Henry Lawson

“ Hold then my sword, and turn away thy face,
While I do run upon it. Wilt thou, Strato?
Strato: Give me your hand first: fare you well, my lord.
Brutus: Farewell, good Strato. Caesar, now be still:
I kill’d not thee with half so good a will.
Brutus, good night!
I like Shakespeare’s servants. They seem to show that he sprang from servants or common people rather than from lords and masters, for he deals with them very gently. It must be understood that servants, bond and free, were born unto the same house and served it for generations ”

“ He’s hated by one he loves (that’s Brutus) . He’s braved by his “brother” (Brutus) , checked like a bondman, and Brutus keeps an eye on all his faults and puts ‘em down in a note-book, and learns ‘em over and gets ‘em off by memory to cast in his teeth. He offers Brutus his dagger and bare breast and wants Brutus to take out his heart, which, he says, is richer than all the quids—or rather gold—which Brutus said he wouldn’t lend him. He wants Brutus to strike him as he did Caesar, for he reckons that when Brutus hated Caesar worst he loved him far better than ever he loved Cassius. ”

“ But Cassius will cool no more until death cools him to-morrow at Philippi.
The rare gentleness of Brutus’s character—and of the characters of thousands of other bosses in trouble—is splendidly, and ah! so softly, pictured in the tent with his servants after the departure of the others. It is a purely domestic scene without a hint of home, women, or children—save that they themselves are big children. ”

“ Brutus: Why comest thou?
Ghost: To tell thee thou shalt see me at Philippi.
Brutus: Well; then I shall see thee again?
Ghost: Ay, at Philippi.
(Vanishes.)
That was very satisfactory, so far. But Brutus, having taken heart, as he says, would hold more talk with the “ill spirit.” A ghost always needs to be taken quietly—it’s no use getting excited and threshing round. But Caesar’s, being a new-chum ghost and bashful, was doubtless embarrassed by his cool, matter-of-fact reception, and left. It didn’t matter much. They were to meet soon, above Philippi, on more level terms. ”

“ Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall inherit a black eye (Lawson) . Shakespeare was ever rough on poets—but stay! Consider that this great world of Rome and all the men and women in it were created by a “jingling fool” and a master of bad—not to say execrable—rhymes, and his name was William Shakespeare. You need to sit down and think awhile after that.
Brutus sends Lucilius and Titinius to bid the commanders lodge their companies for the night, and then all come to him. Then he gives Cassius a shock and strikes him to the heart for his share in the quarrel. ”

“ Poor Messala comes to the scratch again rather lamely with a little weak flattery: “Even so great men great losses should endure;” and Cassius says, rather mixedly—it might have been the wine—that he has as much strength in bearing trouble as Brutus has, and yet he couldn’t bear it so. ”

“ It seems also that Brutus thinks that Cassius refused to lend him a few quid to pay his legions, and, you know, it’s an unpardonable crime for one mate to refuse another a few quid when he’s in a hole; but it seems that the messenger was but a fool who brought Cassius’s answer back. It is generally the messenger who is to blame, when friends make it up after a quarrel that was all their own fault. Messengers had an uncomfortable time in those days, as witness the case of the base slave who had to bring Cleopatra the news of Antony’s marriage with Octavia. ”

“ Titinius and Messala: Good night, Lord Brutus.
Brutus: Farewell, every one.
And Cassius is the man whom Caesar denounced as having a lean and hungry look: “Let me have men about me that are fat... such men are dangerous.” (Mr Archibald held with that—and he had a lean, if not a hungry, look too.) When Antony put in a word for Cassius, Caesar said that he wished he was fatter anyhow. “He thinks too much,” Caesar said to Antony. He read a lot; he could look through men; he never went to the theatre, and heard no music ”

“ For, being a wise soldier, as well as a brave and gentle one, he reckoned, no doubt, that it would be best to have a strong man in the rear until the field was actually reached, for the benefit of would-be deserters, and unconsidered trifles of country people-and maybe for another reason not totally disconnected with his erratic friend Cassius. Just one more scene, and a very different one, before we hurry on to the end, as they have done to Philippi. It’s the only scene in which those two unlucky Romans, Cassius and Brutus, seem to score. ”

“ Caesar said that such men were never at heart’s ease while they could see a bigger man than themselves, and therefore such men were dangerous. “Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf, and tell me truly what thou think’st of him.” ”

“ I’ll take it from thee; and, good boy, good-night.
Let me see, let me see; is not the leaf turn’d down
Where I left reading? Here it is, I think.
(He sits down.)
A man for all time! How natural it all reads! ”