Page:Julius Caesar (1919) Yale.djvu/113

Julius Cæsar in the following, refers to Brutus, not to Caesar. Cassius then says: 'If I had Brutus' standing with Cæsar and Brutus only mine, Brutus should not (as easily as I mean to beguile him into doing so) talk me into forgoing the advantages afforded by Caesar's favor.'

cast yourself in wonder. 'Plunge head-long into, abjectly abandon yourself to, unreasoning wonder.' Cf. 'cast down,' and the etymology of 'abject.' There is no need for emendation, though 'case' has been widely accepted.

Why old men, fools, and children calculate. This line has occasioned much discussion. Many editors emend it thus: 'Why old men fool, and children calculate,' i.e., 'Why the wise are foolish and the foolish wise.' But against this emendation may be urged the facts that 'old men' are not always 'wise,' in Shakespeare or elsewhere, and that the unaltered text affords an acceptable meaning: 'Why dotards, idiots, and infants so far depart from their ordinary characteristics as to utter the profound truths of divination.'

'The idea seems to be that, as men start a huge fire with worthless straws or shavings, so Cæsar is using the degenerate Romans of the time, to set the whole world ablaze with his own glory.' (Hudson.)

Pompey's porch. A magnificent colonnade or portico surrounding an open area which contained avenues of sycamore trees, fountains, and statues; it was attached to Pompey's theatre (line 152), in the Campus Martins, the first stone theatre to be erected in Rome.

Crown him that. 'Once make him that—i.e., once let him become the full-grown adder—by crowning him, and then I realize that we shall be rendering actual a peril (sting) which now is only