Non hai l’animo mio compreso appieno?
Dell’ amor, ch’io ti porto, ancor potuto
Non ho farti ben chiaro? E tu mi stimi
Si poco amante, ch’io potessi senza
Tè star un’ ora in vita? Bru. Io sò, che m’ami:
Ma sò dall’ altra parte, che non meno
Saggia, che amante se’.”—P. 50.
The scene is now spun out to include a series of mutual protestations of love. It concludes as Calpurnia is seen coming out of the temple, whereupon Brutus and Portia descend from amatory dialogue to vulgar eavesdropping.
Plutarch relates that when Portia showed Brutus the wound in her thigh, “he was amazed to hear what she said to him, and lifting up his hands to heaven, he besought the gods to give him the grace he might bring his enterprise in so good pass, that he might be found a husband worthy of so noble a wife as Portia: so then he did comfort her the best he could.”[[125]] Pescetti does not rest Brutus’ appreciation of his wife on this basis; he rejoices in the possession of a wife so spirited. Shakespeare idealizes the situation in Brutus’ exclamation:
“O ye gods!