Complete Plays, The Read online

  Why, for that too.

  Cassius

  They shouted thrice: what was the last cry for?

  Casca

  Why, for that too.

  Brutus

  Was the crown offered him thrice?

  Casca

  Ay, marry, was’t, and he put it by thrice, every time gentler than other, and at every putting-by mine honest neighbours shouted.

  Cassius

  Who offered him the crown?

  Casca

  Why, Antony.

  Brutus

  Tell us the manner of it, gentle Casca.

  Casca

  I can as well be hanged as tell the manner of it: it was mere foolery; I did not mark it. I saw Mark Antony offer him a crown;— yet ’twas not a crown neither, ’twas one of these coronets;— and, as I told you, he put it by once: but, for all that, to my thinking, he would fain have had it. Then he offered it to him again; then he put it by again: but, to my thinking, he was very loath to lay his fingers off it. And then he offered it the third time; he put it the third time by: and still as he refused it, the rabblement hooted and clapped their chapped hands and threw up their sweaty night-caps and uttered such a deal of stinking breath because Caesar refused the crown that it had almost choked Caesar; for he swounded and fell down at it: and for mine own part, I durst not laugh, for fear of opening my lips and receiving the bad air.

  Cassius

  But, soft, I pray you: what, did Caesar swound?

  Casca

  He fell down in the market-place, and foamed at mouth, and was speechless.

  Brutus

  ’Tis very like: he hath the failing sickness.

  Cassius

  No, Caesar hath it not; but you and I,

  And honest Casca, we have the falling sickness.

  Casca

  I know not what you mean by that; but, I am sure, Caesar fell down. If the tag-rag people did not clap him and hiss him, according as he pleased and displeased them, as they use to do the players in the theatre, I am no true man.

  Brutus

  What said he when he came unto himself?

  Casca

  Marry, before he fell down, when he perceived the common herd was glad he refused the crown, he plucked me ope his doublet and offered them his throat to cut. An I had been a man of any occupation, if I would not have taken him at a word, I would I might go to hell among the rogues. And so he fell. When he came to himself again, he said, If he had done or said any thing amiss, he desired their worships to think it was his infirmity. Three or four wenches, where I stood, cried ‘Alas, good soul!’ and forgave him with all their hearts: but there’s no heed to be taken of them; if Caesar had stabbed their mothers, they would have done no less.

  Brutus

  And after that, he came, thus sad, away?

  Casca

  Ay.

  Cassius

  Did Cicero say any thing?

  Casca

  Ay, he spoke Greek.

  Cassius

  To what effect?

  Casca

  Nay, an I tell you that, Ill ne’er look you i’ the face again: but those that understood him smiled at one another and shook their heads; but, for mine own part, it was Greek to me. I could tell you more news too: Marullus and Flavius, for pulling scarfs off Caesar’s images, are put to silence. Fare you well. There was more foolery yet, if I could remember it.

  Cassius

  Will you sup with me to-night, Casca?

  Casca

  No, I am promised forth.

  Cassius

  Will you dine with me to-morrow?

  Casca

  Ay, if I be alive and your mind hold and your dinner worth the eating.

  Cassius

  Good: I will expect you.

  Casca

  Do so. Farewell, both.

  Exit

  Brutus

  What a blunt fellow is this grown to be!

  He was quick mettle when he went to school.

  Cassius

  So is he now in execution

  Of any bold or noble enterprise,

  However he puts on this tardy form.

  This rudeness is a sauce to his good wit,

  Which gives men stomach to digest his words

  With better appetite.

  Brutus

  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,

  Come home to me, and I will wait for you.

  Cassius

  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 disposed: therefore it is meet

  That noble minds keep ever with their likes;

  For who so firm that cannot be seduced?

  Caesar doth bear me hard; but he loves Brutus:

  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 obscurely

  Caesar’s ambition shall be glanced at:

  And after this let Caesar seat him sure;

  For we will shake him, or worse days endure.

  Exit

  SCENE III. THE SAME. A STREET.

  Thunder and lightning. Enter from opposite sides, Casca, with his sword drawn, and Cicero

  Cicero

  Good even, Casca: brought you Caesar home?

  Why are you breathless? and why stare you so?

  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

  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.

  Either there is a civil strife in heaven,

  Or else the world, too saucy with the gods,

  Incenses them to send destruction.

  Cicero

  Why, saw you any thing more wonderful?

  Casca

  A common slave — you know him well by sight —

  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,

  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.

  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;’

  For, I believe, they are portentous things

  Unto the climate that they point upon.

  Cicero

  Indeed, it is a strange-disposed time:

  But men may construe things after their fashion,

  Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.

  Come Caesar to the Capitol to-morrow?

  Casca

  He doth; for he did bid Antonius

  Send word to you he would be there to-morrow.

  Cicero

  Good night then, Casca: this disturbed sky

  Is not to walk in.

  Casca

&
nbsp; Farewell, Cicero.

  Exit Cicero

  Enter Cassius

  Cassius

  Who’s there?

  Casca

  A Roman.

  Cassius

  Casca, by your voice.

  Casca

  Your ear is good. Cassius, what night is this!

  Cassius

  A very pleasing night to honest men.

  Casca

  Who ever knew the heavens menace so?

  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,

  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.

  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.

  Cassius

  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 fool and children calculate,

  Why all these things change from their ordinance

  Their natures and preformed 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 Caesar that you mean; is it not, Cassius?

  Cassius

  Let it be who it is: for Romans now

  Have thews and limbs like to their ancestors;

  But, woe the while! our fathers’ minds are dead,

  And we are govern’d with our mothers’ spirits;

  Our yoke and sufferance show us womanish.

  Casca

  Indeed, they say the senators tomorrow

  Mean to establish Caesar as a king;

  And he shall wear his crown by sea and land,

  In every place, save here in Italy.

  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,

  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.

  Thunder still

  Casca

  So can I:

  So every bondman in his own hand bears

  The power to cancel his captivity.

  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

  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

  Before a willing bondman; then I know

  My answer must be made. But I am arm’d,

  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.

  Cassius

  There’s a bargain made.

  Now know you, Casca, I have moved 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: for now, this fearful night,

  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.

  Casca

  Stand close awhile, for here comes one in haste.

  Cassius

  ’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?

  Cassius

  No, it is Casca; one incorporate

  To our attempts. Am I not stay’d for, Cinna?

  Cinna

  I am glad on ’t. What a fearful night is this!

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

  Cassius

  Am I not stay’d for? tell me.

  Cinna

  Yes, you are.

  O Cassius, if you could

  But win the noble Brutus to our party —

  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

  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?

  Cinna

  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.

  Cassius

  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 alchemy,

  Will change to virtue and to worthiness.

  Cassius

  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

  ACT II

  SCENE I. ROME. BRUTUS’S ORCHARD.

  Enter Brutus

  Brutus

  What, Lucius, ho!

  I cannot, by the progress of the stars,

  Give guess how near to day. Lucius, I say!

  I would it we
re my fault to sleep so soundly.

  When, Lucius, when? awake, I say! what, Lucius!

  Enter Lucius

  Lucius

  Call’d you, my lord?

  Brutus

  Get me a taper in my study, Lucius:

  When it is lighted, come and call me here.

  Lucius

  I will, my lord.

  Exit

  Brutus

  It must be by his death: and for my part,

  I know no personal cause to spurn at him,

  But for the general. He would be crown’d:

  How that might change his nature, there’s the question.

  It is the bright day that brings forth the adder;

  And that craves wary walking. Crown him?— that;—

  And then, I grant, we put a sting in him,

  That at his will he may do danger with.

  The abuse of greatness is, when it disjoins

  Remorse from power: and, to speak truth of Caesar,

  I have not known when his affections sway’d

  More than his reason. But ’tis a common proof,

  That lowliness is young ambition’s ladder,

  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 Caesar 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, hatch’d, would, as his kind, grow mischievous,

  And kill him in the shell.

  Re-enter Lucius

  Lucius

  The taper burneth in your closet, sir.

  Searching the window for a flint, I found

  This paper, thus seal’d up; and, I am sure,

  It did not lie there when I went to bed.

  Gives him the letter

  Brutus

  Get you to bed again; it is not day.

  Is not to-morrow, boy, the ides of March?

  Lucius

  I know not, sir.

  Brutus

  Look in the calendar, and bring me word.

  Lucius

  I will, sir.

  Exit

  Brutus

  The exhalations whizzing in the air

  Give so much light that I may read by them.

  Opens the letter and reads

  ‘Brutus, thou sleep’st: awake, and see thyself.

  Shall Rome, &c. Speak, strike, redress!

  Brutus, thou sleep’st: awake!’

  Such instigations have been often dropp’d

  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