LITMIR.BIZ

          Well, Brutus, thou art noble; yet, I see

          Thy honorable mettle 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 humor 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.

        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 tonight, 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 anything 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 glaz'd 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 noonday upon the marketplace,

          Howling 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.

          Comes Caesar to the Capitol tomorrow?

        CASCA. He doth, for he did bid Antonio

          Send word to you he would be there tomorrow.

        CICERO. Good then, Casca. This disturbed sky

          Is not to walk in.

        CASCA. Farewell, Cicero. Exit Cicero.

        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 thunderstone;

          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 if you 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, fools, 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,

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