Why, for that too.
Cassius
They shouted thrice: what was the last cry for?
Casca
Why, for that too.
Brutus
Was the crown offered him thrice?
Casca
Ay, marry, was’t, and he put it by thrice, every time gentler than other, and at every putting-by mine honest neighbours shouted.
Cassius
Who offered him the crown?
Casca
Why, Antony.
Brutus
Tell us the manner of it, gentle Casca.
Casca
I can as well be hanged as tell the manner of it: it was mere foolery; I did not mark it. I saw Mark Antony offer him a crown;— yet ’twas not a crown neither, ’twas one of these coronets;— and, as I told you, he put it by once: but, for all that, to my thinking, he would fain have had it. Then he offered it to him again; then he put it by again: but, to my thinking, he was very loath to lay his fingers off it. And then he offered it the third time; he put it the third time by: and still as he refused it, the rabblement hooted and clapped their chapped hands and threw up their sweaty night-caps and uttered such a deal of stinking breath because Caesar refused the crown that it had almost choked Caesar; for he swounded and fell down at it: and for mine own part, I durst not laugh, for fear of opening my lips and receiving the bad air.
Cassius
But, soft, I pray you: what, did Caesar swound?
Casca
He fell down in the market-place, and foamed at mouth, and was speechless.
Brutus
’Tis very like: he hath the failing sickness.
Cassius
No, Caesar hath it not; but you and I,
And honest Casca, we have the falling sickness.
Casca
I know not what you mean by that; but, I am sure, Caesar fell down. If the tag-rag people did not clap him and hiss him, according as he pleased and displeased them, as they use to do the players in the theatre, I am no true man.
Brutus
What said he when he came unto himself?
Casca
Marry, before he fell down, when he perceived the common herd was glad he refused the crown, he plucked me ope his doublet and offered them his throat to cut. An I had been a man of any occupation, if I would not have taken him at a word, I would I might go to hell among the rogues. And so he fell. When he came to himself again, he said, If he had done or said any thing amiss, he desired their worships to think it was his infirmity. Three or four wenches, where I stood, cried ‘Alas, good soul!’ and forgave him with all their hearts: but there’s no heed to be taken of them; if Caesar had stabbed their mothers, they would have done no less.
Brutus
And after that, he came, thus sad, away?
Casca
Ay.
Cassius
Did Cicero say any thing?
Casca
Ay, he spoke Greek.
Cassius
To what effect?
Casca
Nay, an I tell you that, Ill ne’er look you i’ the face again: but those that understood him smiled at one another and shook their heads; but, for mine own part, it was Greek to me. I could tell you more news too: Marullus and Flavius, for pulling scarfs off Caesar’s images, are put to silence. Fare you well. There was more foolery yet, if I could remember it.
Cassius
Will you sup with me to-night, Casca?
Casca
No, I am promised forth.
Cassius
Will you dine with me to-morrow?
Casca
Ay, if I be alive and your mind hold and your dinner worth the eating.
Cassius
Good: I will expect you.
Casca
Do so. Farewell, both.
Exit
Brutus
What a blunt fellow is this grown to be!
He was quick mettle when he went to school.
Cassius
So is he now in execution
Of any bold or noble enterprise,
However he puts on this tardy form.
This rudeness is a sauce to his good wit,
Which gives men stomach to digest his words
With better appetite.
Brutus
And so it is. For this time I will leave you:
To-morrow, if you please to speak with me,
I will come home to you; or, if you will,
Come home to me, and I will wait for you.
Cassius
I will do so: till then, think of the world.
Exit Brutus
Well, Brutus, thou art noble; yet, I see,
Thy honourable metal may be wrought
From that it is disposed: therefore it is meet
That noble minds keep ever with their likes;
For who so firm that cannot be seduced?
Caesar doth bear me hard; but he loves Brutus:
If I were Brutus now and he were Cassius,
He should not humour me. I will this night,
In several hands, in at his windows throw,
As if they came from several citizens,
Writings all tending to the great opinion
That Rome holds of his name; wherein obscurely
Caesar’s ambition shall be glanced at:
And after this let Caesar seat him sure;
For we will shake him, or worse days endure.
Exit
SCENE III. 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.
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 —
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.
Cicero
Indeed, it is a strange-disposed time:
But men may construe things after their fashion,
Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.
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
Is not to walk in.
Casca
&
nbsp; 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,
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
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,
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,
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
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 Caesar that you mean; is it not, Cassius?
Cassius
Let it be who it is: for Romans now
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
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:
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.
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:
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 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.
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.
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.
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
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
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
Upon old Brutus’ statue: all this done,
Repair to Pompey’s porch, where you shall find us.
Is Decius Brutus and Trebonius there?
Cinna
To seek you at your house. Well, I will hie,
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
We will awake him and be sure of him.
Exeunt
ACT II
SCENE I. ROME. BRUTUS’S ORCHARD.
Enter Brutus
Brutus
What, Lucius, ho!
I cannot, by the progress of the stars,
Give guess how near to day. Lucius, I say!
I would it we
re my fault to sleep so soundly.
When, Lucius, when? awake, I say! what, Lucius!
Enter Lucius
Lucius
Call’d you, my lord?
Brutus
Get me a taper in my study, Lucius:
When it is lighted, come and call me here.
Lucius
I will, my lord.
Exit
Brutus
It must be by his death: and for my part,
I know no personal cause to spurn at him,
But for the general. He would be crown’d:
How that might change his nature, there’s the question.
It is the bright day that brings forth the adder;
And that craves wary walking. Crown him?— that;—
And then, I grant, we put a sting in him,
That at his will he may do danger with.
The abuse of greatness is, when it disjoins
Remorse from power: and, to speak truth of Caesar,
I have not known when his affections sway’d
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 Caesar may.
Then, lest he may, prevent. And, since the quarrel
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 mischievous,
And kill him in the shell.
Re-enter Lucius
Lucius
The taper burneth in your closet, sir.
Searching the window for a flint, I found
This paper, thus seal’d up; and, I am sure,
It did not lie there when I went to bed.
Gives him the letter
Brutus
Get you to bed again; it is not day.
Is not to-morrow, boy, the ides of March?
Lucius
I know not, sir.
Brutus
Look in the calendar, and bring me word.
Lucius
I will, sir.
Exit
Brutus
The exhalations whizzing in the air
Give so much light that I may read by them.
Opens the letter and reads
‘Brutus, thou sleep’st: awake, and see thyself.
Shall Rome, &c. Speak, strike, redress!
Brutus, thou sleep’st: awake!’
Such instigations have been often dropp’d
Where I have took them up.
‘shall Rome, &c.’ Thus must I piece it out:
Shall Rome stand under one man’s awe? What, Rome?
My ancestors did from the streets of Rome