But the selection, assortment and filiation of the data are not more conspicuous in the construction of the plot than in the execution of the details. There will be frequent occasion to touch incidentally on these and similar processes in the discussion of other matters, but here it may be well to illustrate them separately, so far as that is possible when nearly every particular instance shows the influence of more than one of them.
Thus while Shakespeare’s picture of the very perfect union of Brutus and Portia is taken almost in its entirety from Plutarch, who was himself so keenly alive to the beauty of such a wedlock, the charm of the traits he adopts is heightened by the absence of those he rejects. Probably indeed he did not know, for Plutarch does not mention it, that Brutus had been married before, and had got rid of his first wife by the simple and regular expedient of sending her home to her father. But he did know that Portia, too, had a first husband, Bibulus, “by whom she had also a young sonne.” The ideal beauty of their relation is unbrushed by any hint of their previous alliances.
So, too, he attributes the coolness between Brutus and Cassius at the beginning of the story merely to Brutus’ inward conflicts, and to Cassius’ misconstruction of his preoccupation. In point of fact, it had a more definite and less creditable cause. According to Plutarch, they had both been strenuous rivals for the position of City Praetor, Brutus recommended by his “vertue and good name,” Cassius by his “many noble exploytes” against the Parthians. Caesar, saying “Cassius cause is juster, but Brutus must be first preferred,” had given Brutus the chief dignity and Cassius the second: therefore “they grew straunge together for the sute they had for the praetorshippe.” But it would not answer Shakespeare’s purpose to show Brutus as moved by personal ambitions, or either of them as aspiring for honours that Caesar could grant.
There are few better examples of the way in which Shakespeare rearranges his material than the employment he makes of Plutarch’s enumeration of the portents that preceded the assassination. It is given as immediate preface to the catastrophe of the Ides.
Certainly, destenie may easier be foreseene then avoyded; considering the straunge and wonderfull signes that were sayd to be seene before Caesars death. For touching the fires in the element, and spirites running up and downe in the night, and also these solitarie birdes to be seene at noone dayes sittinge in the great market place: are not all these signes perhappes worth the noting in such a wonderfull chaunce as happened? But Strabo the Philosopher wryteth, that divers men were seene going up and downe in fire: and furthermore, that there was a slave of the souldiers, that did cast a marvelous burning flame out of his hande, insomuch as they that saw it, thought he had been burnt, but when the fire was out, it was found he had no hurt. Caesar selfe also doing sacrifice unto the Goddes, found that one of the beastes which was sacrificed had no hart: and that was a straunge thing in nature, how a beast could live without a hart. Furthermore, there was a certain soothsayer that had geven Caesar warning long time affore, to take heede of the day of the Ides of Marche (which is the fifteenth of the moneth), for on that day he should be in great daunger. That day being come, Caesar going into the Senate house, and speaking merily to the Soothsayer, tolde him, ‘The Ides of Marche be come’: ‘So be they’, softly aunswered the Soothsayer, ‘but yet are they not past.’ And the very day before, Caesar supping with Marcus Lepidus, sealed certaine letters as he was wont to do at the bord: so talke falling out amongest them, reasoning what death was best: he preventing their opinions, cried out alowde, ‘Death unlooked for.’ Then going to bedde the same night as his manner was, and lying with his wife Calpurnia, all the windowes and dores of his chamber flying open, the noyse awooke him, and made him affrayed when he saw such light: but more when he heard his wife Calpurnia, being fast a sleepe weepe and sigh, and put forth many fumbling and lamentable speaches. For she dreamed that Caesar was slaine, and that she had him in her armes.[158]
It is interesting to note how Shakespeare takes this passage to pieces and assigns those of them for which he has a place to their fitting and effective position. Plutarch’s reflections on destiny and Caesar’s opinions on death he leaves aside. The first warning of the soothsayer he refers back to the Lupercalia, and the second he shifts forward to its natural place. Calpurnia’s outcries in her sleep and her prophetic dream, the apparition of the ghosts mentioned by her among the other prodigies, the lack of the heart in the sacrificial beast, are reserved for the scene of her expostulation with Caesar, and are dramatically distributed between the various speakers, Caesar, the servant, Calpurnia herself. Shakespeare relies on the fiery heavens and the fire-girt shapes, the flaming hand and the boding bird for his grand effect, and puts them in a setting where they gain unspeakably in supernatural awe. Of course Shakespeare individualises Plutarch’s hints and adds new touches. But the main terror is due to something else. We are made to view these portents in the reflex light of Casca’s panic. He has just witnessed them, or believes that he has done so, and now breathless, staring, his naked sword in his hand, the storm raging around, he gasps out his amazement at Cicero’s composure:
Are not you moved, when all the sway of earth
Shakes like a thing unfirm? O Cicero,
I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds
Have rived the knotty oaks, and I have seen