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. I have made strong proof of my constancy, Giving myself a voluntary wound 300 Here, in the thigh: can I bear that with patience, And not my husband's secrets? BRUTUS. O ye gods, Render me worthy of this noble wife! [_Knocking within_] Hark, hark! one knocks. Portia, go in a while; And by and by thy bosom shall partake 305 The secrets of my heart: All my engagements I will construe to thee, All the charactery of my sad brows. Leave me with haste. [_Exit_ PORTIA] Lucius, who's that knocks? [Note 303: [_Knocking within_] Malone | Knocke F1 F2.] [Note 289-290: This embodies what was known about the circulation of the blood at the close of the sixteenth century. In 1616, the year of Shakespeare's death, William Harvey, born in 1578, lectured on his great discovery, but his celebrated treatise was not published until 1628. The general fact of the circulation was known in ancient times, and Harvey's discovery lay in ascertaining the _modus operandi_ of it, and in reducing it to matter of strict science.] [Note 295: Cf. _The Merchant of Venice_, I, 1, 166: Her name is Portia, nothing undervalued To Cato's daughter, Brutus' Portia.] [Note 308: /charactery:/ "writing by characters or strange marks." Brutus therefore means that he will divulge to her the secret cause of the sadness marked on his countenance. 'Charactery' seems to mean simply 'writing' in the well-known passage in _The Merry Wives of Windsor_, V, v, 77: "Fairies use flowers for their charactery." So in Keats: "Before high-piled books in charactery Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain."] [Note 309: Editors from Pope down have been busy trying to mend the grammar and the rhythm of this line. But in Shakespeare the full pause has often the value of a syllable, and the omission of the relative is common in Elizabethan literature. See Abbott, Sect. 244.] [Page 64] _Re-enter_ LUCIUS _with_ LIGARIUS LUCIUS. Here is a sick man that would speak with you. 310 BRUTUS. Caius Ligarius, that Metellus spake of. Boy, stand aside. Caius Ligarius! how? LIGARIUS. Vouchsafe good morrow from a feeble tongue. BRUTUS. O, what a time have you chose out, brave Caius, To wear a kerchief! Would you were not sick! 315 LIGARIUS. I am not sick, if Brutus have in hand Any exploit worthy the na
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