ut,
'Help, ho! they murder Caesar!' Who's within?
[Note: SCENE II Rowe | Scene IV Pope.] [Note: --CAESAR'S
_house_ | Ff omit.] [Note: _Enter_ CAESAR ... | Enter Julius
Caesar ... Ff.--_in his night-gown_ Pope omits.]
[Note 1: Two lines in Ff.]
[Note: This scene, taken with the preceding, affords an
interesting study in contrasts: Caesar and Brutus; Calpurnia
the yielding wife, and Portia the heroic.]
[Note: _Enter_ CAESAR _in his night-gown_.' Night-gown' here,
as in _Macbeth_, II, ii, 70, V, 1, 5, means 'dressing-robe' or
'dressing-gown.' This is the usual meaning of the word in
English from the fifteenth century to the eighteenth. So
Addison and Steele use it in _The Spectator_.]
[Note 2: In Plutarch the scene is thus graphically described:
"Then going to bed the same night, as his manner was, and
lying with his wife Calpurnia, all the windows and doors of
his chamber flying open, the noise awoke him, and made him
afraid when he saw such light; but more, when he heard his
wife Calpurnia, being fast asleep, weep and sigh, and put
forth many fumbling lamentable speeches: for she dreamed that
Caesar was slain.... Caesar rising in the morning, she prayed
him, if it were possible, not to go out of the doors that day,
but to adjourn the session of the Senate until another day.
And if that he made no reckoning of her dream, yet that he
would search further of the soothsayers by their sacrifices,
to know what should happen him that day. Thereby it seemed
that Caesar did likewise fear or suspect somewhat, because his
wife Calpurnia until that time was never given to any fear and
superstition; and that then he saw her so troubled in mind
with this dream she had. But much more afterwards, when the
soothsayers having sacrificed many beasts one after another,
told him that none did like[A] them: then he determined to
send Antonius to adjourn the session of the Senate."--_Julius
Caesar._]
[Note A: i.e. satisfy.]
[Page 67]
_Enter a_ Servant
SERVANT. My lord?
CAESAR. Go bid the priests do present sacrifice, 5
And bring me their opinions of success.
SERVANT. I will, my lord. [_Exit_]
_Enter_ CALPURNIA
CALPURNIA. What mean you, Caesar? think you to walk forth?
You shall not stir out of your house to-day. 9
CAESAR. Caesar shall forth: the things that threaten'd me
Ne'er look'd but on my back; when they shall see
The face of Caes
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