Act II Sc. 1
“Is not to-morrow, boy, the first of March?”
The correction of Theobald, Ides, has been universally and properly adopted; for ‘first’ must have been a printer’s error.
“Brutus, thou sleepest: awake! Such instigations
Have been often dropped where I took them up.”
“Speak, strike, redress!—Am I entreated then?”
“Sir, March is wasted fifteen days.”
Theobald read fourteen, which was the exact number; but the error was the poet’s.
“No, not an oath. If not the face of men.”
Warburton read fate, which Singer justifies; Mason faith.
“When Cæsar’s head is off.—Yet I do fear him.”
Sc. 2
“Fierce fiery warriors did fight upon the clouds.”
“Horses do neigh, and dying men did groan.”
The context demands the past tense here also. The 2nd folio properly therefore read did for ‘do.’ See on Mer. of Ven. ii. 3.
“We were two lions, litter’d in one day.”
‘Were’ is Theobald’s correction of hear of the original. Upton read equally well, are.
“For tinctures, stains, relics, and cognizances.”
I am rather dubious of ‘stains’; as the meaning is not clear.
Sc. 4
“The heart of woman is. O Brutus, Brutus!”