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who’s that knocks?

      Re-enter LUCIUS with LIGARIUS

      LUCIUS

      He is a sick man that would speak with you.

      BRUTUS

      Caius Ligarius, that Metellus spake of.

      Boy, stand aside. Caius Ligarius! how?

      LIGARIUS

      Vouchsafe good morrow from a feeble tongue.

      BRUTUS

      O, what a time have you chose out, brave Caius,

      To wear a kerchief! Would you were not sick!

      LIGARIUS

      I am not sick, if Brutus have in hand

      Any exploit worthy the name of honour.

      BRUTUS

      Such an exploit have I in hand, Ligarius,

      Had you a healthful ear to hear of it.

      LIGARIUS

      By all the gods that Romans bow before,

      I here discard my sickness! Soul of Rome!

      Brave son, derived from honourable loins!

      Thou, like an exorcist, hast conjured up

      My mortified spirit. Now bid me run,

      And I will strive with things impossible;

      Yea, get the better of them. What’s to do?

      BRUTUS

      A piece of work that will make sick men whole.

      LIGARIUS

      But are not some whole that we must make sick?

      BRUTUS

      That must we also. What it is, my Caius,

      I shall unfold to thee, as we are going

      To whom it must be done.

      LIGARIUS

      Set on your foot,

      And with a heart new-fired I follow you,

      To do I know not what: but it sufficeth

      That Brutus leads me on.

      BRUTUS

      Follow me, then.

      Exeunt

      Scene II

      CAESAR’s house.

      Thunder and lightning.

      Enter CAESAR, in his night-gown

      CAESAR

      Nor heaven nor earth have been at peace to-night:

      Thrice hath Calpurnia in her sleep cried out,

      ’Help, ho! they murder Caesar!’ Who’s within?

      Enter a Servant

      Servant

      My lord?

      CAESAR

      Go bid the priests do present sacrifice

      And bring me their opinions of success.

      Servant

      I will, my lord.

      Exit

      Enter CALPURNIA

      CALPURNIA

      What mean you, Caesar? think you to walk forth?

      You shall not stir out of your house to-day.

      CAESAR

      Caesar shall forth: the things that threaten’d me

      Ne’er look’d but on my back; when they shall see

      The face of Caesar, they are vanished.

      CALPURNIA

      Caesar, I never stood on ceremonies,

      Yet now they fright me. There is one within,

      Besides the things that we have heard and seen,

      Recounts most horrid sights seen by the watch.

      A lioness hath whelped in the streets;

      And graves have yawn’d, and yielded up their dead;

      Fierce fiery warriors fought upon the clouds,

      In ranks and squadrons and right form of war,

      Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol;

      The noise of battle hurtled in the air,

      Horses did neigh, and dying men did groan,

      And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets.

      O Caesar! these things are beyond all use,

      And I do fear them.

      CAESAR

      What can be avoided

      Whose end is purposed by the mighty gods?

      Yet Caesar shall go forth; for these predictions

      Are to the world in general as to Caesar.

      CALPURNIA

      When beggars die, there are no comets seen;

      The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.

      CAESAR

      Cowards die many times before their deaths;

      The valiant never taste of death but once.

      Of all the wonders that I yet have heard.

      It seems to me most strange that men should fear;

      Seeing that death, a necessary end,

      Will come when it will come.

      Re-enter Servant

      What say the augurers?

      SERVANT

      They would not have you to stir forth to-day.

      Plucking the entrails of an offering forth,

      They could not find a heart within the beast.

      CAESAR

      The gods do this in shame of cowardice:

      Caesar should be a beast without a heart,

      If he should stay at home to-day for fear.

      No, Caesar shall not: danger knows full well

      That Caesar is more dangerous than he:

      We are two lions litter’d in one day,

      And I the elder and more terrible:

      And Caesar shall go forth.

      CALPURNIA

      Alas, my lord,

      Your wisdom is consumed in confidence.

      Do not go forth to-day: call it my fear

      That keeps you in the house, and not your own.

      We’ll send Mark Antony to the senate-house:

      And he shall say you are not well to-day:

      Let me, upon my knee, prevail in this.

      CAESAR

      Mark Antony shall say I am not well,

      And, for thy humour, I will stay at home.

      Enter DECIUS BRUTUS

      Here’s

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