That you have no such mirrors, as will turn That you would have me seek into myself Cas. Therefore, good Brutus, be prepar'd to hear: That of yourself which you yet know not of. 5 To every new protester: if you know [Flourish and Shout. Bru. What means this shouting? I do fear, the people Choose Cæsar for their king. 5 Johnson has erroneously given the meaning of allurement to stale in this place. To stale with ordinary oaths my love,' is 'to prostitute my love, or make it common with ordinary oaths,' &c. The use of the verb to stale here may be adduced as a proof that in a disputed passage of Coriolanus, Acti. Sc. 1, we should read stale instead of scale: see note there. Thus in Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Humour, Act ii. Sc. 1 :— 'He's grown a stranger to all due respect, and not content To stale himself in all societies, He makes my house here common as a mart.' 1 Cas. Ay, do you fear it? And bade him follow: so, indeed, he did. 6 Shakspeare probably remembered what Suetonius relates of Cæsar's leaping into the sea, when he was in danger by a boat being overladen, and swimming to the next ship with his Commentaries in his hand. Holland's Translation of Suetonius, 1606, P. 26. And in another passage, ' Were rivers in his way to hinder his passage, cross over them he would, either swimming, or else bearing himself upon blowed leather bottles.' Ibid. p. 24. But ere we could arrive the point propos'd, I, as Æneas, our great ancestor, Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder Is now become a god; and Cassius is A wretched creature, and must bend his body, He had a fever when he was in Spain, And, when the fit was on him, I did mark How he did shake: 'tis true, this god did shake: His coward lips did from their colour fly 8; And that same eye, whose bend doth awe the world, Did lose his lustre: I did hear him groan: Ay, and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans Mark him, and write his speeches in their books, Alas! it cried, Give me some drink, Titinius, As a sick girl. Ye gods, it doth amaze me, A man of such a feeble temper 9 should So get the start of the majestick world, And bear the palm alone. Bru. Another general shout! [Shout. Flourish. 7 But ere we could arrive the point propos'd.' The verb arrive, in its active sense, according to its etymology, was formerly used for to approach, or come near. Milton several times uses it thus without the preposition. Thus in Paradise Lost, b. ii. : ere he arrive The happy isle.' And in his Treatise of Civil Power, 'Lest a worse woe arrive him.' Shakspeare has it again in the Third Part of King Henry VI. Act v. Sc. 3: those powers that the queen Hath rais'd in Gallia, have arriv'd our coast.' 8 This is oddly expressed, but a quibble, alluding to a coward flying from his colours, was intended. 9 Temperament, constitution. I do believe, that these applauses are Walk under his huge legs 10, and peep about O! and I have heard our fathers say, you There was a Brutus 12 once, that would have brook'd 10 But I the meanest man of many more, Or creep between his legs.' Spenser's Faerie Queene, b. iv. c. x. st. 19. 11 A similar thought occurs in Heywood's Rape of Lucrece :-'What diapason's more in Tarquin's name 12 Than in a subject's? Or what's Tullia More in the sound than should become the name Of a poor maid?' Lucius Junius Brutus (says Dion Cassius) would as soon have submitted to the perpetual dominion of a dæmon, as to the lasting government of a king.' The eternal devil to keep his state in Rome, Bru. That you do love me, I am nothing jealous; What you would work me to, I have some aim 13; How I have thought of this, and of these times, I shall recount hereafter; for this present, I would not, so with love I might entreat you, further mov'd. What you have said, Be any I will consider; what you have to say, I will with patience hear: and find a time Than to repute himself a son of Rome Is like to lay upon us. Cas. I am glad that my weak words Have struck but thus much show of fire from Brutus. Re-enter CESAR, and his Train. Bru. The games are done, and Cæsar is returning. Cas. As they pass by, pluck Casca by the sleeve; And he will, after his sour fashion, tell you What hath proceeded, worthy note, to-day. 13 i. e. guess. So in the Two Gentlemen of Verona 'But fearing lest my jealous aim might err.' 14 Ruminate on this, consider it at leisure. 15 As, according to Tooke, is an article, and means the same as that, which, or it: accordingly we find it often so employed by old writers; and particularly in our excellent version of the Bible. Thus Lord Bacon also in his Apophthegmes, No. 210:'One of the Romans said to his friend; what think you of such a one, as was taken with the manner in adultery?' Like other vestiges of old phraseology it still lingers among the common people: I cannot say as I did,' &c. for that I did. I will add an example from Langland, who flourished in the middle of the fourteenth century: 'The godes of the ground aren like to the grete wawes |