Cli. What, I, my lord? No, not for all the world. Cli. Bru. Hark thee, Dardanius. Cli. O Dardanius! Dar. O Clitus ! I'll rather kill myself. [Whispers him. Shall I do such a deed? Cli. What ill request did Brutus make to thee? Bru. Come hither, good Volumnius; list a word. Bru. Why, this, Volumnius: Vol. Not so, my lord. Bru. Nay, I am sure it is, Volumnius. Thou see'st the world, Volumnius, how it goes; Our enemies have beat us to the pit: [Low alarums. Good Volumnius, 8 So the Poet read in Plutarch: "The second battle being at hand, this spirit appeared again unto him, but spake never a word. Thereupon Brutus, knowing that he should die, did put himself to all hazard in battle, but yet fighting could not be slain." — Merivale has a strong sentence on this point: "The legend that when preparing for the encounter with the triumvirs he was visited by the ghost of Cæsar, which summoned him to meet again at Philippi, marks the conviction of the ancients that in the crisis of his fate he was stung by guilty remorse, and haunted by the presentiment of final retribution." Thou know'st that we two went to school together: Vol. That's not an office for a friend, my lord. [Alarums still. Cli. Fly, fly, my lord! there is no tarrying here. and you;—and you, Volum Strato, thou hast been all this while asleep; So, fare you well at once; for Brutus' tongue Hath almost ended his life's history: Night hangs upon mine eyes; my bones would rest, That have but labour'd to attain this hour. [Alarums. Cry within, Fly, fly, fly! Cli. Fly, my lord, fly! Bru. Hence! I will follow. [Exeunt CLIT., DARDAN., and VOLUM. I pr'ythee, Strato, stay thou by thy lord: 4 Thy life hath had some smack of honour in it: Stra. Give me your hand first: fare you well, my lord. Cæsar, now be still: 4 A fellow well esteemed, or of good reputation. See page 48, note 17. I kill'd not thee with half so good a will.5 [He runs on his sword, and dies. Alarum. Retreat. Enter OCTAVIUS, ANTONY, MESSALA, LU Stra. Free from the bondage you are in, Messala: The conquerors can but make a fire of him ; And no man else hath honour by his death. Lucil. So Brutus should be found. I thank thee, Brutus, 5 Now the night being far spent, Brutus as he sat bowed towards Clitus, one of his men, and told him somewhat in his ear: the other answered him not, but fell a-weeping. Thereupon he proved Dardanius, and said somewhat also to him: at length he came to Volumnius himself, and, speaking to him in Greek, prayed him for the studies' sake which brought them acquainted together, that he would help him to put his hand to his sword, to thrust it in him to kill him. Volumnius denied his request, and so did many others; and, amongst the rest, one of them said, there was no tarrying for them there, but that they must needs fly. Then Brutus, rising up, "We must fly indeed," said he, "but it must be with our hands, not with our feet." Then, taking every man by the hand, he said these words unto them with a cheerful countenance: "It rejoiceth my heart, that not one of my friends hath failed me at my need, and I do not complain of my fortune, but only for my country's sake: for, as for me, I think myself happier than they that have overcome, considering that I leave a perpetual fame of virtue and honesty, the which our enemies the conquerors shall never attain unto by force or money; neither can let their posterity to say that they, being naughty and unjust men, have slain good men, to usurp tyrannical power not pertaining to them." Having so said, he prayed every man to shift for himself, and then he went a little aside with two or three only, among the which Strato was one, with whom he came first acquainted by the study of rhetoric. He came as near him as he could, and taking his sword by the hilt with both his hands, and falling down upon the point of it, ran himself through. Others say that not he, but Strato, at his request, held the sword in his hand, and turned his head aside, and that Brutus fell down upon it, and so ran himself through, and died presently. - PLUTARCH, That thou hast proved Lucilius' saying true. Oct. All that served Brutus, I will entertain them. Stra. Ay, if Messala will prefer me to you.7 Mes. How died my master, Strato? Stra. I held the sword, and he did run on it. Mes. Octavius, then take him to follow thee, That did the latest service to my master. Ant. This was the noblest Roman of them all! Did that they did in envy of great Cæsar; And common good to all,8 made one of them. So mix'd in him,9 that Nature might stand up Oct. According to his virtue let us use him, [Exeunt. 6 "I will take them into my service." So in The Two Gentlemen, ii. 4: "Sweet lady, entertain him for your servant." 7 Prefer was a common term for recommending a servant. 8 The force of in is, properly, continued over common good. 9 Referring to the old doctrine of the four elements, as they were called, earth, water, air, and fire, the right mixing and tempering of which was supposed to be the principle of all excellence in Nature. The Poet has a number of allusions to the doctrine, which was commonplace of the time. The sense of the word elements has so changed as to make the passage just as true to the ideas of our time, as it was to those of three hundred years ago, A rather curious fact. THE FUNERAL OF CESAR.* TH HE Dictator had bequeathed to each citizen the sum of three hundred sesterces, or rather less than three pounds sterling. The money itself, indeed, was not forthcoming; for Antonius had already disposed of the whole treasure which had fallen into his hands. But Octavius had not yet arrived to discharge his patron's legacies; many formalities and some chances lay between the public avowal of these generous intentions and the claim for their actual fulfilment; and Antonius in the meantime might turn to his own account the grateful acknowledgment of the people for a largess they might never be destined to enjoy. The bare recital of Cæsar's testament operated on their feelings most favourably to his interests. Now for the first time they were fully roused to a sense of their benefactor's wrongs. Now for the first time the black ingratitude of Decimus and the others, his confidants and his assassins, stood revealed in its hideous deformity. The sense of personal loss stifled every The paragraphs that follow under this heading are from Merivale's History of the Romans under the Empire, Chapter xxiii. Taken all together, they form, to my judgment, one of the finest pieces of historical portraiture that I know of in the language. And the passage illustrates so happily the most interesting scene of the foregoing drama, that no apology seems needful for reproducing it here. I have often read it, with good effect, to my own Shakespeare classes in connection with that scene. 175 |