Julius Caesar

This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: NOTES. ABBREVIATIONS. Clar.?Clarendon Press Edition, by W. Aldis Wright G.?Globe Edition of Shakspere. References to othei plays of Shakspere's than Julius Caesar are according tc this edition. Plut.?Shakespeare's Plutarch, edited by W. W. Skeat. ACT I. I. i. This first scene indicates the existence of the two main forces at work throughout the play, (1) the popularity which is bearing Caesar to the summit of his ambition, and (2) the hatred of the faction of the opposition. It is Shakspere's custom thus to strike the key-note at the outset. I. i. 3. Being mechanical. Being mechanics or artisans. I. i. 10. In respect of. In comparison with. I. i. 11. Cobbler. Originally, a "mender," then "clumsy workman." In Shakspere's English the word has no exclusive reference to shoes; hence the repetition of the question by Marullus. I. i. 12. Directly. Straightforwardly. I. i. 15. Soles. For another instance of this familiar pun, cf. Merchant of Venice, IV. i. 123, 24, " Not on thy sole, but on thy soul, harsh Jew, Thou makest thy knife keen." I. i. 18. Be not out. Do not fall out. The sense of the punning phrase in the next line is, of course, "out at heels." The favorite Elizabethan habit of punning is illustrated again in awl in ver. 25, and in recover in ver. 27, below. I. i. 28. Proper. Originally, " having the qualities appropriate to a man," later, "flue," "handsome." I. i. 35-55. Cf. Plut.. p. 91. " But the triumph he made into Rome for the same [i.e., the victory over Pompey's sons], did as much offend the Romans, and more, than anythingthat ever he had done before: because he had not overcome captains that were strangers, nor barbarous king's, but had destroyed the sons of the noblest man of Rome, whom fortune had overthrown." Triumph- is u...