when he perceiv'd the
common herd was glad he refus'd the crown, he pluck'd me ope
his doublet and offer'd them his throat to cut. And I had
been a man of any occupation, if I would not have taken him
at a word, I would I might go to hell among the rogues. And
so he fell. When he came to himself again, he said, if he
had done or said any thing amiss, he desir'd their worships
to think it was his infirmity. Three or four wenches, where
I stood, cried, 'Alas, good soul!' and forgave him with all
their hearts. But there's no heed to be taken of them: if
Caesar had stabb'd their mothers, they would have done no
less. 272

[Note 263: /And/ Ff | an (an') Theobald.]

[Note 270: /no/ omitted in F2.]

[Note 261: /Marry./ The common Elizabethan exclamation of
surprise, or asseveration, corrupted from the name of the
Virgin Mary.]

[Note 263: /me./ The ethical dative. Cf. III, iii, 18; _The
Merchant of Venice_, I, iii, 85; _Romeo and Juliet_, III, i,
6. See Abbott, Sect. 220.--/doublet./ This was the common
English name of a man's outer body-garment. Shakespeare
dresses his Romans like Elizabethan Englishmen (cf. II, i,
73-74), but the expression 'doublet-collar' occurs in North's
Plutarch (see quotation in note on ll. 268-270).--/And:/ if.
For 'and' in this sense, see Murray, and Abbott, Sect. 101.]

[Note 264: /a man of any occupation./ This probably means not
only a mechanic or user of cutting-tools, but also a man of
business and of action, as distinguished from a gentleman of
leisure, or an idler.]

[Note 265-266: /to hell among the rogues./ The early English
drama abounds in examples of such historical confusion. For
example, in the Towneley Miracle Plays Noah's wife swears by
the Virgin Mary.]

[Note 268-270: "Thereupon Caesar rising departed home to his
house; and, tearing open his doublet-collar, making his neck
bare, he cried out aloud to his friends, that his throat was
ready to offer to any man that would come and cut it....
Afterwards, to excuse his folly, he imputed it to his disease,
saying that their wits are not perfect which have this disease
of the falling-evil."--Plutarch, _Julius Caesar_.]

[Page 27]

BRUTUS. And after that, he came, thus sad, away?

CASCA. Ay.

CASSIUS. Did Cicero say any thing? 275

CASCA. Ay, he spoke Greek.

CASSIUS. To what effect?

CASCA. Nay, and