[III.50] "Cæsar ... was driven ... by the counsel of the conspirators, against the base whereupon Pompey's image stood, which ran all of a gore-blood till he was slain."—Plutarch, Julius Cæsar.
[III.51] lies F3F4 | lye F1.
[III.52] Cassius | Bru. Pope.
[III.53] ll. 117-119: This speech and the two preceding, vaingloriously anticipating the stage celebrity of the deed, are very strange; and, unless there be a shrewd irony lurking in them, it is hard to understand the purpose of them. Their effect is to give a very ambitious air to the work of these professional patriots, and to cast a highly theatrical color on their alleged virtue, as if they had sought to immortalize themselves by "striking the foremost man of all this world."
[III.54] most boldest. See Abbott, § 11. So in III, ii, 182.
[III.55] Enter a Servant. "This simple stage direction is the ... turning-round of the whole action; the arch has reached its apex and the Re-action has begun."—Moulton.
[III.56] resolv'd: informed. This meaning is probably connected with the primary one of 'loosen,' 'set free,' through the idea of setting free from perplexity. 'Resolve' continued to be used in the sense of 'inform' and 'answer' until the beginning of the nineteenth century. Shakespeare uses the word in the three main senses of (1) 'relax,' 'dissolve,' Hamlet, I, ii, 130; (2) 'inform,' as here; and (3) 'determine,' 3 Henry VI, III, iii, 219.
[III.57] Thorough. Shakespeare uses 'through' or 'thorough' indifferently, as suits his verse. The two are but different forms of the same word. 'Thorough,' the adjective, is later than the preposition.
[III.58] so please him come: provided that it please him to come. 'So' is used with the future and subjunctive to denote 'provided that.'
[III.59] still Falls shrewdly to the purpose: always comes cleverly near the mark. See Skeat under 'shrewd' and 'shrew.'