We have the same popular tradition in the first scene of the last act of Fletcher's _The Noble Gentleman_. So, too, in the Prologue to Beaumont and Fletcher's, or Fletcher and Massinger's, _The False One_, a tragedy dealing with Cæsar and Cleopatra: To tell Of Cæsar's amorous heats, and how he fell I' the Capitol. Here the reference is to Shakespeare's play. "ET TU, BRUTE" Dyce and other researchers have made clear that in Shakespeare's day "_Et tu, Brute_" was a familiar phrase which had special reference to a wound from a supposed friend. It probably owed its popularity to having been used in the earlier plays on the subject of Julius Cæsar. In _The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of York_ (1595), upon which Shakespeare's _3 Henry VI_ is based, occurs the line, _Et tu, Brute?_ wilt thou stab Cæsar too? This line is repeated in S. Nicholson's poem, _Acolastus, his Afterwitte_ (1600). In Ben Jonson's _Every Man out of His Humour_ (1599), Buffone uses "_Et tu, Brute_" in speaking to Macilente (V, iv). In the _Myrroure for Magistrates_ (1587) we find, And Brutus thou, my sonne, quoth I, whom erst I loved best. The Latin form of the phrase possibly originated, as Malone suggested, in the Latin play referred to above (Earlier Plays) which was acted at Oxford in 1582. It is easy to see how the Elizabethan tendency to word-quibble and equivoque would help to give currency to the Latin form. Cf. Hamlet's joke on 'brute' quoted above. BRUTUS'S SPEECH, III, ii In view of the close connection between _Julius Cæsar_ and _Hamlet_ as regards date of composition and the characterization of Brutus and Hamlet, interest attaches to Professor Gollancz's theory (_Julius Cæsar_, Temple Shakespeare) that the original of the famous speech of Brutus to the assembled Romans (III, ii) may be found in Belleforest's _History of Hamlet_, in the oration which Hamlet makes to the Danes after he has slain his uncle. "The situation of Hamlet is almost identical with that of Brutus after he has dealt the blow, and the burden of Hamlet's too lengthy speech finds an echo in Brutus's sententious utterance. The verbose iteration of the Dane has been compressed to suit 'the brief compendious manner of speech of the Lacedæmonians.'"--Gollancz. As the English translation from which Professor Gollancz quotes in support of his theory is dated 1608, and is the earliest known,[1] it cannot have been from this that Shakespeare drew any suggestions or material. The question arises, Did Shakespeare read the speech in the original French? The volume of Belleforest's _Histoires Tragiques_, which contained the story of Hamlet, was first published in 1570, and there were many reprintings of it before 1600.