page 222 note 2 I count 22 feminine endings in the 2415 lines of the play. 1 Tamburlaine contains 25 and 2 Tamburlaine, 33. (Schipper, De Versu Marlovii, Bonnæ, 1867, p. 23.) The use of rhyme is considerably greater than Marlowe's practice, but its quantity varies curiously in different scenes.

page 223 note 1 I hope some day to be able to publish this play. In quoting from it I correct some obvious mistakes, re-punctuate, and make i's and u's conform to modern usage.

page 223 note 2 Phaegiean.

page 223 note 3 Tropheus.

page 223 note 4 Cf. with this line: “And we will triumph over all the world.” (1 Tamb., i, ii, 172) and “Cæsar doth triumph over all the world,” (Kyd, Cornelia, l. 1341), translating Garnier's: “Cesar va trionfant de tout le monde entier.”

page 224 note 1 The. Works of Christopher Marlowe, edition A. H. Bullen, Boston, 1885, vol. i.

page 224 note 2 Armenians.

page 224 note 3 Medians.

page 224 note 4 bactard.

page 225 note 1 Besides Marlowe, it draws largely on Lucan's Pharsalia, and Appian, with occasional tag-ends from early plays. A few slight resemblances to Beaumont and Fletcher's False One are, I think, almost undoubtedly fortuitous.

page 225 note 2 At the close of Act iii, Antony vows revenge over Cæsar's corpse and “exit with Cæsar in his armes,” a piece of stage business which occurs at the corresponding point in Shakespeare (iii, i). There is no resemblance, however, between the two speeches, except the threatening tone.

Casca's exclamation, “Speak, hands, for me” (Sh., iii, i, 76), may be illustrated by a remark of Cassius' in Cæsar and Pompey, just previous to the assassination:

“This [flourishing his dagger] shall dispute for mee and tell him why This heart, hande, minde, hath mark'd him out to die.”

Cæsar's dying words: “Et tu Brute! Then fall Cæsar” (iii, i, 77), are perhaps nowhere so closely paralleled as in this play:

“What, Brutus to? Nay, nay, then let me die.
Nothing wounds deeper then ingratitude.“ (iii, vi.)

page 226 note 1 It may not be altogether fanciful to see in Massinger's Roman Actor (Mermaid's Series, edition A. Symons, vol. 2), traces of the traditional “Cæsar.” Domitian's language, in spite of his disclaimer,

“Would better suit the mouth of Plautus' braggart,
Than the adored monarch of the world,“ (i, iv, p. 20.)

and he has many characteristics which Massinger did not find in Suetonius' Life. He, too, for example, enumerates his conquests:

“When I but name the Daci
The grey-eyed Germans, whom I have subdued,
The ghost of Julius will look pale with envy,
And great Vespasian's and Titus' triumph,
(Truth must take place oî father and of brother,)
Will be no more remembered. I am above
All honours you can give me; and the style
Of Lord and God, which thankful subjects give me,
Not my ambition, is deserved.“ (i, iv, p. 20.)

He has not in conquest stretched his arm so far, only to be obliged to render an account of his actions:

“Am I master
Of two and thirty legions that awe
All nations of the triumphed world,
Yet tremble at our frown!—yield an account
Of what's our pleasure to a private man!
Rome perish first, and Atlas' shoulders shrink,
Heaven's fabric fall (the sun, the moon, the stars
Losing their light and comfortable heat),
Ere I confess than any fault of mine
May be disputed.“ (iii, i, p. 28.)

And finally he too is the victim of , defiant, yet for a moment as in Suetonius not insensible to fear in the face of divine revelations of impending conspiracy and assassination:

“By my shaking
I am the guilty man and the judge.
…..I'll mock Fate.

Shall words fright him victorious armies circle?
No, no: the fever doth begin to leave me.“ (iii, ii, p. 47.)

“Though all the sky were hung with blazing meteors,
Which fond astrolegers give out to be
Assured presages of the change of empires
And deaths of monarchs, we, undaunted yet,
Guarded with our own thunder, bid defiance
To them and fate, we being too strongly armed
For them to wound us.“ (iv, i, p. 58.)

“Are we the great disposer
Of life and death, we cannot mock the stars
In such a trifle?“ (v, i, p. 76.)

page 227 note 1 Three Plays for Puritans, p. xxxv.

page 227 note 2 Ferrero, The Greatness and Decline of Rome, ii, p. 130.