LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

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,

Скачать книгу