And when the cross blue lightning seemed 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;
Why old men, fools, and children calculate;

Why all these things change from their ordinance,
Their natures, and pre-forméd 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 Cæsar that you mean: is it not,
Cassius?

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

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

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:
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 armed,
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.

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,
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 alchymy,
Will change to virtue and to worthiness.

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.

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
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 hatched, would, as his kind, grow mis-
chievous;

And kill him in the shell.

Such instigations have been often dropped
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
The Tarquin drive, when he was called a king.
"Speak, strike, redress!"-Am I entreated
To speak and strike?-O Rome! I make thee
promise,

If the redress will follow, thou receiv'st
Thy full petition at the hand of Brutus !

Re-enter LUCIUS.

Luc. Sir, March is wasted fourteen days.

Bru. 'Tis good. Go to the gate: somebody knocks. [Exit LUCIUS. 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, 't is your brother Cassius at the door, Who doth desire to see you.

[Knock within.

For if thou path thy native semblance on, Not Erebus itself were dim enough

To hide thee from prevention.

Enter 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.

Cin. O pardon, sir, it doth: and yon grey lines 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

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,
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
Of any promise that hath passed from him.

Cas. But what of Cicero: shall we sound him?
I think he will stand very strong with us.
Casca. Let us not leave him out.

And buy men's voices to commend our deeds. It shall be said his judgment 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:

For he will never follow anything

That other men begin.

Cas.

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

Dec. Shall no man else be touched but only
Cæsar?

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

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.

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 carcase 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 them. This shall make
Our purpose necessary, and not envious:
Which so appearing to the common eyes,
We shall be called purgers, not murderers.
And for Marc Antony, think not of him;
For he can do no more than Cæsar's arm,
When Cæsar's head is off.

Cus. Yet I fear him:
For in the ingrafted love he bears to Cæsar,-
Bru. Alas, good Cassius, do not think of him:
If he love Cæsar, all that he can do
Is to himself; take thought, and die for Cæsar :
And that were much he should; for he is given
To sports and wildness, and much company.

Treb. There is no fear in him; let him not die : For he will live, and laugh at this hereafter. [Clock strikes.

Bru. Peace: count the clock.