Brutus: How ill this taper burns! Ha! who comes here?
I think it is the weakness of mine eyes
That shapes this monstrous apparition.
It comes upon me. Art thou any thing?
Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil
That makest my blood cold, and my hair to stare?
Speak to me what thou art!
His very “scare,” or rather his cold blood and staring hair are as
things apart, to be analysed and explained quickly and put aside.
Ghost: Thy evil spirit, Brutus.
That was frank enough, anyway.
Brutus: Why comest thou?
Ghost: To tell thee thou shalt see me at Philippi.
Brutus: Well; then I shall see thee again?
Ghost: Ay, at Philippi.
(Vanishes.)
That was very satisfactory, so far. But Brutus, having taken heart,
as he says, would hold more talk with the “ill spirit.” A ghost always
needs to be taken quietly--it's no use getting excited and threshing
round. But Caesar's, being a new-chum ghost and bashful, was doubtless
embarrassed by his cool, matter-of-fact reception, and left. It didn't
matter much. They were to meet soon, above Philippi, on more level
terms.
But I cannot get away from the idea that Caesar's ghost's visit was made
in a friendly spirit. Who knows? Perhaps Portia's spirit had sent it to
comfort Brutus: her own being prevented from going for some reason only
known to the immortal gods.
Then Brutus wakes them all.
Lucius: The strings, my lord, are false.
Brutus: He thinks he is still at his instrument.
Lucius, awake!
And after questioning them as to whether they cried out in their sleep,
or saw anything, he bids the boy sleep again (it is easy for tired boys
to sleep at will in camp) and sends two of the others to Cassius to bid
him get his forces on the way early and he would follow.
Brutus: Go and commend me to my brother Cassius;
Bid him set on his powers betimes before,
And we will follow.
Varro and Claudius: It shall be done, my lord.
For, being a wise soldier, as well as a brave and gentle one, he
reckoned, no doubt, that it would be best to have a strong man in the
rear until the field was actually reached, for the benefit of would-be
deserters, and unconsidered trifles of country people-and maybe for
another reason not totally disconnected with his erratic friend Cassius.
Just one more scene, and a very different one, before we hurry on to the
end, as they have done to Philippi. It's the only scene in which those
two unlucky Romans, Cassius and Brutus, seem to score.
It is during the barney, or as Shakespeare calls it, the “parley” before
the battle. Those parleys never seemed to do any good--except to make
matters worse, if I might put it like that: it's the same, under similar
circumstances, right up to to-day. Enter on one side Octavius Caesar,
Mark Antony, and their pals and army; and, on the other, Brutus and
Cassius and the friends and followers of their falling fortunes.
Brutus: Words before blows: is it so, countrymen?
Octavius: Not that we love words better, as you do.
You see, Octavius starts it.
Brutus lays himself open:
Brutus: Good words are better than bad strokes, Octavius.
Antony: In your bad strokes, Brutus, you give good words:
Witness the hole you made in Caesar's heart,
Crying, “Long live! hail, Caesar!”
This is one for Brutus, though it contains a lie. But Cassius comes to
the rescue:
Cassius: Antony,
The posture of your blows are yet unknown,
But, for your words, they rob the Hybla bees
And leave them honeyless.
Antony: Not stingless too.
Brutus: O, yes, and soundless too;
For you have stol'n their buzzing, Antony,
And very wisely threat before you sting.
That was one for Antony, and he gets mad. “Villains!” he yells, and he
abuses them about their vile daggers hacking one another in the sides
of Caesar (a little matter that ought to be worn threadbare by now),
and calls them apes and hounds and bondmen and curs, and O, flatterers
(which seems to be worst of all in his opinion--for he isn't one, you
know), and damns 'em generally.
Old Cassius remarks, “Flatterers!”
Then Octavius breaks loose, and draws his Roman chopper and waves
it round, and spreads himself out over Caesar's three-and-thirty
wounds--which ought to be given a rest by this time, but only seem to
be growing in number--and swears that he won't put up said chopper till
said wounds are avenged,
Or till another Caesar
Have added slaughter to the sword of traitors.
Brutus says quietly that he cannot die by traitors unless he brings 'em
with him. (He sent one to Egypt later on.) Octavius says he hopes he
wasn't born to die on Brutus's sword; and Brutus says, in effect, that
even if he was any good he couldn't die more honourably.
Brutus: O, if thou wert the noblest of thy strain,
Young man, thou couldst not die more honourable.
Cassius: A peevish schoolboy, worthless of such honour,
Join'd with a masker and a reveller!
Octavius calls off his dogs, and tells them to come on to-day if they
dare, or if not, when they have stomachs.
Cassius: Why, now, blow wind, swell billow, and swim bark!
The storm is up, and all is on the hazard.
Yes, I reckon old Cassius (“old” in an affectionate sense) and Brutus
came out top dogs from that scrap anyway. And, yes, Antony _was_ good
at orating. He was great at orating over dead men--especially dead
“friends” (as he called his rivals) and dead enemies. Brutus was “the
noblest Roman of them all” when Antony came across him stiff later on.
Now when I die--
Octavius, by the way, orated over Antony and his dusky hussy later on
in Egypt, and they were the most “famous pair” in the world. I wonder
whether the grim humour of it struck Octavius _then_: but then that
young man seemed to have but little brains and less humour.
But now they go to see about settling the matter with ironmongery. You
can imagine the fight; the heat and the dust, for it was spring in a
climate like ours. The bullocking, sweating, grunting, slaughter, the
crack and clash and rattle as of fire-irons in a fender. The bad Latin
language; the running away and chasing _en masse_ and by individuals.
The mutual pauses, the truces or spells--“smoke-ho's” we'd call
'em--between masses and individuals. The battered-in, lost, discarded or
stolen helmets; the blood-stained, dinted, and loosened armour with bits
missing, and the bloody and grotesque bandages. The confusion amongst
the soldiers, as it is to-day--the ignorance of one wing as to the
fate of the other, of one party as to the fate of the other, of one
individual as to the fate of another:
Brutus: Ride, ride, Messala, ride, and give these bills [directions
to officers]
Unto the legions on the other side:
Poor Cassius, routed and in danger of being surrounded, and thinking
Brutus is in the same plight, or a prisoner or dead--and that Titinius
is taken or killed--gets his bondman, whose life he once saved, to kill
him in return for his freedom.
Stand not to answer: here, take thou the hilts;
And when my face is cover 'd, as 'tis now,
Guide thou the sword.
Caesar, thou art revenged,
Even with the sword that kill'd thee.
Good-bye, Cassius, old chap!
Titinius and Messala, coming too late, find Cassius dead; and Titinius,
being left alone while Messala takes the news to Brutus, kills himself
with Cassius's sword. Titinius, farewell!
Come Brutus and those that are left.
Brutus: Where, where, Messala, doth his body lie?
Messala: Lo, yonder, and Titinius mourning it.
Brutus: Titinius' face is upward.
Cato: He is slain.
Grim mates in a grim day in a grim hour. Then the cry of Brutus:
O Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet!
But if he were, perhaps he only gathered old Cassius and Titinius to
be sure of their company with him and Brutus amongst the gods a little
later.
Brutus: Friends, I owe more tears
To this dead man than you shall see me pay.
I shall find time, Cassius, I shall find time.
And, after making arrangements for the removal of Cassius's body, they
go to try their fortunes in a second fight. Young Cato is killed and
good Lucilius taken. Comes Brutus beaten, with Dardanius his last
friend, and his three servants, Clitus, Strato, and Volumnius.
Brutus: Come, poor remains of friends, rest on this rock.
Strato, exhausted, goes to sleep, as man can sleep during a battle; and
Brutus whispers the others, one after another, to kill him; but they are
shocked and refuse: “I'll rather kill myself,” “I do such a deed?” etc.
He begs Volumnius, his old schoolmate, to hold his sword-hilt while he
runs on it, for their love of old.
Volumnius: That's not the office for a friend, my lord.
There are alarums, and they urge him to fly, for it's no use stopping
there.
Brutus: Farewell to you; and you; and you, Volumnius.
Strato, thou hast been all this while asleep;
Farewell to thee too, Strato! Countrymen,
My heart doth joy that yet in all my life
I found so man but he was true to me.
Ye gods! but it's grand. I wish to our God that I could say as much--or
that man or woman [n]ever found me untrue. Could Antony say as much,
afterwards, in Egypt--or Octavius! with Antony then on his mind? Even
Antony's last man and servant failed him in the end, killing himself
rather than kill his master. But Strato--
There are more alarums and voices calling to them to run. They urge
Brutus again, and he tells them to go and he'll follow. They all run
except Strato, who hesitates.
Brutus: I prithee, Strato, stay thou by thy lord:
Thou art a fellow of a good respect;
Thy life hath had some snatch of honour in it
Hold then my sword, and turn away thy face,
While I do run upon it. Wilt thou, Strato?
Strato: Give me your hand first: fare you well, my lord.
Brutus: Farewell, good Strato. Caesar, now be still:
I kill'd not thee with half so good a will.
Brutus, good night!
I like Shakespeare's servants. They seem to show that he sprang from
servants or common people rather than from lords and masters, for he
deals with them very gently. It must be understood that servants, bond
and free, were born unto the same house and served it for generations;
and so down to modern England, where the old nurse and the tottering old
gardener often nursed and played with “Master Will,” when his father,
the dead and gone old squire, was a young man.
See where Timon's servants stand in the only patch of sunlight in that
black and bitter story:
Enter Flavius, with two or three SERVANTS.
1 Serv.: Hear you, master steward, where's our master?
Are we undone? cast off? nothing remaining?
Flav.: Alack, my fellows, what should I say to you?
Let me be recorded by the righteous gods,
I am as poor as you.
1 Serv.: Such a house broke!
So noble a master fall'n! All gone! and not
One friend to take his fortune by the arm,
And go along with him!
2 Serv.: As we do turn our backs
From our companion thrown into his grave,
So his familiars to his buried fortunes
Slink all away; leave their false vows with him,
Like empty purses pick'd; and his poor self,
A dedicated beggar to the air,
With his disease of all-shunn'd poverty,
Walks, like contempt, alone. More of our fellows.