And bears with glasses, elephants with holes,
Lions with toils, and men with flatterers;
But when I tell him he hates flatterers,
He says he does, being then most flattered.
Let me work;

For I can give his humour the true bent,
And I will bring him to the Capitol.

Cas. Nay, we will all of us be there to fetch him.
Bru. By the eighth hour: is that the uttermost ?
Cin. Be that the uttermost, and fail not then.
Met. Caius Ligarius doth bear Cæsar hard,

Who rated him for speaking well of Pompey :
I wonder none of you have thought of him.
Bru. Now, good Metellus, go along by him:

205

210

215

220

He loves me well, and I have given him reasons; Send him but hither, and I'll fashion him. Cas. The morning comes upon 's: we'll leave you, Brutus. And, friends, disperse yourselves; but all remember

215. hard] F 1; hatred F 2, 3, 4.

205. with glasses] Shakespeare may have derived his information from a passage in Maplet's Green Forest, published in 1567, which is quoted by Beeching: "And the same (Pliny) saith also that there is another way that some huntsmen beguile her (the tiger) with, as to bestrew and spread in the way glass, by the which she coming and espying her own shadow represented, weeneth through such sight that these were of her young." Shakespeare perhaps remembered the passage imperfectly and thought that it referred to bears.

205. holes] concealed pits into which they fall. Somerville in the third book of his Chase describes how elephants are captured by pitfalls,

and how mirrors are used in hunting tigers or leopards.

209. work] work him, exert my influence on him.

210. true bent] the proper direction. 213. eighth hour] See note on 192. 215. bear Cæsar hard] See note on 1. ii. 318.

216. rated him] According to Plutarch, Ligarius was accused of taking part with Pompey and discharged by Cæsar. This, however, did not prevent him from hating Cæsar on account of the tyrannical power that he exercised.

218. by him] past his house, so that you may visit him on the way. 220. fashion] = "work" in 1. ii. 161. Compare 209.

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:
And so good morrow to you every one.

Boy! Lucius !

225

[Exeunt all but Brutus.

Fast asleep? It is no matter;
Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber :
Thou hast no figures nor no fantasies

230. honey-heavy dew] hony-heavy-Dew Ff, heavy honey-dew Collier.

224. fresh and merrily] freshly and merrily. So in the Merchant of Venice, II. i. 46, "blest or cursed'st' =most blest or most cursed. For the way in which prefixes and suffixes can be understood from one word and attached to another, see note on i. 1. 26.

225. Let not, etc.] let our looks conceal our purposes and not reveal them by their external appearance.

226. Roman actors] Compare Mas-
singer's Roman Actor and Beaumont
and Fletcher's Double Marriage, Act
I. ii., where the heroine says:
"Father, this is a glorious stage of
murder !

Here are fine properties too, and
such spectators

As will expect good action! To
the life

Let us perform our parts."
227. formal constancy] dignity and
firmness. Compare 299 and 11I. i. 22.
230. honey-heavy dew] Sleep is
often compared to dew on account of
the softness of its falling on the eyes.
Compare Eneid, v. 854, Richard III.
IV. i. 84, "golden dew of sleep,"
P. L. iv. 614, "the timely dew of
sleep," and Keble's evening hymn,

230

"the soft dews of kindly sleep." The epithet "honey-heavy" adds the idea of soundness and sweetness. Perhaps also soporific power may have been attributed to honey on the strength of Eneid, vi. 420. It is possible that Shakespeare may have intended "honey-heavy dew" to be equivalent to "honey dew," the name of the sweet moisture that is found on the leaves of plants in the early morning. It is really secreted from the plants, but was supposed to be a kind of dew. Honey-dew is mentioned in Coleridge's Kubla Khan and in Titus Andronicus, III. i. III:

"Then fresh tears Stood on her cheeks, as doth the honey-dew

Upon a gathered lily almost withered."

With the compound "honey-heavy" compare "thought - sick," Hamlet, III. iv. 51, "fancy-free," M. N. D. II. i. 164, and other compounds given in Abbott, sec. 430.

231. Thou hast, etc.] Compare the contrast drawn by Henry IV. between himself and the wet sea-boy in 2 Henry IV. II. i.

231. figures] spectres produced by

Por.

Which busy care draws in the brains of men;
Therefore thou sleep'st so sound.

Enter PORTIA.

Brutus, my lord!

235

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've ungently, Brutus,
Stole from my bed; and yesternight at supper

You suddenly arose, and walk'd about,
Musing and sighing, with your arms across,
And when I ask'd you what the matter was,
You star'd upon me with ungentle looks.

240

I urg'd you further; then you scratch'd your head,
And too impatiently stamp'd with your foot;

Yet I insisted, yet you answer'd not,

245

But with an angry wafture of your hand,

246. wafture] Rowe, wafter Ff. the imagination, as in Merry Wives of Windsor, IV. ii. 231: "If it be but to scrape the figures out of your husband's brain." The verb "figure" means "imagine" in Measure for Measure, 1. ii. 53: "Thou art always figuring diseases in me." Macbeth's visionary dagger, Clarence's dream, and the spectres that Shakespeare represents as appearing to Richard III. before his last battle, are instances of figures drawn in the brains of men by care.

231. nor no] For the double negative in this line and in 237, see Abbott, sec. 406.

233. Brutus, my lord!] The dialogue between Brutus and Portia is closely imitated in the opening scene of Beaumont and Fletcher's Double Marriage.

234. Portia] is correctly spelt Porcia

in North's Plutarch. The spelling in the text is, however, probably Shakespeare's spelling, as the name is so spelt in the Merchant of Venice, 1. i. 166, where Portia, the heroine of that play, is declared to be "nothing undervalued to Cato's daughter, Brutus' Portia."

240. your arms across] For this attitude of melancholy musing, compare Lucrece, 793, Love's Labour's Lost, IV. iii. 135, Tempest, 1. ii. 224, and Beaumont and Fletcher's Philaster, II. i.:

"If it be love To sit cross-armed and sigh away

the day."

246. wafture] act of waving. Compare the use of the verb in the Folio of Hamlet, 1. iv. 61: "It wafts you to a more removed ground"-i.e. it beckons you with a wave of the hand.

Gave sign for me to leave you. So I did,

Fearing to strengthen that impatience
Which seem'd too much enkindled, and withal
Hoping it was but an effect of humour,
Which sometime hath his hour with every man.
It will not let you eat, nor talk, nor sleep,
And could it work so much upon your shape
As it hath much prevail'd on your condition,

250

I should not know you, Brutus. Dear my lord, 255
Make me acquainted with your cause of grief.

Bru. I am not well in health, and that is all.
Por. Brutus is wise, and, were he not in health,

He would embrace the means to come by it.
Bru. Why, so I do. Good Portia, go to bed.
Por. Is Brutus sick, and is it physical

To walk unbraced and suck up the humours

251. his] See note on I. ii. 123. 252. It refers to "impatience" in 248.

254. condition] state of mind. Compare Desdemona's remarks on the change in her husband:

"My lord is not my lord; nor

should I know him,

Were he in favour as in humour altered" (Othello, 111. iv. 125). For the meaning of 66 condition compare "the condition of a saint" (Merchant of Venice, I. ii. 143). In 236, "condition meant "state of bodily health.' Here it expresses

"state of mind."

255. Dear my lord] See Abbott, sec. 13.

257. that is all] Here the virtue of Brutus does not prevent him from telling a lie, as Portia proves by her reply, in which is implied an ordinary syllogism followed by a conjunctive syllogism of the modus tollens.

259. come by it] obtain health.

260

261. sick] This wider use of "sick" survives in Ireland, America, and India, and in such expressions as "sick bed," "sick nurse.'

261. physical good for the health, as in Coriolanus, I. v. 19.

262. unbraced] Here, as in 1. ii. 266, iii. 48, Shakespeare gives his Romans the Elizabethan doublet. Compare Hamlet, II. i. 78: "Lord Hamlet with his doublet all unbraced." The doublet could be loosened or tightened, when the wearer wished to be warmer or colder, by means of laces. Murray quotes from Palsgrave (1530), "I will lace my doublet for taking of cold." The Romans wore nothing closely corresponding to the doublet. Under the toga they wore a tunic, which was like a shirt; but the Roman tunic does not appear to have been capable of being tightened or loosened by means of laces or buttons.

Bru.

Of the dank morning? What! is Brutus sick,
And will he steal out of his wholesome bed
To dare the vile contagion of the night,
And tempt the rheumy and unpurged air
To add unto his sickness? No, my Brutus ;
You have some sick offence within your mind,
Which, by the right and virtue of my place,
I ought to know of; and, upon my knees,
I charm you, by my once-commended beauty,
By all your vows of love, and that great vow
Which did incorporate and make us one,
That you unfold to me, your self, your half,
Why you are heavy, and what men to-night
Have had resort to you; for here have been
Some six or seven, who did hide their faces
Even from darkness.

Kneel not, gentle Portia.

Por. I should not need, if you were gentle Brutus.

265

270

275

Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus, 280 Is it excepted I should know no secrets 263. dank] 1; dark F 2, 3, 4. 271. charm] Ff, charge Pope. gentle Brutus] Ff, gentle, Brutus Staunton.

279.

quotes for this use of the word, Moufet's Silkworms, 1599:

"She Pyram drench'd and then thus charms,

'Speak, love, O speak, how happened this to thee?'"

273. incorporate] Compare Matt. xix. 5: "And they twain shall be one flesh."

274. half] Compare the now colloquial "better half," which occurs in Sidney's Arcadia.

275. heavy] depressed with sadness. Compare "heavy-sad," Richard II. II. ii. 30.