Like twenty torches join'd; and yet his hand,
Not sensible of fire, remain'd unscorch'd.1
Besides (I have not since put up my sword),
Against the Capitol I met a lion,

Who glar'd upon me, and went surly3 by,
Without annoying me: And there were drawn
Upon a heap a hundred ghastly women,

4

5

Transformed with their fear; who swore, they saw
Men, all on 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.

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?

7

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

Enter CASSIUS.

3) Surly (súr-ly), gloomily morose, in sour anger.

4) Ghostlike, spectral.

5) The screech-owl, an owl that hoots in the night, and whose voice is supposed to betoken danger or death.

1) So in the old translation of Plu- | and that a lion should appear full of tarch: a slave of the soldiers fury, and yet attempt no violence, that did cast a marvellous burning augments the prodigy. flame out of his hand, insomuch as they that saw it, thought he had been burnt, but when the fire was out, it was found he had no hurt. Steevens. 2) The first and second edition read: glaz'd. Johnson conjectured gaz'd, but Pope substituted glar'd, and this reading, which is certainly right, has been adopted by all the subsequent editors. To gaze, says Steevens, is only to look steadfastly, or with admiration. Glar'd has a singular propriety, as it expresses the furious scintillation of a lion's eye:

JULIUS CESAR.

6) Climate, a region or tract of land; country. Shakspeare speaking of the same prodigies, says, in Hamlet, Act I. sc. 2: Unto our climatures and countrymen.

7) Clean is altogether, entirely. From means contrary to.

2

Casca, by your voice.

CASCA. Your ear is good. Cassius, what night 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 bar'd my bosom to the thunder-stone: 1
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.

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

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 you would consider the true cause,
Why all these fires, why all these gliding ghosts,
Why birds and beasts, from quality and kind;2
Why old men, fools, and children calculate; 4
Why all these things change, from their ordinance, 5
Their natures and pre-formed faculties,

To monstrous quality; why, you shall find,
That heaven hath infus'd them with these spirits,
To make them instruments of fear, and warning,
Unto some monstrous state. Now could I, Casca,

1) A stone fabulously supposed to | to point thus: "Why old men fools, be discharged by thunder. So in and children calculate.” Cymbeline:

"Fear no more the lightning-flash, Nor the all dreaded thunder stone." Steevens.

It would be wrong therefore, as has been done, to suppose the word thunder-storm, instead of thunder

stone.

2) Why they deviate from quality and nature.

3) Some editors have been inclined

4) To calculate here signifies to foretel or prophesy: for the custom of fortelling fortunes by astrology (which was at that time much in Vogue) was performed by a long calculation. So, to calculate the nativity, is a technical term.

5) Deviate from the stated order and laws of nature.

6) Warning to indicate or signify

Name to thee a man most like this dreadful night;
That thunders, lightens, opens graves, and roars
As doth the lion in the Capitol:

2

A man no mightier than thyself, or me, 1
In personal action; yet prodigious grown,
And fearful, as these strange eruptions are.

CASCA. Tis Cæsar that you mean: Is it not,
CAS. Let it be who it is: for Romans now
Have thewes and limbs like to their ancestors; 3
But woe the while! our fathers' minds are dead,
And we are govern'd with our mothers' spirits;
Our yoke and sufferings show us womanish.

Cassius?

CASCA. Indeed, they say, the senators to-morrow
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:
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.

So

CASCA. So can I:

every bondman in his own hand bears The power to cancel his captivity.

some wonderful, some enormous alone In thewes and bulk.". state.

1) One might expect, or I, but the the poet makes this accusative case depending on the preceding verb

name.

2) Grown prodigious, portentous. 3) Thewes is an obsolete word which means muscular strength, or nerves. Other old authors use it in the meaning of manners, qualities, dispositions. We find it in Hamlet, Act. I. sc. 3: "For nature, crescent, does not grow

Like to

their ancestors, i. e. like those of their a.

4) i. e. will save him from servitude. 5) To lack, to be wanting, to be without.

6) Every slave. A bondman is a man slave; a bondmaid, a woman slave.

7) To annul, to annihilate or destroy. To cancel properly signifies to cross a writing; to efface or obliterate in general.

CAS. And why should Cæsar be a tyrant then:
Poor man! I know, he would not be a wolf,
But that he sees the Romans are but sheep:1
He were no lion, were not Romans hinds. 2
Those that with haste will make a mighty fire,
Begin it with weak straws: What trash3 is Rome,
What rubbish, and what offal, when it serves
For the base matter to illuminate 4

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:5 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:7
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.
Now know you, Casca, I have mov'd already
Some certain of the noblest-minded Romans,
To undergo, with me, an enterprize

Of honourable-dangerous consequence;
And I do know, by this, they stay for me
In Pompey's porch:9 for now, this fearful night,
There is no stir, or walking in the streets;
And the complexion of the element

Is favour'd, 10 like the work we have in hand,
Most bloody, fiery, and most terrible.

1) If he did not see that the Romans were but sheep.

2) i. e. deer, good-natured creatures without courage.

3) Trash is anything worthless. 4) To illustrate.

7) This is the same as, hand.

Here's my

8) Johnson explains the words be factious, by, be active; Malone by, embody a party or faction. Steevens judges Johnson's explanation to be 5) I shall be called to account, and the true one. Menenius, in Coriolanus, must answer as for seditious words. says, "I have been always faction6) Fleering means mocking, fawn-ary on the part of your general;" ing, jesting. Otherwise to fleer means and the speaker, who is describing to look with scorn and sly imperti- himself, would scarce have employed nence; much the same as to sneer. the word in its common and unIt is no longer in common use. favourable sense. tell-tale here means a talker, a tattler; in other respects particularly one who gives malicious information.

A

9) A porch is a portico, a covered walk.

10) i. e. appears; is in appearance

Enter CINNA.

CASCA. Stand close awhile, for here comes one in haste. CAS. 'Tis Cinna, I do know him by his gait; 1 He is a friend. Cinna, where haste you so?

CIN. To find out you: Who's that? Metellus Cimber? CAS. No, it is Casca; one incorporate 2

To our attempts. Am I not staid for, Cinna?

CIN. I am glad on't. What a fearful night is this? There's two or three of us have seen strange sights. CAS. Am I not staid for, Cinna? Tell me.

CIN.

You are. O, Cassius, if you could but win
The noble Butus to our party

Yes,

CAS. Be you content: good Cinna, take this paper,
And look you lay it in the prætor's chair, 3

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,
And so bestow these papers as you bade me.

4

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.

5

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

And that, which would appear offence in us,
His countenance, like richest alchymy,

Will change to virtue, and to worthiness. 6

or countenance like; resembles, etc. | on curule seats (sellæ curules) and Favour is look, countenance, appear- were preceded by six lictors.

ance.

4) To hie, to hasten, to go in

1) Gait is the air and manner of haste. walking peculiar to a person.

5) Upon our next meeting he will 2) Incorporate means united, asso-surrender himself to us, i. e. comply, ciated, confederate. join in our schemes.

3) Prætor was the title of a chief magistrate at Rome, who administered justice, and ranked next to the consuls. The prætors, eight in the time of Cæsar, wore a toga prætexta, sat

6) i. e. his support, or acquiescence, will act like alchymy: for it will make that appear virtuous which, effected by ourselves only, would in the eyes of the people appear offensive.