The same. A Street.

SCENE III.

Thunder and lightning. Enter, from opposite sides, CASCA, with his sword drawn, and CICERO.

Cic. Good even, Casca: Brought you Cæsar home? Why are you breathless? and why stare you so?

Casca. Are not you mov'd, when all the sway of earth' Shakes, like a thing unfirm? O Cicero,

I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds
Have riv'd the knotty oaks; and I have seen
The ambitious ocean swell, and rage, and foam,
To be exalted with the threat'ning 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.

Cic. 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 have not since put up my sword,)

Against the Capitol I met a lion,

Who glar'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 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.

Cic. Indeed, it is a strange-disposed time:
But men may construe things after their fashion,
Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.
Comes Cæsar to the Capitol to-morrow?

Casca. He doth; for he did bid Antonius
Send word to you, he would be there to-morrow.

[5] The whole weight or momentum of this globe.

JOHNSON.

6 Glar'd has a singular propriety, as it is highly expressive of the farrous scin tillation of a lion's eye. STEEVENS.

Cic. Good night then, Casca: this disturbed sky

Casca. Your ear is good. Cassius, what night is this? Cas. A very pleasing night to honest men.

Casca. Who ever knew the heavens menace so?
Cas. 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 bar'd 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.

Cas. 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 ;7
Why old men fools, and children calculate ;
Why all these things change, from their ordinance,
Their natures, and pre-formed faculties,
To monstrous quality; why, you shall find,
That heaven hath infus'd 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 stone fabulously supposed to be discharged by thunder. STEEVENS.
That is, Why they deviate from quality and nature. This line might perhaps

be more properly placed after the next lines:"

Why birds, and beasts, from quality and kind; Why all these things change from their ordinance. [8] Calculate here signifies to foretell, to prophesy.

JOHNSON.

WARBURTON,

A man no mightier than thyself, or me,
In personal action, yet prodigious grown,
And fearful, as these strange eruptions are.

Casca. 'Tis Cæsar that you mean: Is it not, Cassius ?
Cas. Let it be who it is: for Romans now
Have thewes 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 to-morrow
Mean to establish Cæsar as a king :

And he shall wear his crown by sea, and land,
In every place, save here in Italy.

Cas. 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.

Casca. So can I :

So every bondman in his own hand bears
The power to cancel his captivity.

Cas. And why should Cæsar 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 Cæsar ?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,

STEEVENS.

Prodigious is portentous.
Thewes is an obsolete word implying nerves or muscular strength.
I shall be called to account, and must answer as for seditious words.

STEE.

JOHN.

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.

Cas. There's a bargain made.

Now know you, Casca, I have mov'd already
Some certain of the noblest-minded Romans,
To undergo, with me, an enterprize
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,

Is favour'd, like the work we have in hand,
Most bloody, fiery, and most terrible.

Enter CINNA.

Casca. Stand close a while, for here comes one in haste. Cas. 'Tis Cinna, I do know him by his gait ;

He is a friend.-Cinna, where haste you so?

Cin. To find out you: Who's that? Metellus Cimber? Cas. No, it is Casca; one incorporate

To our attempts. Am I not staid for, Cinna?

Cin. I am glad on't. What a fearful night is this? There's two or three of us have seen strange sights. Cas. Am I not staid for, Cinna? Tell me.

Cin. Yes,

You are.

O, Cassius, if you could but win The noble Brutus to our party

Cas. Be you content: Good Cinna, take this paper, And look you lay it in the prætor'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?

Cin. 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.

Cas. That done, repair to Pompey's theatre. [Exit CiN.
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.

[3] Here's my hand. [4] Factious, seems here to mean active JOHNSON

Casca. O, he sits high, in all the people's hearts:
And that, which would appear offence in us,
His countenance, like richest alchymy,

Will change to virtue, and to worthiness.

Cas. 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.

ACT II.

[Exeunt.

SCENE I.-Brutus' garden. Enter BRUTUS.

Bru. 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.

Luc. Call'd you, my lord?

Bru. Get me a taper in my study, Lucius: When it is lighted, come and call me here. Luc. I will, my lord.

Bru. It must be by his death: for my part,

I know no personal cause to spurn at him,
But for the general. He would be crown'd:

[Exit.

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 Cæsar,
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 1.'s 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 Cæsar may;

Then, lest he may, prevent. And, since the quarrel

[5] Remorse for mercy. WARBURTON. [6] That is, low steps. JOHNSON