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.
V
The other persons in “Cesare” may be dismissed in a few words. The Nurse and the Priest are simply the conventional lay figures of the drama of the time, while Decimus Brutus seems to have been included because he happened to be in the histories. Neither he nor Lenate possesses any individuality, and considered solely in themselves, contribute nothing of value to this investigation.
“CESARE” IN ENGLAND
Pescetti’s work, tedious as it is to the modern reader, was not without its attractions to the Elizabethan. An age which could produce “Polyolbions” could very well tolerate a “Cesare.” It was cast in the popular dramatic form, dealt with a popular theme, and above all, came from a land inseparably connected in the public mind with romance and tragedy. To the Elizabethan, “Ex Italia, semper aliquid novi.” That the work was probably known to English authors receives additional support from the use seemingly made of it by Sir William Alexander (Earl of Stirling) in his own “Tragedy of Julius Caesar.”
Alexander’s work was issued about 1604–7. Of it, Dr. T. A. Lester says: “In general it may be said that Alexander follows Grévin, availing himself not only of Grévin’s original scenes, but also of Grévin’s non-Plutarchian order.... There can be little doubt that Alexander’s ‘Julius Caesar’ is nothing but Grévin’s ‘Cesar’ rewritten and enlarged.”[[128]] Alexander followed Grévin, but he did so with an admixture of Pescetti.
Prof. H. M. Ayres claims that Alexander got his Prologue from the Hercules Furens of Seneca, substituting Caesar for Hercules as the object of Juno’s wrath. Pescetti’s Prologue is one of the curious things about his drama. Such an introduction is lacking in both Muretus and Grévin.[[129]] Possibly both Alexander and Pescetti got their idea from Seneca, but there are parallels in content between the two which are only faintly adumbrated in the Latin author. Juno’s censure of Jove’s amours in the Scotchman’s work bears a very close resemblance to the denunciations of Venus as recorded by the Italian. The threat of civil strife and discord are found in each. But more important is the fact that in certain scenes lacking in Grévin, there is a close parallel between Alexander and Pescetti.
Thus, in the dialogue concerning Antony, Pescetti has:
Cas.— Parmi d’avere scorto in Marcantonio
Disio di dominar: perciò s’in tutto
Vogliam la patria assicurar, spegniamo
Anco lui col Tiranno, e fuor degli occhi
Tragghiamci questo stecco, che potrebbe,
Quando che sia, non poca briga darne.
Che tu sai ben, quanto li siano amici
I veterani, e quanto acconcio ei sia
Gli animi a concitar del volgo insano. Bru.— S’ad altri, oltre al Tiranno, darem morte,
Si stimerà dal volgo, che le cose
Sempre stravolge, e falsamente espone,
Che non disio di liberar la patria,
Ma privato odio, e brama di vendetta
A ciò sospinti n’abbia, e di quell’opra,
Onde da noi s’attende eterna fama,
N’acquisterem vergogna, e biasmo eterno:
E dove nome di pietà cerchiamo,
Sarem del titol d’empietà notati;
Nè perciò a noi gran fatto avrem giovato: . . . . . . . . . . . In somma e’ non si deve
Punir, chi non hà errato, e a me non basta
L’animo di dar morte a chi nocciuto
Non m’hà, nè fatto ingiuria. . . . . . . . . . . . Cas.— Bruto, tu se’ troppo pietoso; voglia
Il Ciel, che questa tua pietà non sia
Un giorno a noi crudel. Nel risanare
Dall’ ulcere nascenti i corpi il ferro,
E ’l fuoco oprar convien, che tu ben sai,
Che’l medico pietoso infistolisce
La piaga, e spesso tutto il corpo infetta.
In the “Tragedy of Julius Caesar” we read: