Ch’ altro non son, che vane ombre, e fantasmi.
Quel, che di me prefisso è il ciel, conviene,
Che sia: ne per por mente a sogni, ò a segni
Potrò schivarlo, e folle à me colui
Sembra, che teme quel, che per consiglio,
Nè per saver uman non può schivarsi.”[[76]]—Pp. 76–77.
Let it be noted that Caesar is addressing Calpurnia in the presence of the Priest, and it would ill become the conqueror of the world to show fear or vacillation before them. He is discussing his wife’s dream, yet in spite of his expressed disbelief in omens, it was he who ordered the fateful sacrifice, which, as the First Messenger announces after the catastrophe, he himself inspected. Evidently he was in doubt even then, but his vanity and the urging of the conspirators lured him to his doom. Compare his boasts of fearlessness with Shakespeare:
“Would he were fatter! but I fear him not:
Yet if my name were liable to fear,
I do not know the man I should avoid