on briskly. At the end of this speech the old copies have Thunder as a stage direction.

SCENE II.-The same. A Room in CESAR'S Palace.

Thunder and Lightning. Enter CÆSAR in his night-gown.
227. Cæs. Nor heaven, nor earth, have been at peace to-night:
Thrice hath Calphurnia in her sleep cried out,
Help, ho! they murder Cæsar!-Who's within ?

Serv. My lord?

Enter a SERVANT.

229. Cæs. Go bid the priests do present sacrifice,

And bring me their opinions of success.

Serv. I will, my lord.

Enter CALPHURNIA.

Cal. What mean you, Cæsar? Think you to walk forth?
You shall not stir out of your house to-day.

Cæs. Cæsar shall forth: The things that threatened me
Ne'er looked but on my back; when they shall see
The face of Cæsar, they are vanished.

233. Cal. Cæsar, I never stood on ceremonies,
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 yawned, and yielded up their dead:
Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds,
In ranks and squadrons, and right form of war,
Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol :

The noise of battle hurtled in the air,

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.

234. Cæs. What can be avoided,

Whose end is purposed 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 princes 236. Cæs. Cowards die many times before their deaths;

[Exit.

The valiant never taste of death but once.

Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,

It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,

Will come, when it will come.

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,

They could not find a heart within the beast. 238. Cæs. 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.
No, Cæsar shall not; Danger knows full well
That Cæsar is more dangerous than he.
We are two lions littered in one day,

And I the elder and more terrible;

And Cæsar shall go forth.

239. Cal. Alas, my lord,

Your wisdom is consumed in confidence.

Do not go forth to-day: Call it my fear,

That keeps you in the house, and not your own,
We'll send Mark Antony to the senate-house;
And he shall say, you are not well to-day:
Let me, upon my knee, prevail in this.

240. Cæs. 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. 241. Dec. Cæsar, all hail! Good morrow, worthy Cæsar: I come to fetch you to the senate-house.

242. Cæs. 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.
Cal. Say, he is sick.

244. Cæs. Shall Cæsar send a lie?

Have I in conquest stretched mine arm so far
To be afeared to tell grey-beards the truth?
Decius, go tell them, Cæsar will not come.

Dec. Most mighty Cæsar, let me know some cause,

Lest I be laughed at when I tell them so.

245. Cæs. The cause is in my will, I will not come;
That is enough to satisfy the senate.
But, for your private satisfaction,

Because I love you, I will let you know.
Calphurnia here, my wife, stays me at home:
She dreamt to-night she saw my statue,
Which like a fountain, with an hundred spouts,
Did run pure blood; and many lusty Romans
Came smiling, and did bathe their hands in it.
And these does she apply for warnings and portents
Of evils imminent; and on her knee

Hath begged, that I will stay at home to-day.
246. Dec. This dream is all amiss interpreted:
It was a vision fair and fortunate:

Your statue spouting blood in many pipes,
In which so many smiling Romans bathed,
Signifies that from you great Rome shall suck
Reviving blood; and that great men shall press
For tinctures, stains, relics, and cognizance.
This by Calphurnia's dream is signified.

Caes. And this way have you well expounded it.
249. Dec. I have, when you have heard what I can say:
And know it now; The senate have concluded
To give this day a crown to mighty Cæsar.

If you shall send them word you will not come,
Their minds may change. Besides, it were a mock
Apt to be rendered, for some one to say,
Break up the senate till another time,

When Casar's wife shall meet with better dreams.

If Cæsar hide himself, shall they not whisper,

Lo, Cæsar is afraid?

Pardon me, Cæsar; for my dear, dear love

To your proceeding bids me tell you this;

And reason to my love is liable.

250. Cæs. How foolish do your fears seem now, Calphurnia!

I am ashamed I did yield to them.—

Give me my robe, for I will go:

Enter PUBLIUS, BRUTUS, LIGARIUS, METELLUS, CASCA, TREBONIUS,

and CINNA.

And look where Publius is come to fetch me.

Pub. Good morrow, Cæsar.

252. Cæs. Welcome, Publius.—

What, Brutus, are you stirred so early too?-
Good morrow, Casca.-Caius Ligarius,

Cæsar was ne'er so much your enemy,

As that same ague which hath made you lean.-
What is't o'clock ?

253. Bru. Cæsar, 'tis strucken eight.

254. Cæs. I thank you for your pains and courtesy.

Enter ANTONY

See! Antony, that revels long o'nights,
Is, notwithstanding, up:—

Good morrow, Antony.

Ant. So to most noble Cæsar.

256. Cæs. Bid them prepare within : —

I am to blame to be thus waited for.

Now, Cinna :-Now, Metellus :-What, Trebonius !
I have an hour's talk in store for you.
Remember that you call on me to-day :
Be near me, that I may remember you.

Treb. Cæsar, I will:-and so near will I be,

That your best friends shall wish I had been farther.

Cæs. Good friends, go in, and taste some wine with me; And we, like friends, will straightway go together.

259. Bru. That every like is not the same, O Cæsar,

[Aside.

The heart of Brutus yearns to think upon! [Aside. Exeunt.

Scene II. The same. A Room in Casar's Palace.This is not in the old editions; but the stage direction that follows is, only with Julius Cæsar (for Cæsar).

or...

66

...

227. Nor heaven nor earth, etc.-This use of nor... nor for the usual neither . . . nor of prose (as well as of or for either... or) is still common in our poetry. On the other hand, either was sometimes used formerly in cases where we now always have or; as in Luke vi. 42:- Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye?"-The strict grammatical principle would of

:

" but where, as here,

course require “has been at peace ; the two singular substantives are looked at together by the mind, it is more natural to regard them as making a plurality, and to use the plural verb, notwithstanding the disjunctive conjunction (as it is sometimes oddly designated).

229. Do present sacrifice.—In this and a good many other cases we are now obliged to employ a verb of a more specific character instead of the general do. This is a different kind of archaism from what we have in the "do danger" of 147, where it is not the do, but the danger, that has a meaning which it has now lost, and for which the modern language uses another word.

229. Their opinions of success.—That is, merely, of the issue, or of what is prognosticated by the sacrifice as likely to happen. Johnson remarks (note on Othello, iii. 3) that successo is also so used in Italian. So likewise is succès in French. In addition to earlier examples of such a sense of the English word, Boswell adduces from Sidney's Arcadia:- -“He never answered me, but, pale and quaking, went straight away; and straight my heart misgave me some evil success; and from Dr Barrow, in the latter part of the seventeenth century:-"Yea, to a person so disposed, that success which seemeth most adverse justly may be reputed the best and most happy." Shakespeare's ordinary employment of the word, however, is accordant with our present usage. But see 735, 736. Sometimes it is used in the sense of our modern succession; as in A Winter's Tale, i. 2:-"Our parents' noble names, In whose success we are gentle." In the same manner the verb to succeed, though meaning etymologically no more than to follow, has come to be commonly understood, when used without qualification, only in a good sense. We still say that George II. succeeded George I., and could even, perhaps, say that a person or thing had succeeded very ill: but when we say simply, that any thing has succeeded, we mean that it has had a prosperous issue.