Table of Contents
ACT I SCENE III Setting: The same. A street.
Thunder and lightning. Enter from opposite sides, CASCA, with his sword drawn, and CICERO.
| CICERO | Good even, Casca: brought you Caesar home? | |
| Why are you breathless? and why stare you so? | ||
| CASCA | Are not you moved, when all the sway of earth | |
| Shakes like a thing unfirm? O Cicero, | ||
| I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds | ||
| Have rived the knotty oaks, and I have seen | ||
| The ambitious ocean swell and rage and foam, | ||
| To be exalted with the threatening clouds: | ||
| But never till to–night, never till now, | ||
| Did I go through a tempest dropping fire. | 10 | |
| Either there is a civil strife in heaven, | ||
| Or else the world, too saucy with the gods, | ||
| Incenses them to send destruction. | ||
| CICERO | Why, saw you any thing more wonderful? | |
| CASCA | A common slave––you know him well by sight–– | 15 |
| 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, | 20 | |
| 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. | 25 | |
| 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;' | 30 | |
| For, I believe, they are portentous things | ||
| Unto the climate that they point upon. | ||
| CICERO | Indeed, it is a strange–disposed time: | |
| But men may construe things after their fashion, | ||
| Clean from the purpose of the things themselves. | 35 | |
| Come Caesar to the Capitol to–morrow? | ||
| CASCA | He doth; for he did bid Antonius | |
| Send word to you he would be there to–morrow. | ||
| CICERO | Good night then, Casca: this disturbed sky | 39 |
| Is not to walk in. | ||
| CASCA | Farewell, Cicero. | |
| Exit CICERO. | ||
| Enter CASSIUS. | ||
| CASSIUS | Who's there? | |
| CASCA | A Roman. | |
| CASSIUS | Casca, by your voice. | |
| CASCA | Your ear is good. Cassius, what night is this! | |
| CASSIUS | A very pleasing night to honest men. | |
| CASCA | Who ever knew the heavens menace so? | |
| CASSIUS | Those that have known the earth so full of faults. | |
| For my part, I have walk'd about the streets, | 46 | |
| 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. | ||
| 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 | 55 | |
| Such dreadful heralds to astonish us. | ||
| CASSIUS | 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, | 60 | |
| 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, | ||
| Why old men fool and children calculate, | 65 | |
| 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, | 75 | |
| A man no mightier than thyself or me | ||
| In personal action, yet prodigious grown | ||
| And fearful, as these strange eruptions are. | ||
| CASCA | Tis Caesar that you mean; is it not, Cassius? | |
| CASSIUS | 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 tomorrow | 85 |
| Mean to establish Caesar as a king; | ||
| And he shall wear his crown by sea and land, | ||
| In every place, save here in Italy. | ||
| CASSIUS | 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; | 95 | |
| 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. | ||
| CASSIUS | And why should Caesar be a tyrant then? | |
| Poor man! I know he would not be a wolf, | ||
| But that he sees the Romans are but sheep: | 105 | |
| 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 | 110 | |
| So vile a thing as Caesar! 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. | 115 | |
| 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. | ||
| CASSIUS | 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 | 125 | |
| 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. | 130 | |
| CASCA | Stand close awhile, for here comes one in haste. | |
| CASSIUS | Tis Cinna; I do know him by his gait; | |
| He is a friend. | ||
| Enter CINNA. | ||
| Cinna, where haste you so? | ||
| CINNA | To find out you. Who's that? Metellus Cimber? | |
| CASSIUS | No, it is Casca; one incorporate | 135 |
| To our attempts. Am I not stay'd for, Cinna? | ||
| CINNA | I am glad on 't. What a fearful night is this! | |
| There's two or three of us have seen strange sights. | ||
| CASSIUS | Am I not stay'd for? tell me. | |
| CINNA | Yes, you are. | |
| O Cassius, if you could | 140 | |
| But win the noble Brutus to our party–– | ||
| CASSIUS | Be you content: good Cinna, take this paper, | |
| And look you lay it in the praetor's chair, | ||
| Where Brutus may but find it; and throw this | ||
| In at his window; set this up with wax | 145 | |
| Upon old Brutus' statue: all this done, | ||
| Repair to Pompey's porch, where you shall find us. | ||
| Is Decius Brutus and Trebonius there? | ||
| CINNA | 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. | ||
| CASSIUS | 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. | ||
| CASSIUS | 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 | 163 | |
| We will awake him and be sure of him. | ||
| Exeunt |