Julius Caesar (Bantam Classic) - Softcover

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William Shakespeare (1564–1616) was a poet, playwright, and actor who is widely regarded as one of the most influential writers in the history of the English language. Often referred to as the Bard of Avon, Shakespeare's vast body of work includes comedic, tragic, and historical plays; poems; and 154 sonnets. His dramatic works have been translated into every major language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.

David Bevington is one of the world's most well-respected Shakespearean scholars. He has served as an editor of several widely acclaimed anthologies, such as English Renaissance Drama: A Norton Anthology, Bantam Shakespeare, Medieval Drama, and The Complete Works of Shakespeare. Since 1967 Bevington has taught at the University of Chicago, specializing in Shakespeare and his contemporaries, as well as Renaissance, medieval, and Western drama. Bevington serves as the chair of theater and performance studies and is a Phyllis Fay Horton Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in the humanities and in English language and literature.

David Scott Kastan is a noted scholar of early modern English literature and culture. He is the George M. Bodman Professor of English at Yale University, where he specializes in Shakespeare, Milton, and literary history. Prior to joining the Yale faculty in 2008, Kastan taught at Columbia University, Dartmouth College, University College London, Eötvös Loránd University, the University of Copenhagen, and the American University in Cairo, Egypt. Kastan has served as an editor on many Elizabethan, Renaissance, and Shakespearean anthologies. His own scholarly publications include Shakespeare and the Shapes of Time, Shakespeare After Theory, Shakespeare and the Book, and A Will to Believe: Shakespeare and Religion.

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In this striking tragedy of political conflict, Shakespeare turns to the ancient Roman world and to the famous assassination of Julius Caesar by his republican opponents. The play is one of tumultuous rivalry, of prophetic warnings-"Beware the ides of March"-and of moving public oratory, "Friends, Romans, countrymen!" Ironies abound and most of all for Brutus, whose fate it is to learn that his idealistic motives for joining the conspiracy against a would-be dictator are not enough to sustain the movement once Caesar is dead.
Each Edition Includes:
- Comprehensive explanatory notes
- Vivid introductions and the most up-to-date scholarship
- Clear, modernized spelling and punctuation, enabling contemporary readers to understand the Elizabethan English
- Completely updated, detailed bibliographies and performance histories
- An interpretive essay on film adaptations of the play, along with an extensive filmography

Aus dem Klappentext

king tragedy of political conflict, Shakespeare turns to the ancient Roman world and to the famous assassination of Julius Caesar by his republican opponents. The play is one of tumultuous rivalry, of prophetic warnings--"Beware the ides of March"--and of moving public oratory "Friends, Romans, countrymen!" Ironies abound and most of all for Brutus, whose fate it is to learn that his idealistic motives for joining the conspiracy against a would-be dictator are not enough to sustain the movement once Caesar is dead.

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[Dramatis Personae

julius caesar

CALPERNIA, Caesar's wife

mark antony,

OCTAVIOUS CAESAR,     triumvirs after Caesar's death

LEPIDUS,

MARCUS BRUTUS

PORTIA, Brutus's wife

CAIUS CASSIUS,

CASCA,

DECIUS BRUTUS,

CINNA,  conspirators with Brutus

METELLUS CIMBER,

TREBONIUS,

CAIUS LIGARIUS,

CICERO,

PUBLIUS,         senators

POPILIUS LENA,

FLAVIUS,  tribunes of the people

MARULIUS,

SOOTHSAYER

ARTEMIDORUS, a teacher of rhetoric

CINNA, a poet

Another POET

LUCILIUS,

TITINIUS,

MESSALA,

YOUNG CATO,

VOLUMNIUS,       officers and soldiers in the army

VARRO,   of Brutus and Cassius

CLAUDIUS,

CLITUS,

DARDANIUS,

LABEO,

FLAVIUS,

PINDARUS, Cassius's servant

LUCIUS, Brutus's servants

strato,

Caesar's SERVANT

Antony's SERVANT

Octavius's SERVANT

CARPENTER

COBBLER

Five PLEBEIANS

Three SOLDIERS in Brutus's army

Two SOLDIERS in Antony's army

MESSENGER

GHOST of Caesar

Senators, Plebeians, Officers, Soldiers, and Attendants

SCENE: Rome; the neighborhood of Sardis;

the neighborhood of Philippi]

1.1 Location: Rome. A street.

3 mechanical of the artisan class

4 sign garb and implements

10 in . . . workman (1) as far as skilled work is concerned (2) compared with a skilled worker

11 cobbler (1) one who works with shoes (2) bungler.

14 soles (With pun on "souls.")

15 naughty good-for-nothing

16 out out of temper

17 out having worn-out shoes.   mend you (1) cure your bad temper (2) repair your shoes.

19 cobble you mend your shoes. (The meaning "to pelt with stones" also suggests itself here, though perhaps it was not in general use until later in the seventeenth century.)

1.1 * Enter Flavius, Marullus, and certain commoners over the stage.

FLAVIUS

Hence! Home, you idle creatures, get you home!

Is this a holiday? What, know you not,

Being mechanical, you ought not walk 3

Upon a laboring day without the sign 4

Of your profession?--Speak, what trade art thou?

CARPENTER  Why, sir, a carpenter.

MARULLUS

Where is thy leather apron and thy rule?

What dost thou with thy best apparel on?--

You, sir, what trade are you?

COBBLER  Truly, sir, in respect of a fine workman, I am  10

but, as you would say, a cobbler. 11

MARULLUS

But what trade art thou? Answer me directly.

COBBLER  A trade, sir, that I hope I may use with a safe

conscience, which is indeed, sir, a mender of bad soles.  14

FLAVIUS

What trade, thou knave? Thou naughty knave, what

  trade?  15

COBBLER  Nay, I beseech you, sir, be not out with me.  16

Yet if you be out, sir, I can mend you. 17

FLAVIUS

What mean'st thou by that? Mend me, thou saucy

  fellow?

COBBLER  Why, sir, cobble you. 19

21 awl (Punning on all.)

22 meddle with (1) have to do with (2) have sexual intercourse with

23 withal yet. (With pun on with awl.)

24 recover (1) resole (2) cure

25 proper fine, handsome.   as . . . leather (Proverbial. Neat's leather is cowhide.)

31 triumph triumphal procession. (Caesar had overthrown the sons of Pompey the Great in Spain at the Battle of Munda, March 17, 45 b.c. The triumph was held that October.)

33 tributaries captives who will pay ransom (tribute)

35 senseless insensible like stone (hence, unfeeling)

37 Pompey (Caesar had overthrown the great soldier and onetime triumvir at the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 b.c. Pompey fled to Egypt, where he was murdered.)

38-9  battlements . . . chimney tops (The details are appropriate to an Elizabethan cityscape.)

42 great (Alludes to Pompey's epithet, Magnus, "great.")   pass pass through

45 Tiber the Tiber River

46 replication echo

47 concave hollowed out, overhanging

49 cull pick

FLAVIUS  Thou art a cobbler, art thou?

COBBLER  Truly, sir, all that I live by is with the awl. I  21

meddle with no tradesman's matters nor women's  22

matters, but withal I am indeed, sir, a surgeon to old  23

shoes. When they are in great danger, I recover them.  24

As proper men as ever trod upon neat's leather have  25

gone upon my handiwork.

FLAVIUS

But wherefore art not in thy shop today?

Why dost thou lead these men about the streets?

COBBLER  Truly, sir, to wear out their shoes, to get myself

into more work. But indeed, sir, we make holiday

to see Caesar and to rejoice in his triumph. 31

MARULLUS

Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?

What tributaries follow him to Rome 33

To grace in captive bonds his chariot wheels?

You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless

  things! 35

O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,

Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft 37

Have you climbed up to walls and battlements, 38

To towers and windows, yea, to chimney tops, 39

Your infants in your arms, and there have sat

The livelong day, with patient expectation,

To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome. 42

And when you saw his chariot but appear,

Have you not made an universal shout,

That Tiber trembled underneath her banks 45

To hear the replication of your sounds 46

Made in her concave shores? 47

And do you now put on your best attire?

And do you now cull out a holiday? 49

And do you now strew flowers in his way

51 Pompey's blood (1) Pompey's offspring (2) the blood of the Pompeys.

54 intermit suspend

55 needs must must necessarily

57 sort rank

59-60  till . . . all until even at its lowest reach the river is filled to the brim.

61 See . . . moved See how even their ignoble natures can be appealed to. (Mettle and metal are interchangeable, meaning both "temperament" and the natural substance. A base metal is one that is easily changed or moved, unlike gold; compare 1.2.308-10.)

64 images statues (of Caesar in royal regalia, set up by his followers)

65 ceremonies ceremonial trappings.

67 Feast of Lupercal a feast of purification (Februa, whence February) in honor of Pan, celebrated from ancient times in Rome on February 15 of each year. (Historically, this celebration came some months after Caesar's triumph in October of 45 b.c. The celebrants, called Luperci, raced around the Palatine Hill and the Circus carrying thongs of goatskin, with which they lightly struck those who came in their way. Women so touched were supposed to be cured of barrenness; hence Caesar's wish that Antony would strike Calpurnia, 1.2.6-9.)

69 trophies spoils of war hung up as memorials of victory.   about go around the other way

70 vulgar commoners, plebeians

73 pitch highest point in flight. (A term from falconry.)

74 else otherwise

That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood? 51

Begone!

Run to your houses, fall upon your knees,

Pray to the gods to intermit the plague 54

That needs must light on this ingratitude. 55

FLAVIUS

Go, go, good countrymen, and for this fault

Assemble all the poor men of your...