In the presence of those who had slain Cæsar, and over his dead body at the foot of Pompey’s statue, “which all the while ran blood,” Marc Antony poured forth his fine avowal of continued fidelity to his friend (Julius Cæsar, act iii. sc. 1, l. 205, vol. vii. p. 368),—
“Pardon me, Julius! Here wast thou bay’d, brave hart;
Here didst thou fall, and here thy hunters stand,
Sign’d in thy spoil and crimson’d in thy lethe.
O world! thou wast the forest to this hart;
And this, indeed, O world, the heart of thee.
How like a deer strucken by many princes
Dost thou here lie!”
The same metaphor from the wounded deer is introduced in Hamlet (act iii. sc. 2, l. 259, vol. viii. p. 97). The acting of the play has had on the king’s mind the influence which Hamlet hoped for; and as in haste and confusion the royal party disperse, he recites the stanza,—
“Why, let the stricken deer go weep,