If these be motives weak, break off betimes, That this shall be, or we will fall for it? Swear priests, and cowards, and men cautelous, 8 5 Till each man drop by lottery.] Perhaps the poet alluded to the custom of decimation, i. e. the selection by lot of every tenth soldier, in a general mutiny, for punishment. He speaks of this in Coriolanus : "By decimation, and a tithed death, "Take thou thy fate." Steevens. 6 And will not palter?] And will not fly from his engagements. Cole, in his Dictionary, 1679, renders to palter, by tergiversor. In Macbeth it signifies, as Dr. Johnson has observed, to shuffle with ambiguous expressions: and, indeed, here also it may mean to shuffle; for he whose actions do not correspond with his promises is properly called a shuffler. Malone. 7 Swear priests, &c.] This is imitated by Otway: 8 "When you would bind me, is there need of oaths?" &c. Venice Preserved. Johnson. cautelous.] Is here cautious, sometimes insidious. So, in Woman is a Weathercock, 1612: telous not to wound my integrity." Yet warn you, be as cau Again, in Drayton's Miseries of Queen Margaret: "Witty, well-spoken, cautelous, though young." Again, in the second of these two senses in the romance of Kynge Appolyn of Thyre, 1610: “— a fallacious policy and cautelous wyle." Again, in Holinshed, p. 945: ". the emperor's councell thought by a cautell to have brought the king in mind to sue for a licence from the pope." Steevens. Bullokar, in his English Expositor, 1616, explains cautelous thus: "Warie, circumspect;" in which sense it is certainly used here. Malone. Nor the insuppressive mettle of our spirits, If he do break the smallest particle Of any promise that hath pass'd from him? Cas. But what of Cicero? Shall we sound him? I think, he will stand very strong with us. Cin. No, by no means. And buy men's voices to commend our deeds: Bru. O, name him not; let us not break with him; For he will never follow any thing That other men begin. Cas. Then leave him out. Casca. Indeed, he is not fit. Dec. Shall no man else be touch'd, but only Cæsar? Cas. Decius, well urg'd:-I think, it is not meet, Mark Antony, so well belov'd of Cæsar, Should outlive Cæsar: We shall find of him If he improves them, may well stretch so far, As to annoy us all: which to prevent, Let Antony, and Cæsar, fail together. Bru. Our course will seem too bloody, Caius Cassius. To cut the head off, and then hack the limbs ; Like wrath in death, and envy afterwards :2 For Antony is but a limb of Cæsar. 9 The even virtue of our enterprize,] The calm, equable, temperate spirit that actuates us. Malone. 1 Thus in Mr. Pope's Eloisa to Abelard: 2 "Desires compos'd, affections ever even,-" Steevens. The quotation is Mr. Reed's. See Vol. VIII, p. 328, n. 5. Steevens. and envy afterwards:] Envy is here, as almost always in Shakspeare's plays, malice. See Vol. XI, p. 240, n. 7; and p. 273, n. 6. Malone. Let us be sacrificers, but not butchers, Caius. Cas. Bru. Alas, good Cassius, do not think of him: If he love Cæsar, all that he can do Is to himself; take thought and die for Cæsar: 3 0, that we then could come by Casar's spirit, &c.] Lord Sterline has the same thought: Brutus remonstrating against the taking off Antony, says: "Ah! ah! we must but too much murder see, "That without doing evil cannot do good; "And would the gods that Rome could be made free, "Gradive, dedisti, "Ne qua manus vatem, ne quid mortalia bello "Lædere tela queant, sanctum et venerabile Diti Not hew him as a carcase fit for hounds:] Our author had proba bly the following passage in the old translation of Plutarch in his thoughts: "Cæsar turned himselfe no where but he was stricken at by some, and still had naked swords in his face, and was hacked and mangled among them as a wild beast taken of hunters." Malone. 6 Yet I do fear him:] For the sake of metre I have supplied the auxiliary verb. So, in Macbeth: 66 There is none but him "Whose being I do fear." Steevens. 7- Take thought,] That is, turn melancholy. Johnsen. And that were much he should; for he is given Treb. There is no fear in him; let him not die; For he will live, and laugh at this hereafter. [Clock strikes. Bru. Peace, count the clock. Cas. Treb. 'Tis time to part. The clock hath stricken three. But it is doubtful yet, Cas. For he is superstitious grown of late; So, in Antony and Cleopatra · "What shall we do, Enobarbus ? "Think and die." Again, in Holinshed, p.833: "now they are without service, which caused them to take thought, insomuch that some died by the way," &c. Steevens. The precise meaning of take thought may be learned from the following passage in St. Matthew, where the verb spieva, which signifies to anticipate, or forbode evil, is so rendered: "Take no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself; sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”—Cassius not only refers to, but thus explains, the phrase in question, when, in answer to the assertion of Brutus concerning Antony, Act III: "I know that we shall have him well to friend." he replies: "I wish we may: but yet I have a mind "That fears him much; and my misgiving still To take thought then, in this instance, is not to turn melancholy, whatever think may be in Antony and Cleopatra. Henley. See Vol. III, p. 226, n. 7. Malone. 8 company.] Company is here used in a disreputable sense. See a note on the word companion, Act IV. Henley 9 Whe'r Cæsar &c.] Whe'r is the ancient abbreviation of whether, which likewise is sometimes written-where. Thus in Turberville's translation of Ovid's Epistle from Penelope to Ulysses: "But Sparta cannot make account "Where thou do live or die." Steevens. 1 Quite from the main opinion he held once Of fantasy, of dreams, and ceremonies:] Main opinion, is nothing more than leading, fixed, predominant opinion. Johnson. Main opinion, according to Johnson's explanation is sense; but mean opinion would be a more natural expression, and is, I believe, what Shakspeare wrote. M. Mason. The words main opinion occur again in Troilus and Cressida, where (as here) they signify general estimation: It may be, these apparent prodigies, "Why then we should our main opinion crush There is no ground therefore for suspecting any corruption in the text. Malone. Fantasy was in our author's time commonly used for imagination, and is so explained in Cawdry's Alphabetical Table of hard Words, 8vo. 1604 It signified both the imaginative power, and the thing imagined. It is used in the former sense by Shakspeare in The Merry Wives of Windsor: "Raise up the organs of her fantasy.” In the latter, in the present play: "Thou hast no figures, nor no fantasies.” Ceremonies means omens or signs deduced from sacrifices, or other ceremonial rites. So, afterwards: "Cæsar, I never stood on ceremonies, Malone. 2 That unicorns may be betray'd with trees, And bears with glasses, elephants with holes.] Unicorns are said to have been taken by one who, running behind a tree, eluded the violent push the animal was making at him, so that his horn spent its force on the trunk, and stuck fast, detaining the beast till he was despatched by the hunter. So, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, B. II, ch. v: "Like as a lyon whose imperiall powre "T'avoid the rash assault and wrathfull stowre "And when him running in full course he spies, "He slips aside; the whiles the furious beast "His precious horne, sought of his enemies, Again, in Bussy D'Ambois, 1607: "An angry unicorne in his full career "Charge with too swift a foot a jeweller "That watch'd him for the treasure of his brow, "And e'er he could get shelter of a tree, "Nail him with his rich antler to the earth." Bears are reported to have been surprised by means of a mirror, which they would gaze on, affording their pursuers an opportunity of |