ABSTRACT
In Plutarch the visitant is not identified as Cresar's ghost (cf: IV.3.273 s.d. and V.5.17) but as Brutus' 'evil spirit', or 'genius', and the comments of classical scholars in the Renaissance showed that this was akin to the Bad Angel which haunted Marlowe's Faustus (inf 116). The 'evil spirit' came to warn a man of approaching doom whether deserved or not. Dramatic tradition however had already turned it into Cresar's ghost. In Gesar's Revenge it urges Antony and Octavius to seek 'a just revenge' (1. 205 I) rather than fight one another, appears to Brutus twice (2281 and 2502), and ends the play exulting with Discord. Shakespeare's ghost, following Plutarch closely, is laconic, and Brutus, quickly recovering from his fear, courageously accepts what it forebodes. He would like to think it a figment of his imagination, but knows it is not and is unafraid ('Ill spirit, I would hold more talk with thee'); yet he wakes his boy and officers and questions them. He shows no sign of conscience. The ghost is an evil portent, no more.
