Thou, like an exorcift, haft conjur'd up7
My mortified fpirit. Now bid me run,
And I will strive with things impoffible;
Yea, get the better of them. What's to do?

Bru. A piece of work, that will make fick men whole. Lig. But are not fome whole, that we must make sick? Bru. That muft we alfo. What it is, my Caius,

I fhall unfold to thee, as we are going

To whom it must be done.

Lig. Set on your foot;

And, with a heart new-fir'd, I follow you,
To do I know not what: but it fufficeth,
That Brutus leads me on.

Bru. Follow me then.

[Exeunt.

The fame. A Room in Cæfar's Palace.

Thunder and lightning. Enter CESAR, in his Night-gown. Caf. Nor heaven, nor earth, have been at peace tonight:

Thrice hath Calphurnia in her fleep cry'd out,
Help, ho! They murder Cafar. Who's within?
Enter a Servant.

Serv. My lord?

Caf. Go bid the priests do prefent facrifice, And bring me their opinions of fuccefs.

Serv. I will, my lord.

Enter CALPHURNIA.

[Exit.

Cal. What mean you, Cæfar? Think you to walk forth? You fhall not ftir out of your house to-day.

Caf. Cæfar fhall forth: The things, that threaten'd me, Ne'er look'd but on my back; when they shall fee The face of Cæfar, they are vanished.

7 Thou, like an exorcift, baft conjur'd up-] It has been already obferved, that exorcift in Shakspeare's age fignified one who raifes fpirits by inchantment. See Vol. III. p. 476, n. 7. MALONE.

Cal.

Cal. Cæfar, I never flood on ceremonies, Yet now they fright me. There is one within, Befides the things that we have heard and feen, Recounts moft horrid fights feen by the watch. A lioness hath whelped in the ftreets;

And graves have yawn'd, and yielded up their dead":
Fierce firy warriors fight upon the clouds,

In ranks, and fquadrons, and right form of war',
Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol:

The noise of battle hurtled in the air3,
Horfes do neigh, and dying men did groan;
And ghosts did fhriek, and squeal about the streets.

O Cæfar!

$ Cefar, I never flood on ceremonies,] i. e. I never paid a ceremo nious or fuperftitious regard to prodigies or omens.

The adjective is ufed in the fame fenfe in the Devil's Charter, 1607: "The devil hath provided in his covenant, "I should not cross myself at any time:

"I never was fo ceremonious."

The original thought is in the old tranflation of Plutarch: "Calphurnia, until that time, was never given to any fear or superstition." STEEVENS..

9 And graves have yawn'd, and yielded up their dead : &c.] So, in a funeral fong in Much ado about nothing:

"Graves yawn, and yield your dead."

Again, in Hamlet:

"A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,

"The graves ftood tenantlefs, and the fheeted dead

"Did fqueak and gibber in the Roman streets." MALONE. Fierce firy warriors fight upon the clouds,

In ranks and fquadrons, and right forms of war,] So, in Marlowe's Tamburlaine, 1590:

"I will perfift a terror to the world;

"Making the meteors that like armed men

"Are feen to march upon the towers of heaven,
"Run tilting round about the firmament,

"And break their burning launces in the ayre,

"For honour of my wondrous victories," MALONE.

2 The noife of battle hurtled in the air,] To burtle is, I fuppose, to clash, or move with violence and noife. So, in Selimus Emperor of the Turks, 15941 "Here the Polonian he comes burtling in,

"Under the conduct of fome foreign prince."

Again, ibid:

"To tofs the fpear, and in a warlike gyre "To burtie my fharp fword about my head." Shakspeare ufes the word again in As You Like it:

O Cæfar! these things are beyond all use,
And I do fear them.

Caf. What can be avoided,

Whole end is purpos'd by the mighty gods?
Yet Cæfar fhall go forth: for thefe predictions
Are to the world in general, as to Cæfar.

Cal. When beggars die, there are no comets feen;
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.
Caf. Cowards die many times before their deaths+;
The valiant never taste of death but once.

Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,

66 in which burtling,

"From miferable flumber I awak'd"

STEEVENS.

It

Again, in The Hiftory of Arthur, P. I. c. 14: "They made both the Northumberland battailes to burtie together." BOWLE.

To burtle originally fignified to push violently; and, as in fuch an action a loud noife was frequently made, it afterwards feems to have been used in the sense of to clafb. So, in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, v. 2618: "And he him burtletb with his hors adoun." MALONE.

3 When beggars die, there are no comets feen;

The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.] "Next to the fhadows and pretences of experience, (which have been met withali at large,) they seem to brag moft of the ftrange events which follow (for the most part,) after blazing ftarres; as if they were the fummoners of God to call princes to the feat of judgment. The furest way to fhake their painted bulwarks of experience is, by making plaine, that neyther princes always dye when comets blaze, nor comets ever [i. e. always] blaze when princes dye. Defenfative against the poison of fuppofed 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 fuppofed that the fame fhould portend plague, famine, warre, or the death of potentates." MALONE.

4 Cowards die many times before their deaths ;] So, in Marton's Infatiate Countefs, 1613:

"Fear is my vaffal; when I frown, he flies:

"A bundred times in life a coward dies."

Lord Effex, probably before either of these writers, made the fame remark. In a letter to lord Rutland, he obferves, "that as he which dieth nobly, doth live for ever, fo he that doth live in fear, dotb die continually." MALONE.

"When fome of his friends did counsel him to have a guard for the fafety of his perfon; he would never confent to it, but faid, it was better to die once, than always to be affrayed of death." Sir Tb. North's Tranf. of Plutarch. STEEVENS.

5 that I yet have beard,] This fentiment appears to have been imitated by Dr. Young in his tragedy of Bufiris king of Egypt: "Did

It feems to me moft ftrange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a neceffary end,

Will come, when it will come.

Re-enter a Servant.

What fay the augurers?

Serv. They would not have you to ftir forth to-day. Plucking the entrails of an offering forth,

They could not find a heart within the beaft.
Caf. The gods do this in fhame of cowardice?:
Cæfar fhould be a beaft without a heart,

If he should stay at home to-day for fear.
No, Cæfar fhall not: Danger knows full well,
That Cæfar is more dangerous than he.

We are two lions litter'd in one day 3,
And I the elder and more terrible;
And Cæfar fhall go forth.

Cal. Alas, my lord,

Your wisdom is confum'd in confidence.

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

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

"Didft thou e'er fear?

"Sure 'tis an art; I know not bew to fear:

'Tis one of the few things beyond my power;
"And if death must be fear'd before 'tis felt,
"Thy mafter is immortal."- STEEVENS.

death, a neceflary end, &c.] This is a fentence derived from the ftoical doctrine of predeftination, and is therefore improper in the mouth of Cæfar. JOHNSON.

7 - in shame of cowardice:] The ancients did not place courage but wifdom in the heart.

JOHNSON.

8 We are two lions, &c.] The reading of the old copy—We beare two lions, &c. is undoubtedly erroneous. The emendation was made by Mr. Upton. Mr. Theobald reads-We were, &c. and this reading is fo plaufible, that it is not easy to determine, which of the two has the best claim to a place in the text. If Theobald's emendation be adopted, the phraseology, though less elegant, is perhaps more Shaksperian. It may mean the fame 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. This refembles the boaft of Otho:

Experti invicem fumus, Ego et Fortuna. Tacitus, STEEVENS

Caf

Caf. Mark Antony fhall fay, I am not well;
And, for thy humour, I will ftay at home.
Enter DECIUS.

Here's Decius Brutus, he fhall tell them fo.

Dec. Cæfar, all hail! Good morrow, worthy Cæfar :
I come to fetch you to the fenate-house.

Caf. And you are come in very happy time,
To bear my greeting to the fenators,

And tell them, that I will not come to-day;
Cannot, is false; and that I dare not, falfer;
I will not come to-day: Tell them fo, Decius.
Cal. Say, he is fick.

Caf. Shall Cæfar send a lye?

Have I in conqueft ftretch'd mine arm fo far,
To be afeard to tell grey-beards the truth?—
Decius, go tell them, Cæfar will not come.
Dec. Moft mighty Cæfar, let me know fome cause,
Left I be laugh'd at, when I tell them fo.
Caf. The caufe is in my will, I will not come ;
That is enough to fatisfy the fenate.

But, for your private fatisfaction,
Because I love you, I will let you know.
Calphurnia here, my wife, ftays me at home;
She dreamt to-night fhe faw my ftatue, which
Like a fountain, with a hundred spouts,
Did run pure blood; and many lufty Romans
Came fmiling, and did bathe their hands in it.
And thefe does she apply for warnings, and portents,
And evils imminent; and on her knee
Hath begg'd, that I will stay at home to-day.
Dec. This dream is all amifs interpreted;

It was a vifion, fair and fortunate:

Your ftatue spouting blood in many pipes,
In which fo many fmiling Romans bath'd,
Signifies, that from you great Rome shall fuck
Reviving blood; and that great men shall press

9 And thefe fhe does apply for warnings and portents,

And evils imminent ;] The late Mr. Edwards was of opinion that we should read:

"-warnings and portents
Of evils imminent ; ➡,

STEEVENS,