One might safely conclude, even if the date had not been otherwise settled, that anything so offensive as this never was produced in the presence of Queen Elizabeth. King James might be flattered into swallowing even such treasonable stuff as this; but in her time, the poor lion was compelled to aggravate his voice after another fashion. Nothing much above the sucking-dove pitch, could be ventured on when her quick ears were present. He 'roared you' indeed, all through her part of the Elizabethan time; but it was like any nightingale. The clash and clang of these Roman Plays were for the less sensitive and more learned Stuart.
Metellus Cimber. Most high, most mighty,
And most puissant Caesar;
Metellus Cimber throws before thy seat
An humble heart:—[Kneeling.]
Caesar. I must prevent thee, Cimber.
These couchings and these lowly courtesies:
Might fire the blood of ordinary men;
AND TURN PRE-ORDINANCE, and FIRST DECREE,
INTO THE LAW OF CHILDREN.
Be not fond
To think that CAESAR bears such REBEL blood,
That will be thawed from the true quality,
With that which melteth FOOLS. (?) I mean, sweet words,
Low, crooked curtsies, and base spaniel fawning.
Thy brother by decree is banished;
If thou dost bend, and pray, and fawn for him,
I spurn thee like a cur, out of my way.
Know CAESAR DOTH NOT WRONG.
To appreciate this, one must recall not merely the humiliating personal prostrations which the ceremonial of the English Court required then, but that base prostration of truth and duty and honour, under the feet of vanity and will and passion, which they symbolized.
Thus far Caesar, but the subject's views on this point, as here set forth, are scarcely less explicit, but then it is a Roman subject who speaks, and the Roman costume and features, look savingly through the lion's neck.
One of the radical technicalities of that new philosophy of the human nature which permeates all this historical exhibition, comes in here, however; and it is one which must be mastered before any of these plays can be really read. The radical point in the new philosophy, as it applies to the human nature in particular, is the pivot on which all turns here,—here as elsewhere in the writings of this school,—the distinction of 'the double self,' the distinction between the particular and private nature, with its unenlightened instincts of passion, humour, will, caprice,—that self which is changeful, at war with itself, self-inconsistent, and, therefore, truly, no SELF,—since the true self is the principle of identity and immutability,—the distinction between that 'private' nature when it is developed instinctively as 'selfishness,' and that rational immutable self which is constitutionally present though latent, in all men, and one in them all; that noble special human form which embraces and reconciles in its intention, the private good with the good of that worthier whole whereof we are individually parts and members; 'this is the distinction on which all turns here.' For this philosophy refuses, on philosophical grounds, to accept this low, instinctive private nature, in any dressing up of accidental power as the god of its idolatry, in place of that 'divine or angelical nature, which is the perfection of the human form,' and the true sovereignty. Obedience to that nature,—'the approach to, or assumption of,' that makes, in this philosophy, the end of the human endeavour, 'and the error and false imitation of that good, is that which is the tempest of the human life.'
But let us hear the passionate Cassius, who is full of individualities himself, and ready to tyrannize with them, but somehow, as it would seem, not fond of submitting to the 'single self' in others.
'Well, honour is the subject of my story.—
I can not tell what you, and other men,
Think of this life; but for my single self,
I had as lief not BE, as live to be
In awe of such a thing as I myself.
I was born free as Caesar; so were you.
We both have fed as well: and we can both
Endure the winter's cold as well as he.'—
And the proof of this personal equality is then given; and it is precisely the one which Lear produces, 'When the wind made me chatter, there I found them,—there I smelt them out.'—
'For once upon a raw and gusty day,
The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores, etc.
* * * * *
—Caesar cried, Help me, Cassius, or I sink.
—And this man
Is now become a god, and Cassius is
A wretched creature, and must bend his body,
If Caesar carelessly but nod on him.
He had a fever when he was in Spain,
And when the fit was on him—I did mark
How he did shake: 'tis true, this god did shake.'