LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

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 II

      Scene I

      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

Скачать книгу