IV
Pescetti’s other principal feminine character is the conventional lay figure of the drama of his time: a lifeless automaton who seems to exist solely for the purpose of indulging in intolerably wordy lamentations.[[126]] Yet Pescetti has put in the mouth of this lachrymose puppet a few lines which form the closest parallel to be found between the two plays.
D. Brutus thus replies to Caesar’s depreciation of his flattery:
D. B.— “Non è lingua mortal per pronta, e scaltra
Che sia, non è di dir si ricca vena,
Nè si divino ingegno, che, non dico
Degnamente lodar, ma narrar possa
Le sopr’umane eroiche tue prove.
E se vivesse il grande Omero, altrove
Certo non volgeria l’alto suo stile,
Che a cantar i tuoi fatti eccelsi, e magni,
E tema vil reputaria lo sdegno
D’Achille, e i lunghi error del saggio Ulisse.”
Hereupon Calpurnia exclaims:
“Ahi pur, ch’anzi a gli Euripidi non porga
Materia, onde risuonino i teatri
Ne’secoli avvenir le sue sventure.”
This outburst is entirely lost on Caesar, who says:
“A parlar d’altro omai volgiamo i nostri
Ragionamenti;” . . . .—Ces., pp. 105–106.
Calpurnia’s prophetic doubt is placed in such a setting that its dramatic effect is lost. This, it seems, was too tempting a morsel for Shakespeare’s keen sense of dramatic fitness to overlook, and at the moment when the conspirators have reached the climax of their success, we find him assigning Calpurnia’s speech to the exultant Cassius, to stir the audience with its theatrical effect and to bewilder generations of future critics.
Cas.— “How many ages hence
Shall this our lofty scene be acted over,
In states unborn and accents yet unknown!” Bru.— “How many times shall Caesar bleed in sport,
That now on Pompey’s basis lies along
No worthier than the dust.”[[127]] (III, 1, 112.)
I regard this as the most remarkable parallel between the work of Pescetti and that of Shakespeare. It is entirely too close in word and content to be fortuitous. The dramatic effect of Cassius’ outburst is undeniable; yet its dramatic truth is questionable. All the more so since the speech of Cassius immediately following,
“. . . . . . . So oft as that shall be,
So often shall the knot of us be call’d
The men that gave their country liberty,”
has always impressed me as an anticlimax. This, both in word and in thought, coming so soon after his noble speech, produces the same unpleasant effect as,
“O world, thou wast the forest to this hart,
And this, indeed, O world, the heart of thee,”
which, intruded into Antony’s lament, has caused many critics to regard these lines as interpolations. Nor does Cassius’ first exalted outburst seem in keeping with his character. Of all the conspirators he is the last whom we would expect to find indulging in raptures at such a critical moment. Far more in keeping are his next words,
“Ay, every man away:
Brutus shall lead, and we will grace his heels
With the most boldest and best hearts of Rome.”
This indeed is Cassius; every man on the alert, and every energy bent to insure the successful conclusion of their enterprise.
But, whatever its fitness to the character, Shakespeare, from the point of view of effect, certainly could have found no better place for its introduction. Doubtless, in his day the gentry clenched their pipes, while the gaping groundlings clutched their greasy jerkins, both animated by the same feeling that oversways the modern audience at these ringing prophetic phrases. And then the simple stage direction, “Enter a servant:” the beginning of the end! For sheer dramatic effect few passages in Shakespeare surpass it.