[V.19] Octavius has been a standing puzzle and enigma to the historians, from the seeming contradictions of his character. Merivale declares that the one principle that gave unity to his life and reconciled those contradictions, was a steadfast, inflexible purpose to avenge the murder of his illustrious uncle and adoptive father.
[V.20] ll. 50-51 One line in Ff.
[V.21] goes up: is put into its sheath. Cf. John, xviii, 11.
[V.22] The number of Cæsar's wounds, according to Plutarch, was three and twenty, and to 'three and twenty' Theobald, craving historical accuracy, changed the 'three and thirty' of the text.
[V.23] Till you, traitors as you are, have added the slaughtering of me, another Cæsar, to that of Julius. See [note, p. 145, l. 20].
[V.24] strain: stock, lineage, race. So in Henry V, II, iv, 51:
And he is bred out of that bloody strain
That haunted us in our familiar paths.
[V.25] Shakespeare often uses 'peevish' in the sense of 'silly,' 'foolish.' So in The Comedy of Errors, IV, i, 93. A foolish schoolboy, joined with a masker and reveler (for Antony's reputation, see [I, ii, 204]; [II, i, 188, 189]; [II, ii, 116]), and unworthy even of that honor.
[V.26] stomachs: appetite, inclination, courage. So in Henry V, IV, iii, 35: "He which hath no stomach to this fight."