As I am fure they do, bear fire enough
To kindle cowards, and to fteel with valour
The melting spirits of women; then, countrymen,
What need we any fpur, but our own caufe,
To prick us to redrefs? what other bond,
Than fecret Romans, that have spoke the word,
And will not palter?? and what other oath,
Than honefty to honesty engag'd,

That this fhall be, or we will fall for it?
Swear priests 3, and cowards, and men cautelous
Old feeble carrions, and fuch fuffering fouls
That welcome wrongs; unto bad caufes fwear
Such creatures as men doubt: but do not stain
The even virtue of our enterprize",

Nor the infuppreffive mettle of our fpirits,

To think, that, or our caufe, or our performance,
Did need an oath; when every drop of blood,

custom of decimation, i. e. the selection by lot of every tenth foldier, in a general mutiny, for punishment. He fpeaks of this in Coriolanus:

"By decimation, and a tytbed death,
"Take thou tby fate." STEEVENS.

2 And will not palter?] And will not fly from his engagements. Cole in his Dictionary, 1679, renders to palter, by tergiverfor. In Macbeth it fignifies, as Dr. Johnfon has obferved, to shuffle with ambiguous expreffions: and, indeed, here alfo it may mean to buffle; for he whofe actions do not correspond with his promifes is properly called a buffler. MALONE.

3 Swear priefts, &c.] This is imitated by Otway:

"When youwould bind me, is there need of oaths?" &c. Venice Preserved. JOHNSON. cautelous,] is here cautious; fometimes infidious. So, in Drayton's Miferies of Queen Margaret:

4

Witty, well fpoken, cautelous, though young." Again, in the fecond of these two fenfes in the romance of Kynge Appolyn of Thyre, 1610: "a fallacious polycy and cautelous wyle." Again, in Holinfbed, p. 945: "the emperor's councell thought by a cautell to have brought the king in mind to fue for a licence from the pope." STEEVENS.

Bullokar in his English Expofitor, 1616, explains cautelous thus: "Warie, circumfpect ;" in which fenfe it is certainly used here.

MALONE.

5 The even virtue of our enterprize,] The calm, equable, temperate Spirit that actuates us. MALONE.

That every Roman bears, and nobly bears,
Is guilty of a feveral baftardy,

If he do break the fmalleft particle
Of any promife that hath paft from him.

Caf. But what of Cicero? Shall we found him?
I think, he will ftand very ftrong with us.
Cafca. Let us not leave him out.

Cin. No, by no means.

Met. O, let us have him; for his filver hairs
Will purchase us a good opinion,

And buy men's voices to commend our deeds:
It fhall be faid, his judgment rul'd our hands;
Our youths, and wildness, fhall no whit appear,
But all be bury'd in his gravity.

Bru. O, name him not; let us not break with him;
For he will never follow any thing
That other men begin.

Caf. Then leave him out.

Cafca. Indeed, he is not fit.

Dec. Shall no man else be touch'd, but only Cæfar?
Caf. Decius, well urg'd:-I think, it is not meet,

Mark Antony, fo well belov'd of Cæfar,

Should out-live Cæfar: We fhall find of him

A fhrewd contriver; and, you know, his means,

If he improve them, may well ftretch fo far,

As to annoy us all which to prevent,

Let Antony, and Cæfar, fall together.

Bru. Our courfe will feem too bloody, Caius Caffius,
To cut the head off, and then hack the limbs
s;
Like wrath in death, and envy afterwards":
For Antony is but a limb of Cæfar.

Let us be facrificers, but not butchers, Caius.
We all ftand up against the spirit of Cæfar;
And in the spirit of men there is no blood:
O, that we then could come by Cæfar's fpirit",

And

6- and envy afterwards: ] Envy is here, as almost always in Shakfpeare's plays, malice. See p. 42, n. 2; and p. 70, n. 5. MALONE.

O, that we then could come by Cæfar's fpirit, &c.] Lord Sterline

has

And not difmember Cæfar! But, alas,
Cæfar muft bleed for it! And, gentle friends,
Let's kill him boldly, but not wrathfully;
Let's carve him as a difh fit for the gods,
Not hew him as a carcale fit for hounds":
And let our hearts, as fubtle masters do,
Stir up their fervants to an act of rage,
And after feem to chide them. This fhall make
Our purpofe neceffary, and not envious:
Which fo appearing to the common eyes,
We shall be call'd purgers, not murderers.
And for Mark Antony, think not of him;
For he can do no more than Cæfar's arm,
When Cæfar's head is off.

Caf. Yet I fear him :

For in the ingrafted love he bears to Cæfar,-
Bru. Alas, good Caffius, do not think of him:
If he love Cæfar, all that he can do

Is to himself; take thought', and die for Cæfar:

has the fame thought. Brutus, remonstrating against the taking off of Anthony, fays:

"Ah! ah! we must but too much murder fee,

"That without doing evil cannot do good;

"And would the gods that Rome could be made free,
"Without the effufion of one drop of blood!" MALONE.

3- as a difh fit for the gods, &c.]

66-- Gradive, dedifti,

"Ne qua manus vatem, ne quid mortalia bello

"Lædere tela queant, fanctum et venerabile Diti

"Funus erat." Stat. Theb. VII. 1. 696. STEEVENS.

Not bew him as a carcafe fit for bounds :] Our authour had probably the following paffage in the old translation of Plutarch in his thoughts: "Cæfar turned himselfe no where but he was ftricken at by fome, and ftill had naked fwords in his face, and was backed and mangled among them as a wild beast taken of bunters." MALONE.

take thought,] That is, turn melancholy.

So, in Antony and Cleopatra:

"What shall we do, Ænobarbus?

"Think, and die."

JoHNSON.

Again, in Holinfbed, p. 833:"-now they were without fervice, which caufed them to take thought, infomuch that some died by the way," &c.

See Vol. IV. p. 49, n. 2.

MALONE.
Z 2

STEEVENS.

And

And that were much he should; for he is given
To fports, to wildness, and much company.

Treb. There is no fear in him; let him not die;
For he will live, and laugh at this hereafter.

Bru. Peace, count the clock.

Caf. The clock hath stricken three.
Treb. 'Tis time to part.

Caf. But it is doubtful yet,

[Clock Atrikes.

Whe'r Cæfar will come forth to-day, or no:
For he is fuperftitious grown of late;
Quite from the main opinion he held once
Of fantafy, of dreams, and ceremonies":
It may be, thefe apparent prodigies,
The unaccustom'd terrour of this night,
And the perfuafion of his augurers,
May hold him from the Capitol to-day.
Dec. Never fear that: If he be fo refolv'd,
I can o'erfway him: for he loves to hear,
That unicorns may be betray'd with trees,
And bears with glaffes, elephants with holes 3,

2- quite from the main opinion be held once

Lions

Of fantafy, of dreams, and ceremonies :] Main opinion is leading fixed predominant opinion. JOHNSON.

Mr. Mafon with fome probability conjectures that Shakspeare wrote -mean opinion. The mistake might eafily have happened, for in the age of Elizabeth the two words were, I believe, pronounced alike, as they are at this day in Warwickshire, and fome other counties.

Fantafy was in our authour's time commonly used for imagination, and is fo explained in Cawdry's Alphabetical Table of hard words, 8vo. 1604. It fignified both the imaginative power, and the thing imagined. It is ufed in the former fenfe by Shakspeare in The Merry Wives of Windsor:

Raife up the organs of her fantasy."

In the latter, in the prefent play:

"Thou haft no figures, nor no fantafies."

Ceremonies means omens or figns deduced from facrifices, or other cersTM monial rites. So, afterwards:

"Cæfar, I never ftood on ceremonies,

"Yet now they fright me." MALONE.

3 That unicorns may be betray'd by trees,

And bears with glasses, elephants with boles,] Unicorns are faid to

Lions with toils, and men with flatterers:

But, when I tell him, he hates flatterers,
He fays, he does; being then most flattered.
Let me work:

For I can give his humour the true bent;
And I will bring him to the Capitol.

Caf. Nay, we will all of us be there to fetch him.
Bru. By the eighth hour: Is that the uttermost ?
Cin. Be that the uttermoft, and fail not then.
Met. Caius Ligarius doth bear Cæfar hard*,
Who rated him for fpeaking well of Pompey;
I wonder, none of you have thought of him.

have been taken by one who, running behind a tree, eluded the violent push the animal was making at him, fo that his horn spent its force on the trunk, and ftuck faft, detaining the beaft till he was difpatched by the hunter. So, in Spenfer's Faery Queen, B. II. c. 5:

"Like as a lyon whofe imperiall powre
"A prow'd rebellious unicorne defies;

T'avoid the rash affault and wrathfull ftowre
"Of his fiers foe, him to a tree applies:

"And when him running in full courfe he fpies,
"He flips afide; the whiles the furious beaft
"His precious horne, fought of his enemies,
"Strikes in the ftocke, ne thence can be releast,
"But to the mighty victor yields a bounteous feast."

Again, in Buffy D'Ambois, 1607:

"An angry unicorne in his full career

"Charge with too fwift a foot a jeweller

"That watch'd him for the treasure of his brow,

"And e'er he could get fhelter of a tree,

"Nail him with his rich antler to the earth."

Bears are reported to have been furprised by means of a mirror, which they would gaze on, affording their purfuers an opportunity of taking the furer aim. This circumftance, I think, is mentioned by Claudian. Elephants were feduced into pitfalls, lightly covered with hurdles and turf, on which a proper bait to tempt them, was expofed. See Pliny's Nat. Hift. B. VIII. STEEVENS.

4

bear Cæfar hard,] Thus the old copy, but Rowe, Pope, and Hanmer, on the authority of the latter folios read batred, though the fame expreffion appears again in the firft fcene of the following act: -I do befeech you, if you bear me bard :" and has already occurr'd in a former one:

"Cæfar doth bear me bard, but he loves Brutus." STEEVENS Hatred was fubftituted for hard by the ignorant editor of the second folio, the great corrupter of Shakspeare's text. MALONE.

Z3

Bru.