[III.60] l. 148 Scene III Pope.—Two lines in Ff.
[III.61] be let blood: be put to death. So in Richard III, III, i, 183.
[III.62] is rank: has grown grossly full-blooded. The idea is of one who has overtopped his equals, and grown too high for the public safety. So in the speech of Oliver in As You Like It, I, i, 90, when incensed at the high bearing of Orlando: "Is it even so? begin you to grow upon me? I will physic your rankness."
[III.63] Live: if I live. Cf. The Merchant of Venice, III, ii, 61.
[III.64] l. 163 In this line 'by' is used (1) in the sense of 'near,' 'beside,' and (2) in its ordinary sense to denote agency.
[III.65] The first 'fire' is dissyllabic. The allusion is to the old notion that if a burn be held to the fire the pain will be drawn or driven out. Shakespeare has four other very similar allusions to this belief—Romeo and Juliet, I, ii, 46; Coriolanus, IV, vii, 54; The Two Gentlemen of Verona, II, iv, 192; King John, III, i, 277.
[III.66] in strength of malice: strong as they have shown themselves to be in malice towards tyranny. Though the Folio text may be corrupt, and at least twelve emendations have been suggested, the figure as it stands is intelligible, though elliptically obscure. Grant White has indicated how thoroughly the expression is in the spirit of what Brutus has just said. In previous editions of Hudson's Shakespeare, Singer's conjecture of 'amity' for 'malice' was adopted. What makes this conjecture plausible is Shakespeare's frequent use of 'amity,' and "strength of their amity" occurs in Antony and Cleopatra, II, vi, 137.
[III.67] Brutus has been talking about "our hearts," and "kind love, good thoughts, and reverence." To Cassius, all that is mere rose-water humbug, and he knows it is so to Antony too. He hastens to put in such motives as he knows will have weight with Antony, as they also have with himself. And it is remarkable that several of these patriots, especially Cassius, the two Brutuses, and Trebonius, afterwards accepted the governorship of fat provinces for which they had been prospectively named by Cæsar.
[III.68] "When Cæsar was slain, the Senate—though Brutus stood in the middest amongst them, as though he would have said something touching this fact—presently ran out of the house, and, flying, filled all the city with marvellous fear and tumult. Insomuch as some did shut to the doors."—Plutarch, Julius Cæsar.
[III.69] struck | strooke F1F2 | strook F3F4.