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 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 have not since put up my sword,)
Against the Capitol I met a lion,

Who glar'da 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.
CIC. Good night then, Casca: this disturbed sky
Is not to walk in.

CASCA.

Farewell, Cicero.

[Exit CICERO.

a Glar'd. The original has glaz'd. This is a meaningless word; and we have therefore to choose between one of two corrections. Knowing the mode in which typographical errors arise, we should say that glar'd in the manuscript might very readily become glaz'd in the printed copy, by the substitution of a z for an r. Glar'd is the reading of Steevens. On the contrary, if the manuscript had been gaz'd, which Malone adopts, the compositor must have inserted an 1, to change a common word into an unfamiliar one; and this is not the usual process of typographical blundering. Malone quotes a passage from Stow, describing a lion-fight in the Tower:-" Then was the great lion put forth, who gazed awhile;” and he thinks the term to have been peculiarly applied to the fierce aspect of a lion. Surely this is nonsense. A well-known quotation from 'Macbeth,' given by Steevens, is decisive as to the propriety of using glar'd in the passage before

us:

"Thou hast no speculation in those eyes

That thou dost glare with."

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;
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 man no mightier than thyself, or me,

In personal action; yet prodigious grown,

And fearful, as these strange eruptions are.

CASCA. T is Cæsar that you mean: Is it not, Cassius?
CAS. 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 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!

Where hast thou led me?

But, O, grief!

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.

CAS.

There's a bargain made.

Now know you, Casca, I have mov'd already

[Thunder still.

Some certain of the noblest-minded Romans,

Factious. Johnson considers that the expression here means active. To be factious, in its original sense, is to be doing; but Malone suggests that it means " embody a party or faction."

TRAGEDIES.-VOL. II.

BR

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

Enter CINNA.

CASCA. Stand close awhile, for here comes one in haste.
CAS. "T is 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? one incorporate

CAS. No, it is Casca;
To our attempts.

CIN. I am glad on 't.

Am I not staid for, Cinna?

What a fearful night is this! There's two or three of us have seen strange sights. CAS. Am I not staid for? 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.

And so bestow these

Well, I will hie,

bade me. as you papers CAS. That done, repair to Pompey's theatre. 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, like richest alchymy,

Will change to virtue and to worthiness.

[Exit CINNA.

a The original has is favors. Some would read is favour'd; but the use of the noun, in the

sense of appearance, is probably clearer.

Modern editors have introduced Cinna here without authority.

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.

[Exeunt.