.
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