Текст книги "William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition"

Автор книги: William Shakespeare

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This star of England. Fortune made his sword,

By which the world’s best garden he achieved, And of it left his son imperial lord.

Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crowned king Of France and England, did this king succeed,

Whose state so many had the managing That they lost France and made his England bleed,

Which oft our stage hath shown—and, for their sake,

In your fair minds let this acceptance take. Exit

ADDITIONAL PASSAGES

The Dauphin/Bourbon variant, which usually involves only the alteration of speech-prefixes, has several consequences for the dialogue and structure of 4.5. There follow edited texts of the Folio and Quarto versions of this scene.

A. FOLIO

Enter the Constable, Orleans, Bourbon, the Dauphin, and Rambures

CONSTABLE O diable!

ORLÉANS O Seigneur! Le jour est perdu, tout est perdu.

DAUPHIN

Mort de ma vie! All is confounded, all.

Reproach and everlasting shame

Sits mocking in our plumes.

A short alarum

O méchante fortune! Do not run away.

⌈Exit Rambures⌉

CONSTABLE Why, all our ranks are broke.

DAUPHIN

O perdurable shame! Let’s stab ourselves:

Be these the wretches that we played at dice for?

ORLÉANS

Is this the king we sent to for his ransom?

BOURBON

Shame, an eternall shame, nothing but shame!

Let us die in pride. In once more, back again!

And he that will not follow Bourbon now,

Let him go home, and with his cap in hand

Like a base leno hold the chamber door,

Whilst by a slave no gentler than my dog

His fairest daughter is contaminated.

CONSTABLE

Disorder that hath spoiled us, friend us now,

Let us on heaps go offer up our lives.

ORLÉANS

We are enough yet living in the field

To smother up the English in our throngs,

If any order might be thought upon.

BOURBON

The devil take order now. I’ll to the throng.

Let life be short, else shame will be too long.

Exeunt

B. QUARTO

Enter the four French lords: the Constable, Orléans, Bourbon, and Gebon

GEBON O diabello!

CONSTABLE Mort de ma vie!

ORLÉANS O what a day is this!

BOURBON

O jour de honte, all is gone, all is lost.

CONSTABLE We are enough yet living in the field

To smother up the English,

If any order might be thought upon.

BOURBON

A plague of order! Once more to the field!

And he that will not follow Bourbon now,

Let him go home, and with his cap in hand,

Like a base leno hold the chamber door,

Whilst by a slave no gentler than my dog

His fairest daughter is contaminated.

CONSTABLE

Disorder that hath spoiled us, right us now.

Come we in heaps, we’ll offer up our lives

Unto these English, or else die with fame.

⌈BOURBON⌉ Come, come along.

Let’s die with honour, our shame doth last too long.

Exeunt

JULIUS CAESAR

ON 21 September 1599 a Swiss doctor, Thomas Platter, saw what can only have been Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar ‘very pleasingly performed’ in the newly built Globe Theatre—‘the straw-thatched house’—on the south side of the Thames. Francis Meres does not mention the play in Palladis Tamia of 1598, and minor resemblances with works printed in the early part of 1599 suggest that Shakespeare wrote it during that year. It was first printed in the 1623 Folio.

Julius Caesar shows Shakespeare turning from English to Roman history, which he had last used in Titus Andronicus and The Rape of Lucrece. Caesar was regarded as perhaps the greatest ruler in the history of the world, and his murder by Brutus as one of the foulest crimes: but it was also recognized that Caesar had faults and Brutus virtues. Other plays, some now lost, had been written about Caesar and may have influenced Shakespeare; but there is no question that he made extensive use (for the first time in this play) of Sir Thomas North’s great translation (based on Jacques Amyot’s French version and published in 1579) of Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans by the Greek historian Plutarch, who lived from about AD 50 to 130.

Shakespeare was interested in the aftermath of Caesar’s death as well as in the events leading up to it, and in the public and private motives of those responsible for it. So, although the Folio calls the play The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, Caesar is dead before the play is half over; Brutus, Cassius, and Antony have considerably longer roles, and Brutus is portrayed with a degree of introspection which links him more closely to Shakespeare’s other tragic heroes. Shakespeare draws mainly on the last quarter of Plutarch’s Life of Caesar, showing his fall; he also uses the Lives of Antony and Brutus for the play’s first sweep of action, showing the rise of the conspiracy against Caesar, its leaders’ efforts to persuade Brutus to join them, the assassination itself, and its immediate aftermath as Antony incites the citizens to revenge. The second part, showing the formation of the triumvirate of Antony, Lepidus, and Octavius Caesar, the uneasy alliance of Brutus and Cassius, and the battles in which Caesar’s spirit revenges itself, depends mainly on the Life of Brutus. Facts are often altered and rearranged in the interests of dramatic economy and effectiveness.

Although Shakespeare wrote the play at a point in his career at which he was tending to use a high proportion of prose, Julius Caesar is written mainly in verse; as if to suit the subject matter, the style is classical in its lucidity and eloquence, reaching a climax of rhetorical effectiveness in the speeches over Caesar’s body (3.2). The play’s stage-worthiness has been repeatedly demonstrated; it offers excellent opportunities in all its main roles, and the quarrel between Brutus and Cassius (4.2) has been admired ever since Leonard Digges, a contemporary of Shakespeare, praised it at the expense of Ben Jonson:

So have I seen, when Caesar would appear,

And on the stage at half-sword parley were

Brutus and Cassius; O, how the audience

Were ravished, with what wonder they went thence,

When some new day they would not brook a line

Of tedious though well-laboured Catiline.

THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

The Tragedy of Julius Caesar

1.1 Enter Flavius, Murellus, and certain commoners over the stage

FLAVIUS

Hence, home, you idle creatures, get you home!

Is this a holiday? What, know you not,

Being mechanical, you ought not walk

Upon a labouring day without the sign

Of your profession?—Speak, what trade art thou?

CARPENTER Why, sir, a carpenter.

MURELLUS

Where is thy leather apron and thy rule?

What dost thou with thy best apparel on?—

You, sir, what trade are you?

COBBLER Truly, sir, in respect of a fine workman I am but, as you would say, a cobbler.

MURELLUS But what trade art thou? Answer me directly.

COBBLER A trade, sir, that I hope I may use with a safe conscience, which is indeed, sir, a mender of bad soles.

FLAVIUS

What trade, thou knave? Thou naughty knave, what trade?

COBBLER Nay, I beseech you, sir, be not out with me. Yet if you be out, sir, I can mend you.

MURELLUS

What mean’st thou by that? Mend me, thou saucy fellow?

COBBLER Why, sir, cobble you.

FLAVIUS Thou art a cobbler, art thou?

COBBLER Truly, sir, all that I live by is with the awl. I meddle with no tradesman’s matters, nor women’s matters, but withal I am indeed, sir, a surgeon to old shoes: when they are in great danger I recover them. As proper men as ever trod upon neat’s leather have gone upon my handiwork.

FLAVIUS

But wherefore art not in thy shop today?

Why dost thou lead these men about the streets?

COBBLER Truly, sir, to wear out their shoes to get myself into more work. But indeed, sir, we make holiday to see Caesar, and to rejoice in his triumph.

MURELLUS

Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?

What tributaries follow him to Rome

To grace in captive bonds his chariot wheels?

You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless

things!

O, you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,

Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft

Have you climbed up to walls and battlements,

To towers and windows, yea to chimney-tops,

Your infants in your arms, and there have sat

The livelong day with patient expectation

To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome.

And when you saw his chariot but appear,

Have you not made an universal shout,

That Tiber trembled underneath her banks

To hear the replication of your sounds

Made in her concave shores?

And do you now put on your best attire?

And do you now cull out a holiday?

And do you now strew flowers in his way

That comes in triumph over Pompey’s blood?

Be gone!

Run to your houses, fall upon your knees,

Pray to the gods to intermit the plague

That needs must light on this ingratitude.

FLAVIUS

Go, go, good countrymen, and for this fault

Assemble all the poor men of your sort;

Draw them to Tiber banks, and weep your tears

Into the channel, till the lowest stream

Do kiss the most exalted shores of all.

Exeunt all the commoners

See whe’er their basest mettle be not moved.

They vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness.

Go you down that way towards the Capitol;

This way will I. Disrobe the images

If you do find them decked with ceremonies.

MURELLUS May we do so?

You know it is the Feast of Lupercal.

FLAVIUS

It is no matter. Let no images

Be hung with Caesar’s trophies. I’ll about,

And drive away the vulgar from the streets;

So do you too where you perceive them thick.

These growing feathers plucked from Caesar’s wing

Will make him fly an ordinary pitch,

Who else would soar above the view of men

And keep us all in servile fearfulness.

Exeunt

1.2 ⌈Loud music.⌉ Enter Caesar, Antony stripped for the course, Calpurnia, Portia, Decius, Cicero, Brutus, Cassius, Casca, a Soothsayer, ⌈a throng of citizens⌉; after them, Murellus and Flavius

CAESAR Calpurnia.

CASCA Peace, ho! Caesar speaks. ⌈Music ceases⌉

CAESAR Calpurnia.

CALPURMA Here, my lord.

CAESAR

Stand you directly in Antonio’s way

When he doth run his course.—Antonio.

ANTONY Caesar, my lord.

CAESAR

Forget not in your speed, Antonio,

To touch Calpurnia, for our elders say

The barren, touched in this holy chase,

Shake off their sterile curse.

ANTONY

I shall remember:

When Caesar says ‘Do this’, it is performed.

CAESAR

Set on, and leave no ceremony out.

⌈music⌉

SOOTHSAYER Caesar!

CAESAR Ha! Who calls?

CASCA

Bid every noise be still. Peace yet again.

⌈Music ceases⌉

CAESAR

Who is it in the press that calls on me?

I hear a tongue shriller than all the music

Cry ‘Caesar!’ Speak. Caesar is turned to hear.

SOOTHSAYER

Beware the ides of March.

CAESAR What man is that?

BRUTUS

A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March.

CAESAR

Set him before me; let me see his face.

CASSIUS

Fellow, come from the throng; look upon Caesar.

The Soothsayer comes forward

CAESAR

What sayst thou to me now? Speak once again.

SOOTHSAYER Beware the ides of March.

CAESAR

He is a dreamer. Let us leave him. Pass!

Sennet. Exeunt all but Brutus and Cassius

CASSIUS Will you go see the order of the course?

BRUTUS Not I.

CASSIUS I pray you, do.

BRUTUS

I am not gamesome; I do lack some part

Of that quick spirit that is in Antony.

Let me not hinder, Cassius, your desires.

I’ll leave you.

CASSIUS

Brutus, I do observe you now of late.

I have not from your eyes that gentleness

And show of love as I was wont to have.

You bear too stubborn and too strange a hand

Over your friend that loves you.

BRUTUS Cassius,

Be not deceived. If I have veiled my look,

I turn the trouble of my countenance

Merely upon myself. Vexed I am

Of late with passions of some difference,

Conceptions only proper to myself,

Which give some soil, perhaps, to my behaviours.

But let not therefore my good friends be grieved—

Among which number, Cassius, be you one—

Nor construe any further my neglect

Than that poor Brutus, with himself at war,

Forgets the shows of love to other men.

CASSIUS

Then, Brutus, I have much mistook your passion,

By means whereof this breast of mine hath buried

Thoughts of great value, worthy cogitations.

Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face?

BRUTUS

No, Cassius, for the eye sees not itself

But by reflection, by some other things.

CASSIUS ’Tis just;

And it is very much lamented, Brutus,

That you have no such mirrors as will turn

Your hidden worthiness into your eye,

That you might see your shadow. I have heard

Where many of the best respect in Rome—

Except immortal Caesar—speaking of Brutus,

And groaning underneath this age’s yoke,

Have wished that noble Brutus had his eyes.

BRUTUS

Into what dangers would you lead me, Cassius,

That you would have me seek into myself

For that which is not in me?

CASSIUS

Therefor, good Brutus, be prepared to hear.

And since you know you cannot see yourself

So well as by reflection, I, your glass,

Will modestly discover to yourself

That of yourself which you yet know not of.

And be not jealous on me, gentle Brutus.

Were I a common laughter, or did use

To stale with ordinary oaths my love

To every new protester; if you know

That I do fawn on men and hug them hard,

And after scandal them; or if you know

That I profess myself in banqueting

To all the rout: then hold me dangerous.

Flourish and shout within

BRUTUS

What means this shouting? I do fear the people

Choose Caesar for their king.

CASSIUS

Ay, do you fear it?

Then must I think you would not have it so.

BRUTUS

I would not, Cassius; yet I love him well.

But wherefore do you hold me here so long?

What is it that you would impart to me?

If it be aught toward the general good,

Set honour in one eye and death i’th’ other,

And I will look on both indifferently;

For let the gods so speed me as I love

The name of honour more than I fear death.

CASSIUS

I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus,

As well as I do know your outward favour.

Well, honour is the subject of my story.

I cannot tell what you and other men

Think of this life; but for my single self,

I had as lief not be, as live to be

In awe of such a thing as I myself.

I was born free as Caesar, so were you.

We both have fed as well, and we can both

Endure the winter’s cold as well as he.

For once upon a raw and gusty day,

The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores,

Said Caesar to me ‘Dar’st thou, Cassius, now

Leap in with me into this angry flood,

And swim to yonder point?’ Upon the word,

Accoutred as I was I plungèd in,

And bade him follow. So indeed he did.

The torrent roared, and we did buffet it

With lusty sinews, throwing it aside,

And stemming it with hearts of controversy.

But ere we could arrive the point proposed,

Caesar cried ‘Help me, Cassius, or I sinkl’

Ay, as Aeneas our great ancestor

Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder

The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber

Did I the tired Caesar. And this man

Is now become a god, and Cassius is

A wretched creature, and must bend his body

If Caesar carelessly but nod on him.

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;

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 should

So get the start of the majestic world,

And bear the palm alone!

Flourish and shout within

BRUTUS Another general shout!

I do believe that these applauses are

For some new honours that are heaped on Caesar.

CASSIUS

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world

Like a Colossus, and we petty men

Walk under his huge legs, and peep about

To find ourselves dishonourable graves.

Men at sometime were masters of their fates.

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,

But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

Brutus and Caesar: what should be in that ‘Caesar’?

Why should that name be sounded more than yours?

Write them together: yours is as fair a name.

Sound them: it doth become the mouth as well.

Weigh them: it is as heavy. Conjure with ‘em:

‘Brutus’ will start a spirit as soon as ‘Caesar’.

Now in the names of all the gods at once,

Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed

That he is grown so great? Age, thou art shamed.

Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods.

When went there by an age since the great flood,

But it was famed with more than with one man?

When could they say till now, that talked of Rome,

That her wide walls encompassed but one man?

Now is it Rome indeed, and room enough

When there is in it but one only man.

O, you and I have heard our fathers say

There was a Brutus once that would have brooked

Th’eternal devil to keep his state in Rome

As easily as a king.

BRUTUS

That you do love me I am nothing jealous.

What you would work me to I have some aim.

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,

Be any further moved. What you have said

I will consider. What you have to say

I will with patience hear, and find a time

Both meet to hear and answer such high things.

Till then, my noble friend, chew upon this:

Brutus had rather be a villager

Than to repute himself a son of Rome

Under these hard conditions as this time

Is like to lay upon us.

CASSIUS I am glad

That my weak words have struck but thus much show

Of fire from Brutus.

⌈music.⌉ Enter Caesar and his train

BRUTUS

The games are done, and Caesar is returning.

CASSIUS

As they pass by, pluck Casca by the sleeve,

And he will, after his sour fashion, tell you

What hath proceeded worthy note today.

BRUTUS

I will do so. But look you, Cassius,

The angry spot doth glow on Caesar’s brow,

And all the rest look like a chidden train.

Calpurnia’s cheek is pale, and Cicero

Looks with such ferret and such fiery eyes

As we have seen him in the Capitol

Being crossed in conference by some senators.

CASSIUS

Casca will tell us what the matter is.

CAESAR Antonio.

ANTONY Caesar.

CAESAR

Let me have men about me that are fat,

Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep a-nights.

Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look.

He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.

ANTONY

Fear him not, Caesar, he’s not dangerous.

He is a noble Roman, and well given.

CAESAR

Would he were fatter! But I fear him not.

Yet if my name were liable to fear,

I do not know the man I should avoid

So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much,

He is a great observer, and he looks

Quite through the deeds of men. He loves no plays,

As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music.

Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort

As if he mocked himself, and scorned his spirit

That could be moved to smile at anything.

Such men as he be never at heart’s ease

Whiles they behold a greater than themselves,

And therefore are they very dangerous.

I rather tell thee what is to be feared

Than what I fear, for always I am Caesar.

Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf,

And tell me truly what thou think’st of him.

Sennet. Exeunt Caesar and his train. Brutus, Cassius, and Casca remain

CASCA (to Brutus) You pulled me by the cloak. Would you speak with me?

BRUTUS

Ay, Casca. Tell us what hath chanced today,

That Caesar looks so sad.

CASCA Why, you were with him, were you not?

BRUTUS

I should not then ask Casca what had chanced.

CASCA Why, there was a crown offered him; and being offered him, he put it by with the back of his hand, thus; and then the people fell a-shouting.

BRUTUS What was the second noise for?

CASCA Why, for that too.

CASSIUS

They shouted thrice. What was the last cry for?

CASCA Why, for that too.

BRUTUS Was the crown offered him thrice?

CASCA Ay, marry, was’t; and he put it by thrice, every time gentler than other; and at every putting by, mine honest neighbours shouted.

CASSIUS

Who offered him the crown?

CASCA Why, Antony.

BRUTUS

Tell us the manner of it, gentle Casca.

CASCA I can as well be hanged as tell the manner of it. It was mere foolery, I did not mark it. I saw Mark Antony offer him a crown—yet ‘twas not a crown neither, ’twas one of these coronets—and as I told you he put it by once; but for all that, to my thinking he would fain have had it. Then he offered it to him again; then he put it by again—but to my thinking he was very loath to lay his fingers off it. And then he offered it the third time; he put it the third time by. And still as he refused it, the rabblement hooted, and clapped their chapped hands, and threw up their sweaty nightcaps, and uttered such a deal of stinking breath because Caesar refused the crown that it had almost choked Caesar; for he swooned and fell down at it. And for mine own part, I durst not laugh for fear of opening my lips and receiving the bad air.

CASSIUS

But soft, I pray you. What, did Caesar swoon?

CASCA He fell down in the market-place, and foamed at mouth, and was speechless.

BRUTUS

‘Tis very like: he hath the falling sickness.

CASSIUS

No, Caesar hath it not; but you and I

And honest Casca, we have the falling sickness.

CASCA I know not what you mean by that, but I am sure Caesar fell down. If the tag-rag people did not clap him and hiss him, according as he pleased and displeased them, as they use to do the players in the theatre, I am no true man.

BRUTUS

What said he when he came unto himself?

CASCA Marry, before he fell down, when he perceived the common herd was glad he refused the crown, he plucked me ope his doublet and offered them his throat to cut. An I had been a man of any occupation, if I would not have taken him at a word, I would I might go to hell among the rogues. And so he fell. When he came to himself again, he said, if he had done or said anything amiss, he desired their worships to think it was his infirmity. Three or four wenches where I stood cried ‘Alas, good soul!’ and forgave him with all their hearts. But there’s no heed to be taken of them: if Caesar had stabbed their mothers they would have done no less.

BRUTUS

And after that he came thus sad away?

CASCA Ay.

CASSIUS Did Cicero say anything?

CASCA Ay, he spoke Greek.

CASSIUS To what effect?

CASCA Nay, an I tell you that, I’ll ne‘er look you i’th’ face again. But those that understood him smiled at one another, and shook their heads. But for mine own part, it was Greek to me. I could tell you more news, too. Murellus and Flavius, for pulling scarves off Caesar’s images, are put to silence. Fare you well. There was more foolery yet, if I could remember it. CASSIUS Will you sup with me tonight, Casca?

CASCA No, I am promised forth.

CASSIUS Will you dine with me tomorrow?

CASCA Ay, if I be alive, and your mind hold, and your dinner worth the eating.

CASSIUS Good; I will expect you.

CASCA Do so. Farewell both. Exit

BRUTUS

What a blunt fellow is this grown to be!

He was quick mettle when he went to school.

CASSIUS

So is he now, in execution

Of any bold or noble enterprise,

However he puts on this tardy form.

This rudeness is a sauce to his good wit,

Which gives men stomach to digest his words

With better appetite.

BRUTUS

And so it is. For this time I will leave you.

Tomorrow, if you please to speak with me,

I will come home to you; or if you will,

Come home to me and I will wait for you.

CASSIUS

I will do so. Till then, think of the world.

Exit Brutus

Well, Brutus, thou art noble; yet I see

Thy honourable mettle may be wrought

From that it is disposed. Therefore it is meet

That noble minds keep ever with their likes;

For who so firm that cannot be seduced?

Caesar doth bear me hard, but he loves Brutus.

If I were Brutus now, and he were Cassius,

He should not humour me. I will this night

In several hands in at his windows throw–

As if they came from several citizens—

Writings, all tending to the great opinion

That Rome holds of his name, wherein obscurely

Caesar’s ambition shall be glanced at.

And after this, let Caesar seat him sure,

For we will shake him, or worse days endure. Exit