The Tragedy Of Caesar's Revenge

PRINTED FOR THE MALONE SOCIETY BY HORACE HART M.A., AT THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
THE MALONE SOCIETY REPRINTS 1911
This reprint of Caesar’s Revenge has been prepared by F. S. Boas with the assistance of the General Editor.
W. W. Greg.
Oct. 1911.
Plays on the subject of Caius Julius are so numerous that some difficulty arises in properly distinguishing the titles. In the case of the piece here reprinted the first title, which is also the head title, suggests a play of Chapman’s, while the running title is the traditional property of William Shakespeare. It seems, therefore, best that it should become known by the name which appears second on the title-page. And, indeed, there is reason to suppose that it was this title that the piece originally bore, for the entry in the Registers of the Stationers’ Company runs as follows:
John Wright and Nathanael ffossbrook Entred for their Copies vnder the handes of Master Doctor Couell and the wardens A booke called Iulius Caesars reuenge. vj d
No record of performance survives to corroborate the information supplied by the second title-page, but from internal evidence it may be supposed to have taken place some years before publication, the style of the play being modelled on those popular in the last decade of the sixteenth century, especially Tamburlaine and the Spanish Tragedie . The complete absence of comic relief, and the exceptional number of recondite classical allusions, are in favour of the academic origin of the play, and this is perhaps further evidenced by the fact that the source, upon which the anonymous author drew, appears to have been, not Plutarch, but Appian’s Bellum Civile . Appian alone (book II, chapters 113 and 117) names Bucolianus among Caesar’s murderers, though Cicero mentions him twice in his letters to Atticus as Bucilianus. There is also one local reference to connect the play with Oxford, in the lines put into Caesar’s mouth.
A list of personae is given in the original on the verso of the title-leaf. The only omission is that of a Lord who has a part in several scenes.