Lions with toils, and men with flatterers: For I can give his humour the true bent; Cas. Nay, we will all of us be there to fetch him. Bru. Now, good Metellus, go along by him:5 Cas. The morning comes upon us: We'll leave you, Brutus: And, friends, disperse yourselves: but all remember What you have said, and show yourselves true Romans. Bru. Good gentlemen, look fresh and merrily; Let not our looks put on our purposes; But bear it as our Roman actors do, With untir'd spirits, and formal constancy: taking the surer aim. This circumstance, I think, is mentioned by Claudian. Elephants were seduced into pitfalls, lightly covered with hurdles and turf, on which a proper bait to tempt them, was exposed. See Pliny's Natural History, B VIII. Steevens. 3 Let me work:] These words, as they stand, being quite unmetrical, I suppose our author to have originally written: Let me to work. i. e. go to work. 4 Steevens. -Bear Cæsar hard,] Thus the old copy, but Messieurs Rowe, Pope, and Sir Thomas Hanmer, on the authority of the second and latter folios, read-hatred, though the same expression appears again in the first scene of the following act: "I do beseech you, if you bear me hard; and has already occurred in a former one: "Cæsar doth bear me hard but he loves Brutus." Steevens. Hatred was substituted for hard by the ignorant editor of the second folio, the great corrupter of Shakspeare s text. Malone. 5 by him:] That is, by his house. Make that your way home. Mr. Pope substituted to for by, and all the subsequent editors have adopted this unnecessary change Malone. 6 Let not our looks-] Let not our faces put on, that is, wear or show our designs. Johnson. And so, good-morrow to you every one. [Exeunt all but BRU. Boy! Lucius!-Fast asleep? It is no matter; Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber : Thou hast no figures, nor no fantasies, Which busy care draws in the brains of men; Therefore thou sleep'st so sound. Por. Enter PORTIA. Brutus, my lord! Bru. Portia, what mean you? Wherefore rise you now? It is not for your health, thus to commit Your weak condition to the raw-cold morning. Por. Nor for yours neither. You have ungently, Brutus, I urg'd you further; then you scratch'd your head, But, with an angry wafture of your hand, Which seem'd too much enkindled; and, withal, Bru. I am not well in health, and that is all. To walk unbraced, and suck up the humours 7 Thou hast no figures, &c.] Figures occurs in the same sense in The First Part of King Henry IV, Act I, sc. iii: 8 "He apprehends a world of figures." Henley. on your condition,] On your temper; the disposition of your mind. See Vol. IX, p. 374, n. 9. Malone. Of the dank morning? What, is Brutus sick; Bru. Kneel not, gentle Portia. Por. I should not need, if you were gentle Brutus.. Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus, Is it excepted, I should know no secrets But, as it were, in sort, or limitation; To keep with you at meals,1 comfort your bed,2 9 Icharm you,] Thus the old copy. Mr. Pope and Sir Thomas Hanmer read-charge, but unnecessarily. So, in Cymbeline : 66 'tis your graces "That from my mutest conscience to my tongue " Charms this report out." Steevens. 1 To keep with you at meals, &c ] "I being, O Brutus, (sayed she) the daughter of Cato, was married vnto thee, not to be thy beddefellowe and companion in bedde and at borde onelie, like a harlot; but to be partaker also with thee, of thy good and euill fortune. Nowe for thyselfe, I can finde no cause of faulte in thee touchinge our matche: but for my parte, how may I showe my duetie towards thee, and how muche I woulde doe for thy sake, if I can not constantlie beare a secrete mischaunce or griefe with thee, which requireth secrecy and fidelitie? I confesse, that a woman's wit commonly is too weake to keep a secret safely: but yet, Brutus, good education, and the companie of vertuous men, haue some power to reforme the defect of nature. And for my selfe, I haue this benefit morecuer: that I am the daughter of Cato, and wife of Brutus. This notwithstanding, I did not trust to any of these things before: vntil that now I have found by experience, that no paine nor grife whatsoeuer can ouercome me. With those wordes she showed him her wounde on her thigh, and tolde him what she had done to proue her selfe." Sir Thomas North's Translation of Plutarch. Steevens. And talk to you sometimes? Dwell I but in the suburbs Of your good pleasure? If it be no more, Portia is Brutus' harlot, not his wife. Bru. You are my true and honourable wife ; As dear to me, as are the ruddy drops Por. If this were true, then should I know this secret. I grant, I am a woman ; but, withal, Here also we find our author and Lord Sterline walking over the same ground: 2 "I was not, Brutus, match'd with thee, to be "A partner only of thy board and bed; "As those that have two breasts, one heart, two souls, one will." Julius Cæsar, 1607. Malone. comfort your bed,]" is but an odd phrase, and gives as odd an idea," says Mr. Theobald He therefore substitures, consort. But this good old word, however disused through modern refinement, was not so discarded by Shakspeare. Henry VIII, as we read in Cavendish's Life of Wolsey, in commendation of Queen Katharine, in publick said: "She hathe beene to me a true obedient wife, and as comfortable as I could wish." Upton. In the book of entries at Stationers' Hall, I meet with the following, 1598: "A Conversation between a careful Wyfe and her comfortable Husband." Steevens. In our marriage ceremony, the husband promises to comfort his wife; and Barrett's Alvearie, or Quadruple Dictionary, 1580, says, that to comfort is, " to recreate, to solace, to make pastime. Collins. 3 — in the suburbs -] Perhaps here is an allusion to the place in which the harlots of Shakspeare's age resided. So, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Monsieur Thomas: "Get a new mistress, "Some suburb saint, that sixpence, and some oaths, 4 As dear to me, &c.] These glowing words have been adopted by Mr. Gray in his celebrated Ode: “Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart —.” Igrant, I am a woman; &c.] So, Lord Sterline : Steevens. "As those whose tongues import our greatest pow'rs, "For secrets still bad treasurers esteem'd, "Of others' greedy, prodigal of ours; A woman that lord Brutus took to wife: Tell me your counsels, I will not disclose them: Here, in the thigh: Can I bear that with patience, Bru. O ye gods, Render me worthy of this noble wife! [Knocking within. The secrets of my heart, All my engagements I will construe to thee, Enter LUCIUS and LIGARIUS. [Exit POR. Lucius, who 's that, knocks ?8 Luc. Here is a sick man, that would speak with you. Bru. Caius Ligarius, that Metellus spake of.— Boy, stand aside.-Caius Ligarius! how? Lig. Vouchsafe good morrow from a feeble tongue. Bru. O, what a time have you chose out, brave Caius, "Good education may reform defects, "And I this vantage have to a vertuous life, "I'm Cato's daughter, and I'm Brutus wife." Malone. 6 A woman well-reputed, Cato's daughter.] By the expression wellreputed, she refers to the estimation in which she was held, as being the wife of Brutus; whilst the addition of Cato's daughter, implies that she might be expected to inherit the patriotic virtues of her father. It is with propriety therefore, that she immediately asks: "Think you, I am no stronger than my sex, Being so father'd, and so husbanded ?" Henley. 7 All the charactery —] i. e. all that is character'd on, &c. The word has already occurred in The Merry Wives of Windsor. Steevens. See Vol. III, p. 151, n. 3. Malone. 8 · who's that, knocks?] i. e. who is that, who knocks? Our poet always prefers the familiar language of conversation to gram. matical nicety. Four of his editors, however, have endeavoured to destroy this peculiarity, by reading-who's there that knocks? and a fifth has, who's that, that knocks? Malone. |