Cass. Will you sup with me to-night, Casca? Casca. No, I am promis'd forth.1

Cass. Will you dine with me to-morrow? Casca. Ay, if I be alive, and your mind hold, and your dinner worth the eating.

Cass. Good; I will expect you.

Casca. Do so. Farewell both. [Exit Casca. Bru. What a blunt fellow is this grown to be!

He was quick mettle when he went to school.

Cass. So is he now, in execution 3

Of any bold or noble enterprise,
However he puts on this tardy form.

300

This rudeness is a sauce to his good wit,
Which gives men stomach to digest his words
With better appetite.

Bru. 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, 309
Come home to me, and I will wait for you.
Cuss. 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 dispos'd: therefore it is meet
That noble minds keep ever with their likes;
For who so firm that cannot be seduc'd?
Cæsar doth bear me hard, but he loves
Brutus;

6

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 ob-
scurely

321

Cæsar's ambition shall be glanced at;
And after this let Cæsar seat him sure;
For we will shake him, or worse days endure.

[Exit.

1I am promised forth, i.e. I have promised to go out (to supper). 2 Quick mettle, of a lively spirit.

3 Execution, metrically five syllables.

A From that, from that to which.

Doth bear me hard, has a grudge against me. 6 Hands, handwritings.

SCENE III. A street.

Thunder and lightning. Enter, from opposite sides, CASCA, with his sword drawn, and CICERO.

[Cic. Good even, Casca: brought you Cæsar home?

Why are you breathless? and why stare you so? Casca. Are not you mov'd, when all the sways of earth

Shakes like a thing infirm? O Cicero,
I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds
Have riv'd 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.

Cic. Why, saw you any thing more wonderful?
Casca. A common slave-you know him

well by sight

Men, all in fire, walk up and down the streets.
And yesterday the bird of night did sit
Even at noonday 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 31
Unto the climate12 that they point upon.

Cic. Indeed, it is a strange-disposed time; But men may construe things after their', fashion,13

Cass. Casca, by your voice. Casca. Your ear is good. [Thunder and lightning.] Cassius, what night2 is this! Cass. A very pleasing night to honest men. Casca. Who ever knew the heavens menace so?

Cass. 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,3 Casca, as you see,
Have bar'd my bosom to the thunder-stone:*
And when the cross blue lightning seem'd to

It is the part of men to fear and tremble When the most mighty gods, by tokens, send Such dreadful heralds to astonish us.

Cass. 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 case 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,

62

6

Why birds, and beasts from quality and kind;"
Why old men fool,' and children calculate;
Why all these things change from their ordi-
nance,8

Their natures and pre-formed faculties,
To monstrous quality,-why, you shall find
That heaven hath infus'd them with these
spirits,

69

Tomake 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

Cass. Who's there? Casca.

1 Clean from, quite away from, or contrary to.

Mean to establish Cæsar as a king;

And he shall wear his crown by sea and land, In every place, save here in Italy.

Cass. 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;
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.

Casca.

[Thunder.

So can I; So every bondman in his own hand bears The power to cancel his captivity.

100

Cass. 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

110

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 arm'd,

1 Prodigious, portentous.

2 Woe the while! alas for the times! VOL. V.

Now know you, Casca, I have mov'd 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: [Thunder and lightning]
for now, this fearful night,

There is no stir or walking in the streets,
And the complexion of the element7
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.

Cass. '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?

Cass. No, it is Casca; one incorporate To our attempt. Am I not stay'd for, Cinna? Cinna. I am glad on 't." [Thunder.] What a fearful night is this!

There's two or three of us have seen strange sights.

Cass. Am I not stay'd for? Tell me.
Cinna.
Yes, you are.-

O Cassius, if you could

140

My ancestors did from the streets of Rome
The Tarquin drive, when he was call'd a king.
"Speak, strike, redress!"-Am I entreated
To speak and strike? O Rome, I make thee
promise,

If the redress will follow, thou receivest
Thy full petition at the hand of Brutus!
Enter LUCIUS.

Luc. Sir, March is wasted fifteen days. [Knocking within. 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 phantasma1 or a hideous dream:
The Genius and the mortal instruments3
Are then in council; and the state of man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection.

Enter LUCIUS.

62

Cinna. 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 deceiv'd.

Here, as I point my sword, the sun arises; Which is a great way growing on 10 the south,

7 Path, walk.

8 Prevention, discovery, and consequent thwarting.

9 Fret, diversify, variegate.

10 Growing on, verging toward.