I trouble thee too much, but thou art willing.

LUCIUS. It is my duty, sir. 260

BRUTUS. I should not urge thy duty past thy might;
I know young bloods look for a time of rest.

LUCIUS. I have slept, my lord, already.

[Note 262: /bloods./ So in _Much Ado about Nothing_, III, iii,
141: "How giddily a' turns about all the hot bloods between
fourteen and five-and-thirty?" Cf. I, ii, 151: "the breed of
noble bloods."]

[Page 141]

BRUTUS. It was well done; and thou shalt sleep again;
I will not hold thee long: if I do live, 265
I will be good to thee. [_Music, and a song_]
This is a sleepy tune. O murderous slumber,
Lay'st thou thy leaden mace upon my boy,
That plays thee music? Gentle knave, good night;
I will not do thee so much wrong to wake thee: 270
If thou dost nod, thou break'st thy instrument;
I'll take it from thee; and, good boy, good night.
Let me see, let me see; is not the leaf turn'd down
Where I left reading? Here it is, I think.

_Enter the_ Ghost _of_ CAESAR

How ill this taper burns! Ha! who comes here? 275
I think it is the weakness of mine eyes
That shapes this monstrous apparition.
It comes upon me. Art thou any thing?
Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil,
That mak'st my blood cold, and my hair to stare? 280
Speak to me what thou art.

[Note 267: /murderous slumber/ | Murd'rous slumbler F1.]

[Note 274: [Sits down] Camb.]

[Note 275: Scene VII Pope.]

[Note 267: /murderous slumber./ The epithet probably has
reference to sleep being regarded as the image of death; or,
as Shelley put it, "Death and his brother Sleep." Cf.
_Cymbeline_, II, ii, 31.]

[Note 268: /thy leaden mace./ Upton quotes from Spenser, _The
Faerie Queene_, I, iv, 44:

But whenas Morpheus had with leaden mace
Arrested all that courtly company.

Shakespeare uses 'mace' both as 'scepter,' _Henry V_, IV, i,
278, and as 'a staff of office,' _2 Henry VI_, IV, vii, 144.]

[Note 269: The boy is spoken of as playing music to slumber
because he plays to soothe the agitations of his master's
mind, and put him to sleep. Bacon held that music "hindereth
sleep."]

[Note 275: The presence of a ghost was believed to make lights
burn blue or dimly. So in _Richard III_, V, iii, 180, when the
ghosts appear to Richard, he says: "The lights burn b