Page:Julius Caesar (1919) Yale.djvu/111

 NOTES

Marullus. The Folios spell this name incorrectly, 'Murellus.' The emendation, based on Plutarch and other conclusive ancient authorities, is Theobald's. On similar grounds, certain other orthographical vagaries have been corrected in most of the modern editions: e.g., the Folios print 'Calphurnia,' 'Antonio,' 'Claudio,' 'Varrus,' etc. On the other hand, 'Decius Brutus' for 'Decimus' is a genuine confusion of identity which Shakespeare took over from North's Plutarch (see Appendix A).

with awl. The original Folio pointing and spelling of the text will serve to suggest a further pun not obvious in the modern texts: 'I meddle with no Tradesmans matters, nor womens matters; but withal I am indeed Sir, a Surgeon to old shooes.'

triumph. This triumph celebrated Cæsar's defeat of the sons of Pompey at the battle of Munda, in Spain, March 17, B. C. 45, and was the first such recognition of a Roman's victory over any but a foreign foe.—Shakespeare throughout has compressed the historical duration of the play's action considerably, in the interests of dramatic effectiveness: so here he has this triumph coincide with the festival of the Lupercalia, February 15, B. C. 44; in Act III he places the murder, the funeral orations, and the arrival of Octavius all on the same day, whereas in reality some two months elapsed between the earliest and the latest of these events; and in Act V he combines in a single action the two battles of Philippi, whicn really were separated by a three-week interval. See further, for the use of 'Double Time' in this play, the note on II. i. 61, 62.

her. 'Father Tiber' would seem to