SOURCE: "The Numbering of Men and Days: Symbolic Design in The Tragedy of Julius Caesar,", in Studies in Philology, Vol. LXXXI, No. 3, Summer, 1984, pp. 372-93.

In the essay that follows, McAlindon examines the ominous significance of the numbers four and eight in Julius Caesar, and contends that the more alert members of Shakespeare's contemporary audience would have noticed this numerology and would have been aware of the "ironic implications " it has for the characters in the play.

Thou hast no figures nor no fantasies
 Which busy care draws in the brains of men;
 Therefore thou sleep'st so sound.

(JC, II.i.231-3)

I

A remarkable feature of Julius Caesar is the extent to which it focuses on the act of interpretation. Incidents of a conventionally ominous character occasion the most obvious instances of hermeneutic activity.¹ But so tense and uncertain is the playworld of this tragedy that mundane...