20

Held up his left hand, which did flame and burn
Like twenty torches join'd, and yet his hand,
Not sensible of fire, remain'd unscorch'd.
Besides I ha' not since put up my sword-
Against the Capitol I met a lion,
Who glared upon me, and went surly by,
Without annoying me: and there were drawn
Upon a heap a hundred ghastly women,
Transformed with their fear; who swore they saw
Men all in fire walk up and down the streets.
And yesterday the bird of night did sit
Even at noon-day upon the market-place,
Hooting and shrieking. When these prodigies
Do so conjointly meet, let not men say
'These are their reasons; they are natural;'
For, I believe, they are portentous things
Unto the climate that they point upon.

30

Cic. Indeed, it is a strange-disposed time: But men may construe things after their fashion, Clean from the purpose of the things themselves. Comes Cæsar to the Capitol to-morrow?

Casca. He doth; for he did bid Antonius Send word to you he would be there to-morrow. Cic. Good night then, Casca: this disturbed sky

Is not to walk in.

Casca. Farewell, Cicero. [Exit Cicero. 40

is this!

Cas. A very pleasing night to honest men.
Casca. Who ever knew the heavens menace so?
Cas. Those that have known the earth so full
of faults.

For my part, I have walk'd about the streets,
Submitting me unto the perilous night,
And, thus unbraced, Casca, as you see,
Have bared my bosom to the thunder-stone;
And when the cross blue lightning seem'd to open
The breast of heaven, I did present myself
Even in the aim and very flash of it.

51

Casca. But wherefore did you so much tempt the heavens?

It is the part of men to fear and tremble,
When the most mighty gods by tokens send
Such dreadful heralds to astonish us.

Cas. You are dull, Casca, and those sparks of life

you

60

That should be in a Roman you do want,
Or else you use not. You look pale and gaze
And put on fear and cast yourself in wonder,
To see the strange impatience of the heavens:
But if would consider the true cause
Why all these fires, why all these gliding ghosts,
Why birds and beasts from quality and kind,
Why old men fool and children calculate,
Why all these things change from their ordinance
Their natures and preformed faculties
To monstrous quality,-why, you shall find
That heaven hath infused them with these spirits,
To make them instruments of fear and warning 70
Unto some monstrous state.

Now could I, Casca, name to thee a man
Most like this dreadful night,

That thunders, lightens, opens graves, and roars As doth the lion in the Capitol,

A man no mightier than thyself or me

In personal action, yet prodigious grown
And fearful, as these strange eruptions are.
Casca. 'Tis Cæsar that you mean; is it not,
Cassius?

Cas. Let it be who it is: for Romans now 80
Have thews and limbs like to their ancestors;
But, woe the while! our fathers' minds are dead,
And we are govern'd with our mothers' spirits;
Our yoke and sufferance show us womanish.

Casca. Indeed, they say the senators to-mor

row

Mean to establish Cæsar as a king;
And he shall wear his crown by sea and land,
In every place, save here in Italy.

Cas. I know where I will wear this dagger then;

Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius:
90
Therein, ye gods, you make the weak most strong;
Therein, ye gods, you tyrants do defeat:
Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass,
Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron,
Can be retentive to the strength of spirit;
But life, being weary of these worldly bars,
Never lacks
power to dismiss itself.
If I know this, know all the world besides,
That part of tyranny that I do bear
I can shake off at pleasure. [Thunder still.
Casca.
So can I :
So every bondman in his own hand bears
The power to cancel his captivity.

100

Poor man! I know he would not be a wolf,
Cas. And why should Cæsar be a tyrant then?
But that he sees the Romans are but sheep:
He were no lion, were not Romans hinds.
Those that with haste will make a mighty fire
Begin it with weak straws: what trash is Rome,
What rubbish and what offal, when it serves
For the base matter to illuminate

So vile a thing as Cæsar! But, O grief,
Where hast thou led me? I perhaps speak this
Before a willing bondman; then I know
My answer must be made. But I am arm'd,
And dangers are to me indifferent.

Casca. You speak to Casca, and to such a man That is no fleering tell-tale. Hold, my hand: Be factious for redress of all these griefs, And I will set this foot of mine as far As who goes farthest.

Cas. There's a bargain made. 120 Now know you, Casca, I have moved already Some certain of the noblest-minded Romans To undergo with me an enterprise Of honourable-dangerous consequence; And I do know, by this, they stay for me In Pompey's porch: for now, this fearful night, There is no stir or walking in the streets; And the complexion of the element In favour's like the work we have in hand, Most bloody, fiery, and most terrible. Casca. Stand close awhile, for here comes one in haste.

130

Cas. 'Tis Cinna; I do know him by his gait; He is a friend.

Enter CINNA.

Cinna, where haste you so?

paper,

And look you lay it in the prætor's chair,
Where Brutus may but find it; and throw this
In at his window; set this up with wax
Upon old Brutus' statue: all this done,
Repair to Pompey's porch, where you shall find us.
Is Decius Brutus and Trebonius there?

Cin. All but Metellus Cimber; and he's gone
To seek you at your house. Well, I will hie, 150
And so bestow these papers as you bade me.
Cas. That done, repair to Pompey's theatre.
[Exit Cinna.
Come, Casca, you and I will yet ere day
See Brutus at his house: three parts of him
Is ours already, and the man entire
Upon the next encounter yields him ours.

Casca. O he sits high in all the people's hearts:

And that which would appear offence in us,
His countenance, like richest alchemy,
Will change to virtue and to worthiness.

160

Cas Him and his worth and our great need of him

You have right well conceited. Let us go,
For it is after midnight; and ere day.

We will awake him and be sure of him. [Exeunt.

Remorse from power: and, to speak truth of
Cæsar,

I have not known when his affections sway'd 20,
More than his reason. But 'tis a common proof,
That lowliness is young ambition's ladder,
Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;
But when he once attains the upmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees.
By which he did ascend. So Cæsar may.
Then, lest he may, prevent. And, since the
quarrel

३०

Will bear no colour for the thing he is,
Fashion it thus; that what he is, augmented,
Would run to these and these extremities:
And therefore think him as a serpent's egg
Which, hatch'd, would, as his kind, grow mis-
chievous,

And kill him in the shell.

Luc. Sir, March is wasted fourteen days. [Knocking within.

Bru. 'Tis good. Go to the gate; somebody knocks. [Exit Lucius. 60 Since Cassius first did whet me against Cæsar, I have not slept.

Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream:
The Genius and the mortal instruments
Are then in council; and the state of man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection.

Re-enter LUCIUS.

Luc. Sir, 'tis your brother Cassius at the door, Who doth desire to see you.

Luc. No, sir, there are moe with him.
Bru.
Do you know them?
Luc. No, sir; their hats are pluck'd about
their ears,

And half their faces buried in their cloaks,
That by no means I may discover them
By any mark of favour.
Bru.

Let 'em enter. [Exit Lucius.
They are the faction. O conspiracy,
Shamest thou to show thy dangerous brow by
night,

When evils are most free? O, then by day
Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough
To mask thy monstrous visage? Seek none,
spiracy;

Hide it in smiles and affability:

For if thou path, thy native semblance on,
Not Erebus itself were dim enough
To hide thee from prevention.

80

con

Enter the conspirators, CASSIUS, Casca, Decius,
CINNA, Metellus Cimber, and TREBONIUS.
Cas. I think we are too bold upon your rest:
Good morrow, Brutus; do we trouble you?
Bru. I have been up this hour, awake all
night.

Know I these men that come along with you? Cas. Yes, every man of them, and no man here

But honours you; and every one doth wish
You had but that opinion of yourself

Which every noble Roman bears of you.
This is Trebonius.

90

He is welcome too.

That fret the clouds are messengers of day.
Casca. You shall confess that you are both
deceived.

Here, as I point my sword, the sun arises,
Which is a great way growing on the south,
Weighing the youthful season of the year.
Some two months hence up higher toward the
north

IIO

He first presents his fire; and the high east
Stands, as the Capitol, directly here.
Bru. Give me your hands all over, one by one.
Cas. And let us swear our resolution.
Bru. No, not an oath: if not the face of men,
The sufferance of our souls, the time's abuse,-
If these be motives weak, break off betimes,
And every man hence to his idle bed;
So let high-sighted tyranny range on,
Till each man drop by lottery. But if these,
As I am sure they do, bear fire enough
To kindle cowards and to steel with valour
The melting spirits of women, then, countrymen,

120

What need we any spur but our own cause,
To prick us to redress? what other bond
Than secret Romans, that have spoke the word,
And will not palter? and what other oath
Than honesty to honesty engaged,
That this shall be, or we will fall for it?
Swear priests and cowards and men cautelous,
Old feeble carrions and such suffering souls
That welcome wrongs; unto bad causes swear
Such creatures as men doubt; but do not stain
The even virtue of our enterprise,

Nor the insuppressive mettle of our spirits,
To think that or our cause or our performance
Did need an oath; when every drop of blood
That every Roman bears, and nobly bears,
Is guilty of a several bastardy,

If he do break the smallest particle

130

140

Of any promise that hath pass'd from him.
Cas. But what of Cicero? shall we sound him?
Lthink he will stand very strong with us.
Casca. Let us not leave him out.

Cin.
No, by no means.
Met. O, let us have him, for his silver hairs
Will purchase us a good opinion

And buy men's voices to commend our deeds:
It shall be said, his judgement ruled our hands;
Our youths and wildness shall no whit appear,
But all be buried in his gravity.

Bru. O, name him not: let us not break with him; 150 For he will never follow any thing

That other men begin.

Cas.

Then leave him out. Casca. Indeed he is not fit.

Dec. Shall no man else be touch'd but only Cæsar?

Cas. Decius, well urged: I think it is not meet,

Mark Antony, so well beloved of Cæsar,
Should outlive Cæsar: we shall find of him
A shrewd contriver; and, you know, his means,
If he improve them, may well stretch so far
As to annoy us all: which to prevent,
Let Antony and Cæsar fall together.

160

Bru. Our course will seem too bloody, Caius
Cassius,

To cut the head off and then hack the limbs,
Like wrath in death and envy afterwards;
For Antony is but a limb of Cæsar:

170

052

Let us be sacrificers, but not butchers, Caius.
We all stand up against the spirit of Cæsar;
And in the spirit of men there is no blood:
O, that we then could come by Cæsar's spirit,
And not dismember Cæsar! But, alas,
Cæsar must bleed for it! And, gentle friends,
Let's kill him boldly, but not wrathfully;
Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods,
Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds:
And let our hearts, as subtle masters do,
Stir up their servants to an act of rage.
And after seem to chide 'em. This shall make
Our purpose necessary and not envious:
Which so appearing to the common eyes,
We shall be call'd purgers, not murderers.
And for Mark Antony, think not of him;
For he can do no more than Cæsar's arm
When Cæsar's head is off.
Cas.
Yet I fear him;
For in the ingrafted love he bears to Cæsar-

180