Note 134 — “CESARE” IN ENGLAND
Reading edition
The allusion to the phrase Act III, Sc. 1.
“Know, Caesar doth not wrong, nor without cause
Will he be satisfied.”
This originally stood:
“Caesar did never wrong but with just cause” and is ridiculed by Jonson in his “Discoveries.” It is quite likely that the Caesar in the play as originally written was an even more self-important individual than he is at present. Possibly Shakespeare saw no absurdity in the line when he first penned it. Caesar, in his own estimation, is semi-divine. The cause of things is in his will. What might seem wrong to the mob was not so to Caesar, for he felt that the cause was just, no matter what the world thought. That was sufficient. The apparent contradiction in terms thus seems capable of explanation.