I said an elder soldier, not a better: And Craik's printer has falsified the text in 66, “He is a noble Roman," oy omitting the a, and the editor has overlooked the error, just as the proof-reader of 1623 did here.] The Exit Lucius attached to the first line of this speech is modern. 156. Your brother Cassius. ried Junia, the sister of Brutus. Cassius had mar Moe, 158. No, Sir, there are moe with him. not more, is the word here and in other passages, not only in the First, but in all the Four Folios. It was probably the common form in the popular speech throughout the seventeenth century, as it still is in Scotland in the dialectic meh' (pronounced exactly as the English may). No confusion or ambiguity is produced in this case by the retention of the old word, of continual occurrence both in Chaucer and Spenser, such as makes it advisable to convert the then, which the original text of the Plays gives us after the comparative, into our modern than. In some cases, besides, the moe is absolutely required by the verse; as in Balthazar's Song in Much Ado About Nothing (ii. 3) :— Sing no more ditties, sing no moe, Of dumps so dull and heavy; [The modern editors, so far as I know, all give more, except where the rhyme requires moe. In the Bible, edition of 1611, moe is the comparative of many, but it does not seem to have been used for the adverb.] 160. Plucked about their ears. - Pulled down about their ears. 160. By any mark of favour. That is, of fea 161. When evils are most free! - When evil things have most freedom. 161. To mask thy monstrous visage?—The only prosodical irregularity in this line is the common one of the one supernumerary short syllable (the age of visage). The two unaccented syllables which follow the fifth accented one have no effect. on. 161. For, if thou path, thy native semblance - Coleridge has declared himself convinced that we should here read "if thou put thy native scmblance on;" and Mr. Knight is inclined to agree with him, seeing that putte might be easily mistaken for pathe. If path be the word, the meaning must be, If thou go forth. Path is employed as a verb by Drayton, but not exactly in this sense: he speaks of pathing a passage, and pathing a way, that is, making or smoothing a passage or way. There is no comma or other point after path in the old copies. [White is "inclined to the opinion that path is a misprint for hadst;" which is not unlikely. The Quarto of 1691 has hath.] 161. To hide thee from prevention.-To prevent (praevenire) is to come before, and so is equivalent in effect with to hinder, which is literally to make behind. I make that behind me which I get before. -The heading that follows is in the old copies, "Enter the Conspirators, Cassius, Casca, Decius, Cinna, Metellus, and Trebonius." - 162. We are too bold upon your rest. We intrude too boldly or unceremoniously upon your rest. 168. This, Casca; this, Cinna; etc.-I print this speech continuously, as it stands in the original edition, and as Mr. Knight has also given it. It might perhaps be possible, by certain violent pro cesses, to reduce it to the rude semblance of a line of verse, or to break it up, as has also been attempted, into something like a pair of hemistichs; but it is far better to regard it as never having been intended for verse at all, like many other brief utterances of the same level kind interspersed in this and all the other Plays. 174. Which is a great way, etc. - The commentators, who flood us with their explanations of many easier passages, have not a word to say upon this. Casca means that the point of sunrise is as yet far to the south (of east), weighing (that is, taking into account, or on account of) the unadvanced period of the year. 175. Give me your hands all over. included. The idiom is still common. - That is, all 177. If not the face of men. The commentators are all alive here, one proposing to read fate of men, another faith of men, another faiths (as nearer in sound to face). There seems to be no great difficulty in the old reading, understood as meaning the looks of men. It is preferable, at any rate, to anything which it has been proposed to substitute. [Dyce, Hudson, and White have face.] 177. The time's abuse. - The prevalence of abuse generally, all the abuses of the time. 177. Hence to his idle bed. That is, bed of idleness, or in which he may lie doing nothing (not vacant or unoccupied bed, as some would understand it). [Compare the expression, "a sick bed.”] 177. So let high-sighted tyranny. — High-looking, proud. Some modern editions have rage, instead of range, probably by an accidental misprint. 177. Till each man drop by lottery. That is, probably, as if by chance, without any visible cause why he in particular should be struck down or taken off; or there may be an allusion to the process of decimation. 177. Than secret Romans. Romans bound to secrecy. 177. And will not palter? To palter means to shuffle, to equivocate, to act or speak unsteadily or dubiously with the intention to deceive. It is best explained by the well-known passage in Macbeth (v. 7) : — And be these juggling fiends no more believed, That palter with us in a double sense; That keep the word of promise to our ear, And break it to our hope. 177. Or we will fall for it?-Will die for it. 177. Men cautelous. Cautelous is given to cautels, full of cautels. A cautel, from the Roman law-term cautela (a caution, or security), is mostly used in a discreditable sense by our old English writers. The caution has passed into cunning in their acceptation of the word; it was natural that caution should be popularly so estimated; and by cautels they commonly mean craftinesses, deceits. Thus we have in Hamlet (i. 3),· - And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch The virtue of his will. And in the passage before us cautelous is cautious and wary at least to the point of cowardice, if not to that of insidiousness and trickery. 177. Old feeble carrions. Carrions, properly masses of dead and putrefying flesh, is a favorite term of contempt with Shakespeare. 177. Such suffering souls, etc.—See the note on that gentleness as in 44. In the present speech we ... have both the old and the new phraseology; - such ... that in one line, and such . . . as in the next. Suffering souls are patient, all-enduring souls. 177. The even virtue of our enterprise. The even virtue is the firm and steady virtue. The our is emphatic. 177. Nor the insuppressive mettle. The keenness and ardor incapable of being suppressed (however illegitimate such a form with that sense may be thought to be). So we have in As You Like It (iii. 2), "The fair, the chaste, and unexpressive she." And even Milton has (Lycidas, 176), " And hears the unexpressive nuptial song." [So "With unexpressive notes," Hymn on the Nativ. 116.]- For mettle see 102. 177. To think that. That is, so as to think. 177. Is guilty of a several bastardy. — The etymology of the word bastard is uncertain. Shakespeare probably took his notion of what it radically expressed from the convertible phrase base-born. Thus, in Lear, i. 2, Edmund soliloquizes-"Why bastard? Wherefore base?" By a several bastardy here is meant a special or distinct act of baseness, or of treason against ancestry and honorable birth. For several see 443. 178. But what of Cicero? etc. -Both the prosody and the sense direct us to lay the emphasis on him. 178. He will stand very strong. He will take part with us decidedly and warmly. 181. It shall be said, his judgment, etc. Dr. Guest, in the paper "On English Verbs," in the Second Volume of the Proceedings of the Philological Society, which has been already referred to, adduces some examples to show that the primary sense of shall is to owe. Hence the use of should, |