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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

      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

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