ABSTRACT
Julius Cesar which he has been suppressing (1.2.51-70). Brutus, confessing that he would not have Cresar king, adds 'yet I love him well', a reference maybe to the fact that Cresar had forgiven him his part with Pompey in the Civil War, but his virtue makes him set justice ('the general good' (1. 85)) above his personal wishes. 'That Brutus could evil away with the tyranny, and that Cassius hated the tyrant' (inf. 94) is shown in lines 8df, when Cassius belittles Cresar by distorting qualities described more favourably by Plutarch. Thus Plutarch and other authorities told how Cresar's prowess in swimming enabled him to escape from the Egyptians in Alexandria. Any reader of the Roman chroniclers would doubt Cassius' veracity at 99-115, or at least recall the other story. Similarly Cassius builds on Plutarch's statement hat Cresar was 'often subject to headache, and otherwhile to the falling sickness: (the which took him the first time, as it is reported in Corduba, a city of Spain)' (inf. 66) as a proof of weakness (119-28), whereas Plutarch insisted that Cresar did not give way to his ailments. In the light of the sources this dialogue shows Cassius as a mean and partial enemy; and I cannot believe that Shakespeare meant us to think much worse of Cresar for it. What moves Brutus is not this envious malice but his own fears which agree with Cassius' closing reference (157-60) to Lucius Junius Brutus who drove out the Tarquins. Brutus' reply ends the discussion, 'What you would work me to, I have some aim', and, referring to his own previous reflections, suggests, not that he will take part in a murder-plot, but that he may withdraw from Rome: 'Brutus had rather be a villager .. .' With this for the moment Cassius must be content. The winning of Brutus to the conspiracy is not so easy in the playas in Plutarch.
