Ebook The Tragedy of Julius Caesar

It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that the whole' play of Julius Caesar is to be found in Plutarch. Shakespeare, indeed, has thrown a rich mantle of poetry over all, which is often wholly his own; but of the incident there is almost nothing which he does not owe to Plutarch, even as continu ally he owes the very wording to Sir Thomas North. Yet Shakespeare never abdicates his royal preeminence. Thus Plutarch tells us of that funeral oration by Mark Antony, how to conclude his ora tion he unfolded before the whole assembly the bloody garments of the dead, thrust through in many places with their swords, and called the malefactors cruel and cursed murtherers.