[II.183] bustling Rowe | bussling Ff.
[II.184] A loud noise, or murmur, as of stir and tumult, is one of the old meanings of 'rumor.' So in King John, V, iv, 45: "the noise and rumour of the field." Since the interview of Brutus and Portia, he has unbosomed all his secrets to her; and now she is in such a fever of anxiety that she mistakes her fancies for facts.
[II.185] Sooth: in truth. Cf. The Merchant of Venice, I, i, 1. See Skeat, and cf. [note] on 'soothsayer,' p. 10, l. 19.
[II.186] Enter the Soothsayer Ff | Enter Artemidorus Rowe.
[II.187] Enter the Soothsayer. Rowe substituted 'Artemidorus' for 'the Soothsayer' here, and many modern editors have adopted this change. But North's Plutarch furnishes a source for the Soothsayer as distinct from Artemidorus, and the reading of the Folios has a dramatic edge and effectiveness which Rowe's change destroys.
[II.188] o'clock Theobald | a clocke F1.
[II.189] l. 32 Two lines in Ff.
[II.190] l. 39 Two lines in Ff.
[II.191] Ay | Aye Ff | ah Johnson.
[II.192] Brutus hath a suit That Cæsar will not grant. These words Portia speaks aloud to the boy, Lucius, evidently to conceal the true cause of her uncontrollable flutter of spirits.