Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

114

And not for justice? What, shall one of us,
That struck the foremost man of all this world,
But for supporting robbers; shall we now
Contaminate our fingers with base bribes,
And sell the mighty space of our large honours
For so much trash as may be graspéd thus ?-
I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon,
Than such a Roman.

Cas. Brutus, bait1 not me,

I'll not endure it; you forget yourself,
To hedge me in: I am a soldier, I,
Older in practice, abler than yourself
To make conditions.

Bru. Go to: you are not, Cassius.
Cas. I am.

Bru. I say, you are not.

Cas. Urge me no more, I shall forget myself-
Have mind upon your health-tempt me no farther.
Bru. Away, slight man!

Cas. Is't possible?

Bru. Hear me, for I will speak.

Must I give way and room to your rash choler?

Shall I be frighted, when a madman stares?

Cas. O Gods! ye Gods! must I endure all this?

Bru. All this! ay, more. Fret till your proud heart break;

Go, show your slaves how choleric you are,

And make your bondmen tremble. Must I budge?

Must I observe you? must I stand and crouch
Under your testy humour? by the Gods,
You shall digest the venom of your spleen,
Though it do split you: for, from this day forth,
I'll use you for my mirth, yea, for my laughter,
When you are waspishi.

Cas. Is it come to this?

Bru. You say you are a better soldier :

Let it appear so; make your vaunting true,

And it shall please me well. For mine own part,

I shall be glad to learn of noble men.

Cas. You wrong me-every way you wrong me, Brutus ;

I said, an elder soldier; not a better.

Did I say, better?

Bru. If you did, I care not.

Cas. When Cæsar lived, he durst not thus have moved me.

1 Bear-baiting, a favourite amusement of the days of Elizabeth, furnishes frequent allusions in Shakespeare and the other dramatic writers ;

They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly,

But bear-like I must fight the cause.-Macb. v. 7.

Another reading is bay, retorting the expression in the preceding line: but the words seem in origin to be the same; see bait, Richardson's Dict.

2 In presuming to control or censure me. To make conditions; "to know on what terms it is fit to confer the offices at my disposal."-Johnson.

Bru. Peace, peace; you durst not so have tempted him.

Cas. I durst not!

Bru. No.

Cas. What? durst not tempt him?

Bru. For your life you durst not.

Cas. Do not presume too much upon my love;

I may do that I shall be sorry for.

Bru. You have done that you should be sorry for.
There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats;

For I am armed so strong in honesty,

That they pass by me as the idle wind

Which I respect not. I did send to you

For certain sums of gold, which you denied me;
For I can raise no money by vile means.
By Heaven, I had rather coin my heart,

And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wring
From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash,
By any indirection. I did send

To you for gold to pay my legions,
Which you denied me.

Was that done like Cassius?
Should I have answered Caius Cassius so?
When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous,
To lock such rascal counters from his friends,
Be ready, Gods, with all your thunderbolts,
Dash him to pieces.

Cas. I denied you not.

Bru. You did.

Cas. I did not-he was but a fool

That brought my answer back.-Brutus hath riv'd my heart.

A friend should bear a friend's infirmities;

But Brutus makes mine greater than they are.

Bru. I do not, till you practise them on me.1

Cas. You love me not.

Bru. I do not like your faults.

Cas. A friendly eye could never see such faults.
Bru. A flatterer's would not, though they do appear
As huge as high Olympus.

Cas. Come Antony, and young Octavius, come;
Revenge yourselves alone on Cassius,

For Cassius is a-weary of the world;

Hated by one he loves; braved by his brother;
Checked like a bondman; all his faults observed,
Set in a note-book, learned, and conned by rote,
To cast into my teeth. O, I could weep

My spirit from mine eyes!-There is my dagger,
And here, my naked breast! within, a heart
Dearer than Plutus' mine, richer than gold;

1 Till you goad me into exaggeration by the annoyance they occasion. This line has great beauty when viewed in connection with the succeeding scene.

If that thou be'st a Roman,1 take it forth.

I, that denied thee gold, will give my heart:
Strike, as thou didst at Cæsar; for I know,

When thou didst hate him worst, thou lovedst him better
Than ever thou lovedst Cassius.

Bru. Sheath your dagger.

Be angry when you will, it shall have scope;
Do what you will, dishonour shall be humour.2
O Cassius, you are yokéd with a lamb,
That carries anger, as the flint bears fire;
Who, much enforcéd, shows a hasty spark,
And straight is cold again.

Cas. Hath Cassius lived

To be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus,
When grief and blood ill-tempered vexeth him?
Bru. When I spoke that, I was ill-tempered too.
Cas. Do you confess so much? give me your hand.
Bru. And my heart too.
[Embracing.

Cas. O Brutus !

Bru. What's the matter?

Cas. Have you not love enough to bear with me,
When that rash humour which my mother gave me
Makes me forgetful?

Bru. Yes, Cassius; and, from henceforth,

When you are over-earnest with your Brutus,
He'll think your mother chides, and leave you so.3

FROM HAMLET.

HORATIO ANNOUNCES THE APPEARANCE OF THE GHOST.
ACT I. SC. 2.

Hamlet, Horatio, Bernardo, Marcellus.

Hor. Hail to your Lordship!

Ham. I am glad to see you well:

Horatio, -or I do forget myself?

Hor. The same, my Lord, and your poor servant ever. Ham. Sir, my good friend: I'll change that name with you. And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?-Marcellus ! Mar. My good Lord

Ham. I'm very glad to see you;-good even, Sir.

[To Bernardo.

But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?
Hor. A truant disposition, good my Lord.

1 So far from being parsimonious, I would give to a Roman my heart in the cause of my country.

2 I will treat as your foible.

The dramatic merit of this scene cannot be properly estimated without reference to those that succeed.

4 The abstraction of his sorrow prevents him from at first noticing who it is that addresses him.

5 Exchange.

Ham. I would not hear your enemy say so;
Nor shall you do mine ear that violence,
To make it truster of your own report
Against yourself. I know you are no truant.
But what is your affair in Elsinore?

We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.1
Hor. My Lord, I came to see your father's funeral.
Ham. I pr'ythee do not mock me, fellow-student;

I think it was to see my mother's wedding.

Hor. Indeed, my Lord, it follow'd hard upon.

Ham. Thrift, thrift, Horatio; the funeral bak'd meats Did coldly furnish forth the marriage-tables. 'Would I had met my dearest foe in heav'n,

Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!

My father methinks I see my father!
Hor. O where, my Lord ?3

Ham. In my mind's eye, Horatio.

Hor. I saw him once, he was a goodly king.
Ham. He was a man, take him for all in all,

I shall not look upon his like again.

Hor. My Lord, I think I saw him yesternight.
Ham. Saw!-whom?-

Hor. My Lord, the King your father.

Ham. The King my father!

Hor. Season your admiration but a while

With an attent ear, till I may deliver,

Upon the witness of these gentlemen,

This marvel to you.

Ham. For Heav'n's love let me hear.

Hor. Two nights together had these gentlemen,
Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch,

In the dead vasts and middle of the night,

Been thus encounter'd. A figure like your father,
Arm'd at all points exactly, cap-à-pé,

Appears before them, and in solemn march
Goes slow and stately by them; thrice he walk'd
By their oppress'd and fear-surprised eyes,

Within his truncheon's length; whilst they, distill'd
Almost to jelly with the act of fear,

Stand dumb and speak not to him. This to me
In dreadful' secrecy impart they did,

And I with them the third night kept the watch;

1 He tries to assume the tone of their university companionship.

2 "For direst, most dreadful and dangerous. "-Johnson. It seems rather to mean the foe in whose punishment I felt the deepest and most eager interest. This exclamation is very natural in the state of Horatio's mind.

"Eye."-Holt.

5 Waist" is another reading.

"Act" applies to voluntary, "power" to involuntary agents; but act is applied popularly to both.-Johnson.

? Used here passively, not in the common meaning of causing dread: in the same manner, fearful in the Tempest, Act I. Sc 2. "He's gentle and not fearful;" i. e. afraid. By a similar exchange of sense, fear is used actively for terrify: "He shall not go: I but fear the knave."-B. Jonson, Every Man in his Humour.

Where, as they had deliver'd, both in time,
Form of the thing, each word made true and good,
The apparition comes. I knew your father:

These hands are not more like.

Ham. But where was this?

Mar. My Lord, upon the platform where we watch'd.
Ham. Did you not speak to it?

Hor. My Lord, I did,

But answer made it none; yet once, methought,

It lifted up its head, and did address

Itself to motion, like as it would speak:

But even then the morning cock crew loud;

And at the sound it shrunk in haste away,

And vanish'd from our sight.

Ham. 'Tis very strange.

Hor. As I do live, my honour'd Lord, 'tis true;
And we did think it writ down in our duty

To let you know of it.

Ham. Indeed, indeed, Sirs, but this troubles me.

Hold you the watch to-night?

Both. We do, my Lord.

Ham. Arm'd, say you?1

Both. Arm'd, my Lord.

Ham. From top to toe ?2

Both. My Lord, from head to foot.

Ham. Then saw you not his face?

Hor. Oh, yes, my Lord, he wore his beaver up.s

Ham. What, look'd he frowningly?

Hor. A count'nance more in sorrow than in anger.
Ham. Pale, or red?

Hor. Nay, very pale.

Ham. And fix'd his eyes upon you?

Hor. Most constantly.

Ham. I would I had been there!

Hor. It would have much amaz'd you.

Ham. Very like. 5-Staid it long?

Hor. While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred.

Both. Longer, longer.

Hor. Not when I saw't.

Ham. His beard was grisly?

Hor. It was, as I have seen it in his life,

A sable silver'd.

Ham. I'll watch to-night; perchance 'twill walk again.
Hor. I warrant you it will.

1 These words, and those under notes 2 and 5, seem to be uttered mechanically while his mind is absorbed by Horatio's intelligence.

2 See note 1.

4 But Horatio in

See note 1.

See note 4, p. 58.

the first scene mentions specially the ghost's frown ;-
So frowned he once, when, in an angry parle,

He smote the sledded Polack on the ice.

« AnteriorContinuar »