Note to JULIUS CAESAR, 2.1.315, 'wear a kerchief'

In Shakespeare's time wearing a kerchief was a sign of sickness. The kerchief was wrapped about the head, sometimes with a poultice, to relieve pain. On stage, Caius Ligarius usually enters wearing his kerchief and then takes if off at line 321, when he says, "I here discard my sickness."

Detail from a poster for a performance of
The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat
as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of
Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade