[32]. In Hamlet I, I, 113 seq. we read.
Hor. A mote it is to trouble the mind’s eye.
In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead,
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets;
As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
Disasters in the sun; and the moist star
Upon whose influence Neptune’s empire stands,
Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.
And even the like precurse of fierce events—
As harbingers preceding still the fates,
And prologue to the omen coming on,—
Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
Unto our climatures and country men.—
The text is obviously corrupt. These lines do not appear in the Folio, nor is there any trace of them in the earliest quarto. It has been conjectured that the poet suppressed this passage in representation, after he had written “Julius Caesar.” Certainly the similarity to Pescetti is striking. The “dews of blood” are again mentioned; also the eclipse of the moon, neither occurring in Plutarch.
[33]. In an account of a visit to London written by Thomas Platter, a merchant of Basle, he mentions a performance of “Julius Caesar,” Sept. 21, 1599. (Ency. Brit., XI. ed., Art. Shakespeare.)
[34]. See “Georgics,” Book I., lines 463–488, for Vergil’s account of the omens.
[35]. Lucan’s account is found in the Pharsalia, Bk. I., lines 523–583; Ovid’s in the Metamorphoses, Bk. XV., lines 783–798.
[36]. Lydgate’s “Fall of Princes,” Boke Sixte, Chap. XI., Leaf CXLVI., Edition of 1558 (see Bibliography).
[37]. Translation by Golding, Ed. 1575.
[38]. Works of Christopher Marlowe. Edited by Alexander Dyce. London. Wm. Pickering, 1850.
[39].