When he had saide thus, he pulled up his gowne lyke a man beside hymselfe, and gyrded it, that he might the better stirre his handes: he stoode ouer the Litter, as from a Tabernacle, looking into it and opening it, and firste sang his Himne, as to a God in heauen. And to confirme he was a God, he held up his hands, and with a swift voice he rehearsed the warres, the fights, the victories, the nations that he had subdued to his countrey, and the great booties that he had sent, making euery one to be a maruell. Then with a continuall crie,
“This is the only unconquered of all that euer came to hands with hym. Thou (quoth he) alone diddest reuenge thy countrey being iniured, 300 years, and those fierce nations that only inuaded Rome, and only burned it, thou broughtest them on their knees.”
And when he had made these and many other inuocations, he tourned hys voice from triumphe to mourning matter, and began to lament and mone him as a friend that had bin uniustly used, and did desire that he might giue hys soule for Caesars. Then falling into moste vehement affections, uncouered Caesars body, holding up his vesture with a speare, cut with the woundes, and redde with the bloude of the chiefe Ruler, by the which the people lyke a Quire, did sing lamentation unto him, and with this passion were againe repleate with ire. And after these speeches, other lamentations wyth voice after the Country custome, were sung of the Quires, and they rehearsed again his acts and his hap.
Then made he Caesar hymselfe to speake as it were in a lamentable sort, to howe many of his enimies he hadde done good by name, and of the killers themselves to say as in an admiration, “Did I saue them that haue killed me?” This the people could not abide, calling to remembraunce, that all the kyllers (only Decimus except) were of Pompey’s faction, and subdued by hym, to whom, in stead of punishment, he had giuen promotion of offices, gouernments of prouinces and armies, and thought Decimus worthy to be made his heyre and son by adoption, and yet conspired his death.[305]
Now, this is not very like the oration in the play. It may be analysed and summarised as follows:
Antony begins by praising the deceased as a consul a consul, a friend a friend, a kinsman a kinsman. He recites the public honours awarded to Caesar as a better testimony than his private opinion, and accompanies the enumeration with provocative comment. He touches on Caesar’s sacrosanct character and the unmerited honours bestowed on those who slew him, but acquits the citizens of unkindness on the ground of their presence at the funeral. He avows his own readiness for revenge, and thus censures the policy of the Senate, but admits that that policy may be for the public interest. He intones a hymn in honour of the deified Caesar; reviews his wars, battles, victories, the provinces annexed and the spoils transmitted to Rome, and glances at the subjugation of the Gauls as the payment of an ancient score. He uncovers the body of Caesar and displays the pierced and blood-stained garment to the wrath of the populace. He puts words in the mouth of the dead, and makes him cite the names of those whom he had benefited and preserved that they should destroy him. And the people brook no more.
Thus Appian’s Antony differs from Shakespeare’s Antony in his attitude to his audience, in the arrangement of his material, and to a considerable extent in the material itself. Nevertheless, in some of the details the speeches correspond. It is quite possible that Shakespeare, while retaining Plutarch’s general scheme, may have filled it in with suggestions from Appian. The evidence is not very convincing, but the conjecture is greatly strengthened by the apparent loans from the same quarter in Antony and Cleopatra, which would show that he was acquainted with the English translation. [See Appendix D].
APPENDIX D
SHAKESPEARE’S LOANS FROM APPIAN IN
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA
I do not think there can be any serious doubt about Shakespeare’s having consulted the 1578 translation of the Bella Civilia for this play, at any rate for the parts dealing with Sextus Pompeius. The most important passage is the one (A. and C. iii. v. 19) which records Antony’s indignation at Pompey’s death. Now of that death there is no mention at all in the Marcus Antonius of Plutarch; and even in the Octavius Caesar Augustus by Simon Goulard, which was included in the 1583 edition of Amyot and in the 1603 edition of North, it is expressly attributed to Antony. Here is Goulard’s statement:[306]