IV. iii. S. d. For the 'Enter' of modern editions the Folios and Quartos have 'Manet' or 'Manent.' I.e., as explained in the note on III. i. S. d., no new scene was necessary here on the Elizabethan stage: the armies marched off and Brutus and Cassius simply 'remained' in conference, but the locality none the less was supposed to shift to the inside of Brutus' tent.
IV. iii. 20, 21. What villain touch' d his body, that did stab. And not for justice? 'What one of the conspirators was such a villain that he stabbed Cæsar from any other motive than for justice's sake?' Brutus means, of course, to imply that there was none such then, and they must be doubly careful to avoid giving ground for any such imputation now.
IV. iii. 25, 26. The infinite spiritual extent of true honor is contrasted with the petty material extent of a handful of money.
IV. iii. 28. Brutus, bay not me. 'Bay' (Theobald's widely accepted emendation of the Folio reading 'bait') is a savage and threatening quibble on Cassius' part: 'Don't bark at me, Brutus, and don't bring me to bay either (cf. note on IV. i. 48, 49), hedging me in with snarling accusations and goading me on with taunts, or I'll turn on you and then it will be the worse for you.' 'Bait' can be given almost the same interpretation, with reference to bear-baiting, but misses the neat repartee in the repeated 'bay.'
IV. iii. 101. Pluto's. As god of the infernal regions, Pluto might well be supposed to command great wealth. As Milton says, 'Let none admire That riches grow in Hell; that soil may best Deserve the precious bane.' Many editors, however, prefer to follow Pope in reading 'Plutus',' the god of riches. Confusion between the two occurred in classical times as well as in Elizabethan.
IV. iii. 109–112. This badly mixed metaphor can
