ABOUT THE TEXT
Shakespeare endures through history. He illuminates later times as well as his own. He helps us to understand the human condition. But he cannot do this without a good text of the plays. Without editions there would be no Shakespeare. That is why every twenty years or so throughout the last three centuries there has been a major new edition of his complete works. One aspect of editing is the process of keeping the texts up to date—modernizing the spelling, punctuation, and typography (though not, of course, the actual words), providing explanatory notes in the light of changing educational practices (a generation ago, most of Shakespeare’s classical and biblical allusions could be assumed to be generally understood, but now they can’t).
Because Shakespeare did not personally oversee the publication of his plays, with some plays there are major editorial difficulties. Decisions have to be made as to the relative authority of the early printed editions, the pocket format “Quartos” published in Shakespeare’s lifetime and the elaborately produced “First Folio” text of 1623, the original “Complete Works” prepared for the press after his death by Shakespeare’s fellow actors, the people who knew the plays better than anyone else. Julius Caesar, however, exists only in a Folio text that is exceptionally well printed, showing every sign that the copy from which the compositors were working was legible and clear. The following notes highlight various aspects of the editorial process and indicate conventions used in the text of this edition:
Lists of Parts are supplied in the First Folio for only six plays, not including Julius Caesar, so the list here is editorially supplied. Capitals indicate that part of the name used for speech headings in the script (thus “Marcus BRUTUS, sometime friend of Caesar, then conspirator against him”).
Locations are provided by the Folio for only two plays, of which Julius Caesar is not one. Eighteenth-century editors, working in an age of elaborately realistic stage sets, were the first to provide detailed locations (“another part of the city”). Given that Shakespeare wrote for a bare stage and often an imprecise sense of place, we have relegated locations to the explanatory notes at the foot of the page, where they are given at the beginning of each scene where the imaginary location is different from the one before. In the case of Julius Caesar the action takes place in Rome apart from Brutus’ camp near Sardis and the final battle at Philippi.
Act and Scene Divisions were provided in the Folio in a much more thoroughgoing way than in the Quartos. Sometimes, however, they were erroneous or omitted; corrections and additions supplied by editorial tradition are indicated by square brackets. Five-act division is based on a classical model, and act breaks provided the opportunity to replace the candles in the indoor Blackfriars playhouse which the King’s Men used after 1608, but Shakespeare did not necessarily think in terms of a five-part structure of dramatic composition. The Folio convention is that a scene ends when the stage is empty. Nowadays, partly under the influence of film, we tend to consider a scene to be a dramatic unit that ends with either a change of imaginary location or a significant passage of time within the narrative. Shakespeare’s fluidity of composition accords well with this convention, so in addition to act and scene numbers we provide a running scene count in the right margin at the beginning of each new scene, in the typeface used for editorial directions. Where there is a scene break caused by a momentary bare stage, but the location does not change and extra time does not pass, we use the convention running scene continues. There is inevitably a degree of editorial judgment in making such calls, but the system is very valuable in suggesting the pace of the plays.
Speakers’ Names are often inconsistent in Folio. We have regularized speech headings, but retained an element of deliberate inconsistency in entry directions, in order to give the flavor of Folio.
Verse is indicated by lines that do not run to the right margin and by capitalization of each line. The Folio printers sometimes set verse as prose, and vice versa (either out of misunderstanding or for reasons of space). We have silently corrected in such cases, although in some instances there is ambiguity, in which case we have leaned toward the preservation of Folio layout. Folio sometimes uses contraction (“turnd” rather than “turned”) to indicate whether or not the final “-ed” of a past participle is sounded, an area where there is variation for the sake of the five-beat iambic pentameter rhythm. We use the convention of a grave accent to indicate sounding (thus “turnèd” would be two syllables), but would urge actors not to overstress. In cases where one speaker ends with a verse half line and the next begins with the other half of the pentameter, editors since the late eighteenth century have indented the second line. We have abandoned this convention, since the Folio does not use it, nor did actors’ cues in the Shakespearean theater. An exception is made when the second speaker actively interrupts or completes the first speaker’s sentence.
Spelling is modernized, but older forms are very occasionally maintained where necessary for rhythm or aural effect.
Punctuation in Shakespeare’s time was as much rhetorical as grammatical. “Colon” was originally a term for a unit of thought in an argument. The semicolon was a new unit of punctuation (some of the Quartos lack them altogether). We have modernized punctuation throughout, but have given more weight to Folio punctuation than many editors, since, though not Shakespearean, it reflects the usage of his period. In particular, we have used the colon far more than many editors: it is exceptionally useful as a way of indicating how many Shakespearean speeches unfold clause by clause in a developing argument that gives the illusion of enacting the process of thinking in the moment. We have also kept in mind the origin of punctuation in classical times as a way of assisting the actor and orator: the comma suggests the briefest of pauses for breath, the colon a middling one, and a full stop or period a longer pause. Semicolons, by contrast, belong to an era of punctuation that was only just coming in during Shakespeare’s time and that is coming to an end now: we have accordingly only used them where they occur in our copy texts (and not always then). Dashes are sometimes used for parenthetical interjections where the Folio has brackets. They are also used for interruptions and changes in train of thought. Where a change of addressee occurs within a speech, we have used a dash preceded by a period (or occasionally another form of punctuation). Often the identity of the respective addressees is obvious from the context. When it is not, this has been indicated in a marginal stage direction.
Entrances and Exits are fairly thorough in Folio, which has accordingly been followed as faithfully as possible. Where characters are omitted or corrections are necessary, this is indicated by square brackets (e.g. “[and Attendants]”). Exit is sometimes silently normalized to Exeunt and Manet anglicized to “remains.” We trust Folio positioning of entrances and exits to a greater degree than most editors.
Editorial Stage Directions such as stage business, asides, indications of addressee and of characters’ position on the gallery stage are only used sparingly in Folio. Other editions mingle directions of this kind with original Folio and Quarto directions, sometimes marking them by means of square brackets. We have sought to distinguish what could be described as directorial interventions of this kind from Folio-style directions (either original or supplied) by placing them in the right margin in a smaller typeface. There is a degree of subjectivity about which directions are of which kind, but the procedure is intended as a reminder to the reader and the actor that Shakespearean stage directions are often dependent upon editorial inference alone and are not set in stone. We also depart from editorial tradition in sometimes admitting uncertainty and thus printing permissive stage directions, such as an Aside? (often a line may be equally effective as an aside or as a direct address—it is for each production or reading to make its own decision) or a may exit or a piece of business placed between arrows to indicate that it may occur at various different moments within a scene.
Line Numbers are editorial, for reference and to key the explanatory and textual notes.
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Explanatory Notes explain allusions and gloss obsolete and difficult words, confusing phraseology, occasional major textual cruces, and so on. Particular attention is given to nonstandard usage, bawdy innuendo, and technical terms (e.g. legal and military language). Where more than one sense is given, commas indicate shades of related meaning, slashes alternative or double meanings.
Textual Notes at the end of the play indicate major departures from the Folio. They take the following form: the reading of our text is given in bold and its source given after an equals sign, with “F2” indicating a correction that derives from the Second Folio of 1632, “F3” a correction introduced in the Third Folio of 1664, and “Ed” one that derives from the subsequent editorial tradition. The rejected Folio (“F”) reading is then given. Thus for Act 5 Scene 4 line 18: “tell the = Ed. F = tell thee” means that the Folio text’s “tell thee” has been rejected in favor of the editorial correction “tell the,” which makes better sense of the rest of the First Soldier’s speech.
KEY FACTS
MAJOR PARTS: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Marcus Brutus (28%/194/12), Caius Cassius (20%/140/8), Mark Antony (13%/51/8), Julius Caesar (5%/42/4), Casca (5%/39/4), Portia (4%/16/2), Octavius Caesar (2%/19/3), Decius Brutus (2%/12/3).
LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 95% verse, 5% prose.
DATE: 1599. Not mentioned by Meres in 1598, seen at the Globe by Swiss visitor Thomas Platter in September 1599. Alluded to in several plays and poems by other writers in the period 1599–1601.
SOURCES: Based on the biographies of Julius Caesar and Marcus Brutus, with brief reference to the life of Cicero, in Sir Thomas North’s English translation of Plutarch’s Lives of the Most Noble Grecians and Romanes (1579).
TEXT: 1623 Folio is the only early printed text. Exceptionally good quality of printing, perhaps set from the theater promptbook or a transcription of it. Some editors have detected signs of revision in the fact that Brutus is told twice of Portia’s suicide, and proposed that one or other account should be deleted, but in the theater this double testing of his Stoic response is highly effective.
LIST OF PARTS
Julius CAESAR
CALPURNIA, his Wife
Marcus BRUTUS, sometime friend of Caesar, then conspirator against him
PORTIA, his wife
other conspirators against Caesar
Caius CASSIUS
CASCA
DECIUS Brutus
CINNA
METELLUS Cimber
TREBONIUS
Caius LIGARIUS
triumvirs of Rome after Caesar’s death
Mark ANTONY
OCTAVIUS Caesar
LEPIDUS
A SOOTHSAYER
ARTEMIDORUS, a teacher of rhetoric
CINNA, a poet
Another POET
senators
CICERO
PUBLIUS
POPILIUS
tribunes of the people
MURELLUS
FLAVIUS
A CARPENTER
A COBBLER
FIRST, SECOND, THIRD, FOURTH and FIFTH PLEBEIANS
LUCIUS, Brutus’ young servant
PINDARUS, Cassius’ bondman
supporters of Brutus and Cassius
LUCILIUS
TITINIUS
MESSALA
CATO
STRATO
CLAUDIO
VARRUS
CLITUS
DARDANIUS
VOLUMNIUS
SERVANT, to Caesar
SERVANT, to Antony
SERVANT, to Octavius
A MESSENGER
FIRST, SECOND and THIRD SOLDIERS, members of Brutus and Cassius’ army
FIRST and SECOND SOLDIERS, members of Antony’s army
GHOST, Caesar’s ghost
Other Commoners, Senators and Soldiers
Act 1 Scene 1
running scene 1
Enter Flavius, Murellus and certain Commoners over the stage
FLAVIUS Hence!1 Home, you idle creatures, get you home:
Is this a holiday? What, know you not,
Being mechanical, you ought not walk3
Upon a labouring day, without the sign4
Of your profession?— Speak, what trade art thou?
CARPENTER Why, sir, a carpenter.
MURELLUS Where is thy leather apron, and thy rule7?
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 but10 as
you would say, a cobbler11.
MURELLUS But what trade art thou? Answer me directly12.
COBBLER A trade, sir, that I hope, I may use with a safe
conscience, which is indeed, sir, a mender of bad soles14.
FLAVIUS What trade, thou knave? Thou naughty15 knave, what trade?
COBBLER Nay I beseech you, sir, be not out16 with me: yet if you
be out, sir, I can mend you17.
MURELLUS What mean’st thou by that? Mend me, thou saucy fellow?
COBBLER Why sir, cobble20 you.
FLAVIUS Thou art a cobbler, art thou?
COBBLER Truly sir, all that I live by is with the awl. I meddle21
with no tradesman’s matters, nor women’s matters22; but
withal I am indeed, sir, a surgeon to old shoes23: when they are
in great danger, I recover them. As proper men as ever trod24
upon neat’s leather have gone upon my handiwork25.
FLAVIUS But wherefore26 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 triumph30.
MURELLUS Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?
What tributaries32 follow him to Rome
To grace33 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 Pompey36? 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 livelong40 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 Tiber44 trembled underneath her banks
To hear the replication45 of your sounds
Made in her concave46 shores?
And do you now put on your best attire?
And do you now cull out48 a holiday?
And do you now strew flowers in his way
That comes in triumph over Pompey’s blood50?
Be gone!
Run to your houses, fall upon your knees,
Pray to the gods to intermit53 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 stream58
Do kiss the most exalted shores of all.—
Exeunt all the Commoners
See where their basest mettle be not moved60:
They vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness.
Go you down that way towards the Capitol62,
This way will I: disrobe the images63
If you do find them decked with ceremonies64.
MURELLUS May we do so?
You know it is the feast of Lupercal66.
FLAVIUS It is no matter. Let no images
Be hung with Caesar’s trophies. I’ll about68
And drive away the vulgar69 from the
streets;
So do you too, where you perceive them thick70.
These growing feathers plucked from Caesar’s wing
Will make him fly an ordinary pitch72,
Who else73 would soar above the view of men,
And keep us all in servile fearfulness.
Exeunt
[Act 1 Scene 2]
running scene 1 continues
Enter Caesar, Antony for the course, Calpurnia, Portia, Decius, Cicero, Brutus, Cassius, Casca, a Soothsayer, after them Murellus and Flavius
CAESAR Calpurnia.
CASCA Peace, ho2! Caesar speaks.
CAESAR Calpurnia.
CALPURNIA Here, my lord.
CAESAR Stand you directly in Antonio’s way5
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 touchèd 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 stops
CAESAR Who is it in the press18 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 March21.
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.
Soothsayer comes forward
CAESAR What say’st thou to me now? Speak once again.
SOOTHSAYER Beware the Ides of March.
CAESAR He is a dreamer. Let us leave him: pass.
Julius Caesar Page 2
