Julius Caesar, whose remembrance yet
Lives in men’s eyes, and will to ears and tongues
Be theme and hearing ever.
(III. i. 2.)
Or if the fault that Brutus enforced is brought to view, the very fault becomes a grandiose and superhuman thing:
Caesar’s ambition,
Which swell’d so much, that it did almost stretch
The sides o’ the world.
(III. i. 49.)
The subject then was one of widespread interest and had an abiding fascination for Shakespeare himself. After leaving national history in Henry V. he seems to have turned to the history of Rome for the first Tragedy of his prime in a spirit much like that in which he had gone to the English Chronicles. And he goes to it much in the same way. It has been said that in most of the earlier series “Holinshed is hardly ever out of the poet’s hands.”[148] Substituting Plutarch for Holinshed the expression is true in this case too. An occasional phrase like the Et tu, Brute, he obtained elsewhere, most probably from familiar literary usage, but conceivably from the lost Latin play of Dr. Eedes or Geddes. Stray hints he may have derived from other authorities; for instance, though this is not certain, a suggestion or two from Appian’s Civil Wars for Mark Antony’s Oration.[149] It is even possible that he may have been directed to the conception and treatment of a few longer passages by his general reading: thus, as we have seen, it has been maintained not without plausibility that the first conversation between Brutus and Cassius can be traced to the corresponding scene in the Cornélie.[150] But in Plutarch he found practically all the stuff and substance for his play, except what was contributed by his own genius; and any other ingredients are nearly imperceptible and altogether negligible. Plutarch, however, has given much. All the persons except Lucius come from him, and Shakespeare owes to him a number of their characteristics down to the minutest traits. Cassius’ leanness and Antony’s sleekness, Brutus’ fondness for his books and cultivation of an artificial style, Caesar’s liability to the falling sickness and vein of arrogance in his later years, are all touches that are taken over from the Biographer. So too with the events and circumstances, and in the main, the sequence in which they are presented. Plutarch tells of the disapproval with which the triumph over Pompey’s sons was regarded; of the prophecy of danger on the Ides of March; of the offer of the crown on the Lupercal; of the punishment of the Tribunes; of Cassius’ conference with Brutus; of the anonymous solicitations that are sent to the latter; of the respect in which he was held; of his relations with his wife, and her demand to share his confidence; of the enthusiasm of the conspirators, their contempt for an oath, their rejection of Cicero as confederate, their exemption of Antony at Brutus’ request; of Ligarius’ disregard of his illness; of the prodigies and portents that preceded Caesar’s death; of Calpurnia’s dream, her efforts to stay her husband at home and the counter arguments of Decius Brutus; of Artemidorus’ intervention, the second meeting with the soothsayer; of Portia’s paroxysm of anxiety; of all the details of the assassination scene; of the speeches to the people by Brutus and Antony; of the effects of Caesar’s funeral; of the murder of the poet Cinna; of the proscription of the Triumvirate; of the disagreement of Brutus and Cassius on other matters and with reference to Pella, and the interruption of the intruder; of the apparition of the spirit, and the death of Portia; of Brutus’ discussion with Cassius on suicide; of his imprudence at Philippi; of the double issue and repetition of the battle; of the death of Cassius and Brutus on their own swords; of the surrender of Lucilius; of Antony’s eulogy of Brutus. There is thus hardly a link in the action that was not forged on Plutarch’s anvil.