The New Hudson Shakespeare · William Shakespeare
THE SCENE OF THE ASSASSINATION
In transferring the assassination of Cæsar from the _Porticus Pompeia_ ("Pompey's porch," I, iii, 126) to the Capitol, Shakespeare departed from Plutarch and historical accuracy to follow a popular tradition that had received the signal imprimatur of Chaucer: This Iulius to the Capitolie wente Upon a day, as he was wont to goon,[1] And in the Capitolie anon him hente[2] This false Brutus, and his othere foon[3] And stikede him with boydekins[4] anoon With many a wounde, and thus they lete him lye; But never gronte[5] he at no strook but oon, Or elles at two, but if[6] his storie lye. _The Monkes Tale_, ll. 715-718. (Skeat's _Chaucer_.) This literary and popular tradition is followed in _Hamlet_, III, ii, 107-111: HAMLET. What did you enact? POLONIUS. I did enact Julius Cæsar: I was kill'd i' the Capitol: Brutus kill'd me. HAMLET. It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there. So also in _Antony and Cleopatra:_ Since Julius Cæsar, Who at Philippi the good Brutus ghosted, There saw you labouring for him. What was 't That mov'd pale Cassius to conspire; and what Made the all-honour'd, honest Roman, Brutus, With the arm'd rest, courtiers of beauteous freedom, To drench the Capitol; but that they would Have one man but a man? [II, vi, 12-19.] We have the same popular tradition in the first scene of the last act of Fletcher's _The Noble Gentleman_. So, too, in the Prologue to Beaumont and Fletcher's, or Fletcher and Massinger's, _The False One_, a tragedy dealing with Cæsar and Cleopatra: To tell Of Cæsar's amorous heats, and how he fell I' the Capitol. Here the reference is to Shakespeare's play.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.