The Tragedy Of Julius Caesar

1 Thunder and lightning. Enter, from opposite sides, Casca with his sword
2 drawn, and Cicero.
3 CICERO.
4 Good even, Casca: brought you Caesar home?
5 Why are you breathless, and why stare you so?
6 CASCA.
7 Are not you moved, when all the sway of earth
8 Shakes like a thing unfirm? O Cicero,
9 I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds
10 Have riv’d the knotty oaks; and I have seen
11 Th’ ambitious ocean swell and rage and foam,
12 To be exalted with the threatening clouds:
13 But never till tonight, never till now,
14 Did I go through a tempest dropping fire.
15 Either there is a civil strife in heaven,
16 Or else the world too saucy with the gods,
17 Incenses them to send destruction.
18 CICERO.
19 Why, saw you anything more wonderful?
20 CASCA.
21 A common slave, you’d know him well by sight,
22 Held up his left hand, which did flame and burn
23 Like twenty torches join’d, and yet his hand,
24 Not sensible of fire remain’d unscorch’d.
25 Besides, I ha’ not since put up my sword,
26 Against the Capitol I met a lion,
27 Who glared upon me, and went surly by,
28 Without annoying me. And there were drawn
29 Upon a heap a hundred ghastly women,
30 Transformed with their fear; who swore they saw
31 Men, all in fire, walk up and down the streets.
32 And yesterday the bird of night did sit,
33 Even at noonday upon the marketplace,
34 Hooting and shrieking. When these prodigies
35 Do so conjointly meet, let not men say,
36 “These are their reasons; they are natural”;
37 For I believe, they are portentous things
38 Unto the climate that they point upon.
39 CICERO.
40 Indeed, it is a strange-disposed time.
41 But men may construe things after their fashion,
42 Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.
43 Comes Caesar to the Capitol tomorrow?
44 CASCA.
45 He doth, for he did bid Antonius
46 Send word to you he would be there tomorrow.
47 CICERO.
48 Goodnight then, Casca: this disturbed sky
49 Is not to walk in.
50 CASCA.
51 Farewell, Cicero.
52 [_Exit Cicero._]
53 Enter Cassius.
54 CASSIUS.
55 Who’s there?
56 CASCA.
57 A Roman.
58 CASSIUS.
59 Casca, by your voice.
60 CASCA.
61 Your ear is good. Cassius, what night is this!
62 CASSIUS.
63 A very pleasing night to honest men.
64 CASCA.
65 Who ever knew the heavens menace so?
66 CASSIUS.
67 Those that have known the earth so full of faults.
68 For my part, I have walk’d about the streets,
69 Submitting me unto the perilous night;
70 And, thus unbraced, Casca, as you see,
71 Have bar’d my bosom to the thunder-stone;
72 And when the cross blue lightning seem’d to open
73 The breast of heaven, I did present myself
74 Even in the aim and very flash of it.
75 CASCA.
76 But wherefore did you so much tempt the Heavens?
77 It is the part of men to fear and tremble,
78 When the most mighty gods by tokens send
79 Such dreadful heralds to astonish us.
80 CASSIUS.
81 You are dull, Casca; and those sparks of life
82 That should be in a Roman you do want,
83 Or else you use not. You look pale and gaze,
84 And put on fear and cast yourself in wonder,
85 To see the strange impatience of the Heavens:
86 But if you would consider the true cause
87 Why all these fires, why all these gliding ghosts,
88 Why birds and beasts, from quality and kind;
89 Why old men, fools, and children calculate,
90 Why all these things change from their ordinance,
91 Their natures, and pre-formed faculties,
92 To monstrous quality; why, you shall find
93 That Heaven hath infus’d them with these spirits,
94 To make them instruments of fear and warning
95 Unto some monstrous state.
96 Now could I, Casca, name to thee a man
97 Most like this dreadful night,
98 That thunders, lightens, opens graves, and roars,
99 As doth the lion in the Capitol;
100 A man no mightier than thyself, or me,
101 In personal action; yet prodigious grown,
102 And fearful, as these strange eruptions are.
103 CASCA.
104 ’Tis Caesar that you mean; is it not, Cassius?
105 CASSIUS.
106 Let it be who it is: for Romans now
107 Have thews and limbs like to their ancestors;
108 But, woe the while! our fathers’ minds are dead,
109 And we are govern’d with our mothers’ spirits;
110 Our yoke and sufferance show us womanish.
111 CASCA.
112 Indeed, they say the senators tomorrow
113 Mean to establish Caesar as a king;
114 And he shall wear his crown by sea and land,
115 In every place, save here in Italy.
116 CASSIUS.
117 I know where I will wear this dagger then;
118 Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius:
119 Therein, ye gods, you make the weak most strong;
120 Therein, ye gods, you tyrants do defeat.
121 Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass,
122 Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron,
123 Can be retentive to the strength of spirit;
124 But life, being weary of these worldly bars,
125 Never lacks power to dismiss itself.
126 If I know this, know all the world besides,
127 That part of tyranny that I do bear
128 I can shake off at pleasure.
129 [_Thunder still._]
130 CASCA.
131 So can I:
132 So every bondman in his own hand bears
133 The power to cancel his captivity.
134 CASSIUS.
135 And why should Caesar be a tyrant then?
136 Poor man! I know he would not be a wolf,
137 But that he sees the Romans are but sheep:
138 He were no lion, were not Romans hinds.
139 Those that with haste will make a mighty fire
140 Begin it with weak straws. What trash is Rome,
141 What rubbish, and what offal, when it serves
142 For the base matter to illuminate
143 So vile a thing as Caesar! But, O grief,
144 Where hast thou led me? I, perhaps, speak this
145 Before a willing bondman: then I know
146 My answer must be made; but I am arm’d,
147 And dangers are to me indifferent.
148 CASCA.
149 You speak to Casca, and to such a man
150 That is no fleering tell-tale. Hold, my hand:
151 Be factious for redress of all these griefs,
152 And I will set this foot of mine as far
153 As who goes farthest.
154 CASSIUS.
155 There’s a bargain made.
156 Now know you, Casca, I have mov’d already
157 Some certain of the noblest-minded Romans
158 To undergo with me an enterprise
159 Of honourable-dangerous consequence;
160 And I do know by this, they stay for me
161 In Pompey’s Porch: for now, this fearful night,
162 There is no stir or walking in the streets;
163 And the complexion of the element
164 In favour’s like the work we have in hand,
165 Most bloody, fiery, and most terrible.
166 Enter Cinna.
167 CASCA.
168 Stand close awhile, for here comes one in haste.
169 CASSIUS.
170 ’Tis Cinna; I do know him by his gait;
171 He is a friend. Cinna, where haste you so?
172 CINNA.
173 To find out you. Who’s that? Metellus Cimber?
174 CASSIUS.
175 No, it is Casca, one incorporate
176 To our attempts. Am I not stay’d for, Cinna?
177 CINNA.
178 I am glad on’t. What a fearful night is this!
179 There’s two or three of us have seen strange sights.
180 CASSIUS.
181 Am I not stay’d for? tell me.
182 CINNA.
183 Yes, you are. O Cassius, if you could
184 But win the noble Brutus to our party—
185 CASSIUS.
186 Be you content. Good Cinna, take this paper,
187 And look you lay it in the praetor’s chair,
188 Where Brutus may but find it; and throw this
189 In at his window; set this up with wax
190 Upon old Brutus’ statue: all this done,
191 Repair to Pompey’s Porch, where you shall find us.
192 Is Decius Brutus and Trebonius there?
193 CINNA.
194 All but Metellus Cimber, and he’s gone
195 To seek you at your house. Well, I will hie,
196 And so bestow these papers as you bade me.
197 CASSIUS.
198 That done, repair to Pompey’s theatre.
199 [_Exit Cinna._]
200 Come, Casca, you and I will yet, ere day,
201 See Brutus at his house: three parts of him
202 Is ours already, and the man entire
203 Upon the next encounter, yields him ours.
204 CASCA.
205 O, he sits high in all the people’s hearts!
206 And that which would appear offence in us,
207 His countenance, like richest alchemy,
208 Will change to virtue and to worthiness.
209 CASSIUS.
210 Him, and his worth, and our great need of him,
211 You have right well conceited. Let us go,
212 For it is after midnight; and ere day,
213 We will awake him, and be sure of him.
214 [_Exeunt._]