Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
Act 1 - Scene 3
The same. A street.
Cicero : Good even, Casca: brought you Caesar home?
[p]Why are you breathless?
and why stare you so?
Casca : Are not you moved, when all the sway of earth
[p]Shakes like a thing
unfirm? O Cicero,
[p]I have seen tempests, when the scolding
winds
[p]Have rived the knotty oaks, and I have seen
[p]The ambitious
ocean swell and rage and foam,
[p]To be exalted with the threatening
clouds:
[p]But never till to-night, never till now,
[p]Did I go
through a tempest dropping fire.
[p]Either there is a civil strife in
heaven,
[p]Or else the world, too saucy with the gods,
[p]Incenses
them to send destruction.
Cicero : Why, saw you any thing more wonderful?
Casca : A common slave--you know him well by sight--
[p]Held up his left hand,
which did flame and burn
[p]Like twenty torches join'd, and yet his
hand,
[p]Not sensible of fire, remain'd unscorch'd.
[p]Besides--I ha'
not since put up my sword--
[p]Against the Capitol I met a
lion,
[p]Who glared upon me, and went surly by,
[p]Without annoying
me: and there were drawn
[p]Upon a heap a hundred ghastly
women,
[p]Transformed with their fear; who swore they saw
[p]Men all
in fire walk up and down the streets.
[p]And yesterday the bird of
night did sit
[p]Even at noon-day upon the market-place,
[p]Hooting
and shrieking. When these prodigies
[p]Do so conjointly meet, let not
men say
[p]'These are their reasons; they are natural;'
[p]For, I
believe, they are portentous things
[p]Unto the climate that they
point upon.
Cicero : Indeed, it is a strange-disposed time:
[p]But men may construe things
after their fashion,
[p]Clean from the purpose of the things
themselves.
[p]Come Caesar to the Capitol to-morrow?
Casca : He doth; for he did bid Antonius
[p]Send word to you he would be there
to-morrow.
Cicero : Good night then, Casca: this disturbed sky
[p]Is not to walk in.
Casca : Farewell, Cicero.
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.
[p]For my part, I
have walk'd about the streets,
[p]Submitting me unto the perilous
night,
[p]And, thus unbraced, Casca, as you see,
[p]Have bared my
bosom to the thunder-stone;
[p]And when the cross blue lightning
seem'd to open
[p]The breast of heaven, I did present myself
[p]Even
in the aim and very flash of it.
Casca : But wherefore did you so much tempt the heavens?
[p]It is the part of
men to fear and tremble,
[p]When the most mighty gods by tokens
send
[p]Such dreadful heralds to astonish us.
Cassius : You are dull, Casca, and those sparks of life
[p]That should be in a
Roman you do want,
[p]Or else you use not. You look pale and
gaze
[p]And put on fear and cast yourself in wonder,
[p]To see the
strange impatience of the heavens:
[p]But if you would consider the
true cause
[p]Why all these fires, why all these gliding
ghosts,
[p]Why birds and beasts from quality and kind,
[p]Why old men
fool and children calculate,
[p]Why all these things change from their
ordinance
[p]Their natures and preformed faculties
[p]To monstrous
quality,--why, you shall find
[p]That heaven hath infused them with
these spirits,
[p]To make them instruments of fear and warning
[p]Unto
some monstrous state.
[p]Now could I, Casca, name to thee a
man
[p]Most like this dreadful night,
[p]That thunders, lightens,
opens graves, and roars
[p]As doth the lion in the Capitol,
[p]A man
no mightier than thyself or me
[p]In personal action, yet prodigious
grown
[p]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
[p]Have thews and limbs like to
their ancestors;
[p]But, woe the while! our fathers' minds are
dead,
[p]And we are govern'd with our mothers' spirits;
[p]Our yoke
and sufferance show us womanish.
Casca : Indeed, they say the senators tomorrow
[p]Mean to establish Caesar as
a king;
[p]And he shall wear his crown by sea and land,
[p]In every
place, save here in Italy.
Cassius : I know where I will wear this dagger then;
[p]Cassius from bondage
will deliver Cassius:
[p]Therein, ye gods, you make the weak most
strong;
[p]Therein, ye gods, you tyrants do defeat:
[p]Nor stony
tower, nor walls of beaten brass,
[p]Nor airless dungeon, nor strong
links of iron,
[p]Can be retentive to the strength of spirit;
[p]But
life, being weary of these worldly bars,
[p]Never lacks power to
dismiss itself.
[p]If I know this, know all the world besides,
[p]That
part of tyranny that I do bear
[p]I can shake off at pleasure.
Casca : So can I:
[p]So every bondman in his own hand bears
[p]The power to
cancel his captivity.
Cassius : And why should Caesar be a tyrant then?
[p]Poor man! I know he would
not be a wolf,
[p]But that he sees the Romans are but sheep:
[p]He
were no lion, were not Romans hinds.
[p]Those that with haste will
make a mighty fire
[p]Begin it with weak straws: what trash is
Rome,
[p]What rubbish and what offal, when it serves
[p]For the base
matter to illuminate
[p]So vile a thing as Caesar! But, O
grief,
[p]Where hast thou led me? I perhaps speak this
[p]Before a
willing bondman; then I know
[p]My answer must be made. But I am
arm'd,
[p]And dangers are to me indifferent.
Casca : You speak to Casca, and to such a man
[p]That is no fleering
tell-tale. Hold, my hand:
[p]Be factious for redress of all these
griefs,
[p]And I will set this foot of mine as far
[p]As who goes
farthest.
Cassius : There's a bargain made.
[p]Now know you, Casca, I have moved
already
[p]Some certain of the noblest-minded Romans
[p]To undergo
with me an enterprise
[p]Of honourable-dangerous consequence;
[p]And I
do know, by this, they stay for me
[p]In Pompey's porch: for now, this
fearful night,
[p]There is no stir or walking in the streets;
[p]And
the complexion of the element
[p]In favour's like the work we have in
hand,
[p]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;
[p]He is a friend.
[p][Enter
CINNA]
[p]Cinna, where haste you so?
Cinna : To find out you. Who's that? Metellus Cimber?
Cassius : No, it is Casca; one incorporate
[p]To our attempts. Am I not stay'd
for, Cinna?
Cinna : I am glad on 't. What a fearful night is this!
[p]There's two or three
of us have seen strange sights.
Cassius : Am I not stay'd for? tell me.
Cinna : Yes, you are.
[p]O Cassius, if you could
[p]But win the noble Brutus
to our party--
Cassius : Be you content: good Cinna, take this paper,
[p]And look you lay it in
the praetor's chair,
[p]Where Brutus may but find it; and throw
this
[p]In at his window; set this up with wax
[p]Upon old Brutus'
statue: all this done,
[p]Repair to Pompey's porch, where you shall
find us.
[p]Is Decius Brutus and Trebonius there?
Cinna : All but Metellus Cimber; and he's gone
[p]To seek you at your house.
Well, I will hie,
[p]And so bestow these papers as you bade me.
Cassius : That done, repair to Pompey's theatre.
[p][Exit CINNA]
[p]Come, Casca,
you and I will yet ere day
[p]See Brutus at his house: three parts of
him
[p]Is ours already, and the man entire
[p]Upon the next encounter
yields him ours.
Casca : O, he sits high in all the people's hearts:
[p]And that which would
appear offence in us,
[p]His countenance, like richest
alchemy,
[p]Will change to virtue and to worthiness.
Cassius : Him and his worth and our great need of him
[p]You have right well
conceited. Let us go,
[p]For it is after midnight; and ere day
[p]We
will awake him and be sure of him.
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