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Older in practice, abler than yourself

To make conditions.

Bru. Go to; you are not, Cassius.

Cas. I am.

Bru. I say, you are not.

Cas. Urge me no more, I shall forget myself; Have mind upon your health, tempt me no further. Bru. Away, slight man!

Cas. Is't possible?

Bru. Hear me, for I will speak.

Must I give way and room to your rash choler?

Shall I be frighted when a madman stares?

Cas. O ye gods! ye gods! must I endure all this? Bru. All this? aye, more; fret, till your proud heart

break;

Go, show your slaves how choleric you are,
And make your bondmen tremble.

Must I budge?
Must I observe you? Must I stand and crouch
Under your testy humour? By the gods
You shall digest the venom of your spleen,
Though it do split you; for, from this day forth,
I'll use you for my mirth, yea, for my laughter,
When you are waspish.

Cas. Is it come to this?

Bru. You say you are a better soldier: Let it

appear so; make your vaunting true,

And it shall please me well; for mine own part,

I shall be glad to learn of noble men.

Cas. You wrong me every way, you wrong me, Brutus;

I said an elder soldier, not a better:

Did I say better?

Bru. If you did, I care not.

Cas. When Cæsar lived, he durst not thus have moved me.

Bru. Peace, peace; you durst not so have tempted

him.

Cas. I durst not!

Bru. No.

I

Cas. What? durst not tempt him?
Bru. For your life, you durst not.

Cas. Do not presume too much upon my love;
may do that I shall be sorry for.

Bru. You have done that you should be sorry
There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats;
For I am armed so strong in honesty,
That they pass by me as the idle wind,
Which I respect not. I did send to you
For certain sums of gold, which you denied
For I can raise no money by vile means;
Ye gods! I had rather coin my heart,

me;

And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wring
From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash,
By any indirection. I did send

To you for gold to pay my legions,

for.

Which you denied me was that done like Cassius?
Should I have answered Caius Cassius so?

When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous,
To lock such rascal counters from his friends,
Be ready, gods, with all your thunderbolts,
Dash him to pieces!

Cas. I denied you not.

Bru. You did.

Cas. I did not:- -he was but a fool

That brought my answer back.

heart;

Brutus hath rived my

A friend should bear his friend's infirmities,
But Brutus makes mine greater than they are.
Bru. I do not, till you practise them on me.
Cas. You love me not.

Bru. I do not like your faults.

Cas. A friendly eye could never see such faults.

Bru. A flatterer's would not, though they do ap

pear

As huge as high Olympus.

Cas. Come, Antony, and young Octavius, come, Revenge yourselves alone on Cassius.

For Cassius is aweary of the world:

Hated by one he loves; braved by his brother;
Checked like a bondman; all his faults observed,
Set in a note-book, learned and conned by rote,
To cast into my teeth. Oh, I could weep
My spirit from mine eyes. There is my dagger,
And here my naked breast; within, a heart
Dearer than Plutus' mine, richer than gold:
If that thou be'st a Roman, take it forth;
I, that denied thee gold, will give my heart;
Strike as thou didst at Cæsar; for I know,

When thou did'st hate him worst, thou lovedst him better

Than ever thou lovedst Cassius.

Bru. Sheathe your dagger:

Be angry when thou will, it shall have scope;
Do what you will, dishonour shall be humour.
O Cassius, you are yoked with a lamb,
That carries anger as the flint bears fire;
Who, much enforced, shows a hasty spark,
And straight is cold again.

Cas. Hath Cassius lived

To be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus !

When grief or blood ill-tempered vexeth him?

Bru. When I spoke that, I was ill-tempered too.

Cas. Do you confess so much? Give me your hand. Bru. And my heart tco.

Cas. O Brutus !

Bru. What's the matter?

Cas. Have you not love enough to bear with me, When that rash humour which my mother gave me, Makes me forgetful?

Bru. Yes, Cassius; and from henceforth,

When you are over-earnest with your Brutus,
He'll think your mother chides, and leave you so.

THE DIVER.

(FREDERICK SCHILLER.)

Translated from the German by Lord Lytton.

"Oh, where is the knight or the squire so bold,
As to dive to the howling charybdis below?
I cast into the whirlpool a goblet of gold,

And o'er it already the dark waters flow:
Whoever to me may the goblet bring,
Shall have for his guerdon that gift of his king."

He spoke, and the cup from the terrible steep,
That rugged and hoary, hung over the verge
Of the endless and measureless world of the deep,
Swirled into the maelstrom that maddened the surge.
"And where is the diver so stout to go—

I ask ye again-to the deep below?"

And the knights and the squires that gathered around, Stood silent—and fixed on the ocean their eyes; They looked on the dismal and savage profound,

And the peril chilled back every thought of the prize. And thrice spoke the monarch-"The cup to win, Is there never a wight who will venture in?"

And all as before heard in silence the king

Till a youth, with an aspect unfearing but gentle, 'Mid the tremulous squires, stept out from the ring, Unbuckling his girdle, and doffing his mantle ; And the murmuring crowd, as they parted asunder, On the stately boy cast their looks of wonder.

As he strode to the marge of the summit, and gave
One glance on the gulf of that merciless main;
Lo the wave that forever devours the wave,

Casts roaringly up the charybdis again;
And, as with the swell of the far thunder-boom,
Rushes foamingly forth from the heart of the gloom.

And it bubbles and seethes, and it hisses and roars,
As when fire with water commixed and contending ;
And the spray of its wrath to the welkin up-soars,

And flood upon flood hurries on, never ending.
And it never will rest, nor from travail be free,
Like a sea that is labouring the birth of a sea.

And at last there lay open the desolate realm!

Through the breakers that whitened the waste of the swell,

Dark-dark yawned a cleft in the midst of the whelm, The path to the heart of the fathomless hell.

Round and round whirled the waves-deep and deeper still driven,

Like a gorge through the mountainous main thunder-riven.

The youth gave his trust to his Maker! Before

That path through the riven abyss closed again— Hark! a shriek from the crowd rang aloft from the shore,

And, behold! he is whirled in the grasp of the main ! And o'er him the breakers mysteriously rolled, And the giant-mouth closed on the swimmer so bold.

O'er the surface grim silence lay dark and profound,
But the deep from below murmured hollow and fell;
And the crowd, as it shuddered, lamented aloud—
"Gallant youth-noble heart-fare-thee-well, fare-

thee-well!"

And still ever deepening that wail as of woe,
More hollow the gulf sent its howl from below.

If thou should'st in those waters thy diadem fling,

And cry, "Who may find it shall win it, and wear;'

God's wot, though the prize were the crown of a king— A crown at such hazard were valued too dear.

For never did lips of the living reveal,

What the deeps that howl yonder in terror conceal.

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