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 | 5 |
| | 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. | 10 |
| | Either there is a civil strife in heaven, | |
| | Or else the world, too saucy with the gods, | |
| | Incenses them to send destruction. | |
CASCA | |
A common slave--you know him well by sight-- | 15 |
| | 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, | 20 |
| | 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. | 25 |
| | 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;' | 30 |
| | For, I believe, they are portentous things | |
| | Unto the climate that they point upon. | |
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, | 50 |
| | 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. | |
CASSIUS | |
You are dull, Casca, and those sparks of life | |
| | That should be in a Roman you do want, | 60 |
| | 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, | 65 |
| | 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 | 70 |
| | 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, | 75 |
| | 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. | 80 |
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, | 95 |
| | 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, | 100 |
| | That part of tyranny that I do bear | |
| | I can shake off at pleasure. | |
| | [Thunder still] |
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 | 110 |
| | 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 | 115 |
| | Before a willing bondman; then I know | |
| | My answer must be made. But I am arm'd, | |
| | And dangers are to me indifferent. | |
CASSIUS | |
There's a bargain made. | |
| | Now know you, Casca, I have moved already | 125 |
| | 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, | 130 |
| | 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. | |
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 | 150 |
| | 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? | |
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