ceed when they wish to have a thing
done, and to shirk the responsibility; setting it on by dark
hints and allusions, and then, after it is done, affecting to
blame or to scold the doers of it.]

[Note 180: /purgers:/ healers, cleansers of the land from
tyranny.]

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And for Mark Antony, think not of him;
For he can do no more than Caesar's arm
When Caesar's head is off.

CASSIUS. Yet I fear him,
For in the ingrafted love he bears to Caesar--

BRUTUS. Alas, good Cassius, do not think of him: 185
If he love Caesar, all that he can do
Is to himself, take thought and die for Caesar:
And that were much he should, for he is given
To sports, to wildness, and much company. 189

TREBONIUS. There is no fear in him; let him not die;
For he will live, and laugh at this hereafter. [_Clock strikes_]

BRUTUS. Peace! count the clock.

CASSIUS. The clock hath stricken three.

TREBONIUS. 'Tis time to part.

[Note 187: 'Think and die,' as in _Antony and Cleopatra_, III,
xiii, 1, seems to have been a proverbial expression meaning
'grieve oneself to death'; and it would be much indeed, a very
wonderful thing, if Antony should fall into any killing
sorrow, such a light-hearted, jolly companion as he is. Cf.
_Hamlet_, III, i, 85. 'Thoughtful' (sometimes in the form
'thoughtish') is a common provincial expression for
'melancholy' in Cumberland and Roxburghshire to-day.]

[Note 188-189: Here is Plutarch's account in _Marcus
Antonius_, of contemporary criticism of Antony's habits: "And
on the other side, the noblemen (as Cicero saith), did not
only mislike him, but also hate him for his naughty life: for
they did abhor his banquets and drunken feasts he made at
unseasonable times, and his extreme wasteful expenses upon
vain light huswives; and then in the daytime he would sleep or
walk out his drunkenness, thinking to wear away the fume of
the abundance of wine which he had taken over night."]

[Note 190: /no fear:/ no cause of fear. Cf. _The Merchant of
Venice_, II, i, 9.]

[Note 192: /stricken./ In II, ii, 114, we have the form
'strucken.' An interesting anachronism is this matter of a
striking clock in old Rome.]

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CASSIUS. But it is doubtful yet
Whether Caesar will come forth to-day or no;
For he is superstitious grown of late, 195
Quite from