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 2
Scene 1
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 were 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
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!
Re-enter LUCIUS
LUCIUS Sir, March is wasted fourteen days.
Knocking within
BRUTUS ‘Tis good. Go to the gate; somebody knocks.
Exit LUCIUS
Since Cassius first did whet me against Caesar,
I have not slept.
Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream:
The Genius and the mortal instruments
Are then in council; and the state of man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection.
Re-enter LUCIUS
LUCIUS Sir, ’tis your brother Cassius at the door,
Who doth desire to see you.
BRUTUS Is he alone?
LUCIUS No, sir, there are moe with him.
BRUTUS Do you know them?
LUCIUS No, sir; their hats are pluck’d about their ears,
And half their faces buried in their cloaks,
That by no means I may discover them
By any mark of favour.
BRUTUS Let ’em enter.
Exit LUCIUS
They are the faction. O conspiracy,
Shamest thou to show thy dangerous brow by night,
When evils are most free? O, then by day
Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough
To mask thy monstrous visage? Seek none, conspiracy;
Hide it in smiles and affability:
For if thou path, thy native semblance on,
Not Erebus itself were dim enough
To hide thee from prevention.
Enter the conspirators, CASSIUS, CASCA, DECIUS BRUTUS, CINNA, METELLUS CIMBER, and TREBONIUS
CASSIUS I think we are too bold upon your rest:
Good morrow, Brutus; do we trouble you?
BRUTUS I have been up this hour, awake all night.
Know I these men that come along with you?
CASSIUS Yes, every man of them, and no man here
But honours you; and every one doth wish
You had but that opinion of yourself
Which every noble Roman bears of you.
This is Trebonius.
BRUTUS He is welcome hither.
CASSIUS This, Decius Brutus.
BRUTUS He is welcome too.
CASSIUS This, Casca; this, Cinna; and this, Metellus Cimber.
BRUTUS They are all welcome.
What watchful cares do interpose themselves
Betwixt your eyes and night?
CASSIUS Shall I entreat a word?
BRUTUS and CASSIUS whisper
DECIUS BRUTUS Here lies the east: doth not the day break here?
CASCA No.
CINNA O, pardon, sir, it doth; and yon gray lines
That fret the clouds are messengers of day.
CASCA You shall confess that you are both deceived.
Here, as I point my sword, the sun arises,
Which is a great way growing on the south,
Weighing the youthful season of the year.
Some two months hence up higher toward the north
He first presents his fire; and the high east
Stands, as the Capitol, directly here.
BRUTUS Give me your hands all over, one by one.
CASSIUS And let us swear our resolution.
BRUTUS No, not an oath: if not the face of men,
The sufferance of our souls, the time’s abuse,–
If these be motives weak, break off betimes,
And every man hence to his idle bed;
So let high-sighted tyranny range on,
Till each man drop by lottery. But if these,
As I am sure they do, bear fire enough
To kindle cowards and to steel with valour
The melting spirits of women, then, countrymen,
What need we any spur but our own cause,
To prick us to redress? what other bond
Than secret Romans, that have spoke the word,
And will not palter? and what other oath
Than honesty to honesty engaged,
That this shall be, or we will fall for it?
Swear priests and cowards and men cautelous,
Old feeble carrions and such suffering souls
That welcome wrongs; unto bad causes swear
Such creatures as men doubt; but do not stain
The even virtue of our enterprise,
Nor the insuppressive mettle of our spirits,
To think that or our cause or our performance
Did need an oath; when every drop of blood
That every Roman bears, and nobly bears,
Is guilty of a several bastardy,
If he do break the smallest particle
Of any promise that hath pass’d from him.
CASSIUS But what of Cicero? shall we sound him?
I think he will stand very strong with us.
CASCA Let us not leave him out.
CINNA No, by no means.
METELLUS CIMBER O, let us have him, for his silver hairs
Will purchase us a good opinion
And buy men’s voices to commend our deeds:
It shall be said, his judgment ruled our hands;