ABSTRACT

Insisting on Cresar's natural fearlessness Shakespeare introduces (32-7) a reference to his saying that 'it was better to die once than always to be afraid of death' (inf. 78). Those who suppose that he 'did fear ... somewhat' and was glad to blame it on his wife must ignore his first words to Decius Brutus when he prefers to risk offending the Senators rather than 'send a lie' or 'be afeard to tell grey beards the truth' (57-68). Behind this and Decius' desire for a reason lies Shakespeare's knowledge that Cresar was already suspected of despising the Senate. Calpurnia's dream, now related, includes details not in Plutarch-but based on him-that Cresar's statue ran blood (as Pompey's did at the assassination-inf 86) and that Romans 'did bathe their hands in it' (as did the conspirators in III. I. I 05-13). Decius' favourable interpretation is Shakespeare's invention and recalls the opposite interpretations of Gloucester's dream in 2 Henry VI 1.2. He appeals to Cresar's fear of misrepresentation as in Plutarch, but Shakespeare brings Brutus, Antony and others to take him to the Senate, and includes an aged Senator, Publius, who is not in the plot and who will be introduced again after the murder to prove the conspirators' goodwill toward the Senate (III. I .85-93). In an aside Brutus grieves over the treacherous part he has to play (11.2.126-9). The introduction (11.3) of the rhetorician Artemidorus with his paper giving the names of the plotters (as in the Mirrorfor Magistrates [Text XI]), excites suspense which is increased by Portia's fears in 11+

Shakespeare might have made an occasion for 'Brutus to show his Stoic constancy here, for Plutarch says (illf. Brutus 100) that he was informed that 'his wife was dying' but 'he left not off the care of his country and commonwealth, neither went home to his house for any news he heard'. In some of Shakespeare's plays such an anticipation of his behaviour when she really died might have been used. But in Julius Ct2sar there is less repetition than usual.