[130]. Of the above only the fact that the conspiracy was revealed to her is recorded by Plutarch in this connection.
[131]. Fortune.
[132]. Alexander, in his younger days, travelled in France, Spain and Italy. He was high in the favor of James VI. of Scotland and accompanied him to London in 1603, where he became an intimate of Prince Henry. That he was well and favorably known to the authors of the day may be inferred from the dedication of a sonnet to him by Michael Drayton.
[133]. In Shakespeare Soc. Pub., 1874, p. 357. Also his Life of Shakespeare, 1886, p. 215–6.
[134]. The allusion to the phrase Act III, Sc. 1.
“Know, Caesar doth not wrong, nor without cause
Will he be satisfied.”
This originally stood:
“Caesar did never wrong but with just cause” and is ridiculed by Jonson in his “Discoveries.” It is quite likely that the Caesar in the play as originally written was an even more self-important individual than he is at present. Possibly Shakespeare saw no absurdity in the line when he first penned it. Caesar, in his own estimation, is semi-divine. The cause of things is in his will. What might seem wrong to the mob was not so to Caesar, for he felt that the cause was just, no matter what the world thought. That was sufficient. The apparent contradiction in terms thus seems capable of explanation.
[135]. Appendix to Vol. IV of the Cambridge History of English Literature. Also M. A. Scott, Elizabethan Translations from the Italian. Mod. Lang. Assoc. Pub., X. to XIV., 1895–99.