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,7 grow mischievous; And kill him in the shell.

Re-enter Lucius.

Luc. 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.
Bru. Get you to bed again, it is not day.
Is not to-morrow, boy, the ides of March?
Luc. I know not, sir.

Bru. Look in the calendar, and bring me word.
Luc. I will, sir.

Bru. The exhalations, whizzing in the air,
Give so much light, that I may read by them.

[Exit.

[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 then

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.

Luc. Sir, March is wasted fourteen days.

[Knock within.

[Exit LUCIUS.

Bru. 'Tis good. Go to the gate; somebody knocks.

Since Cassius first did whet me against Cæsar,

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 :"

[7] According to his nature.

JOHNSON.

[8] That nice critic, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, complains that of all kind of

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.

Luc. Sir, 'tis your brother Cassius at the door,9

Who doth desire to see you.

Bru. Is he alone?

Luc. No, sir, there are more with him.

Bru. Do you know them?

Luc. 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 marks of favour.'

Bru. Let them enter.

They are the faction. O conspiracy!

[Exit LUCIUS.

Sham'st 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 mask thy monstrous visage? Seek none, conspiracy;

Hide it in smiles, and affability:

For if thou path thy native semblance on,'

Not Erebus itself were dim enough

To hide thee from prevention.

Enter CASSIUS, Casca, DECIUS, Cinna, METELLUS CIMBER, and TREBONIUS.

Cas. I think we are too bold upon your rest : Good-morrow, Brutus ; Do we trouble you?

beauties, those great strokes, which he calls the terrible graces, and which are so frequent in Homer, are not to be found in any of the following writers. Among our countrymen, it seems to be as much confined to the British Homer. This description of the condition of conspirators, before the execution of their design, has a pomp and terror in it that perfectly astonishes. The excellent Mr. Addison, whose modesty made him sometimes diffident of his own genius, but whose true judgment always led him to the safest guides (as we may see by those fine strokes in his Cato borrowed from the Philippics of Cicero) has paraphrased this fine description; but we are no longer to expect those terrible graces which animate his original.

"O think, what anxious moments pass between
The birth of plots, and their last fatal periods.
Oh, 'tis a dreadful interval of time,

Fill'd up with horror all, and big with death." Cato. WARB. Shakespeare is describing what passes in a single bosom, the insurrection which a conspirator feels agitating the little kingdom of his own mind; when the genius, or power that watches for his protection, and the mortal instruments, the passions, which excite him to a deed of honour and danger, are in council and debate; when the desire of action and the care of safety keep the mind in continual fluctuation and disturbance. JOHNSON.

[9] Cassius married Junia, Brutus's sister.

Any distinctions of countenance.

If thou walk in thy true form.

STEEVENS.

JOHNSON.
JOHNSON.

Bru. I have been up this hour; awake, all night.
Know I these men, that come along with you?

Cas. Yes, every man of them; and no man here,
But honours you; and every one doth wish,
You had but that opinion of yourself,

Which every noble Roman bears of you.
This is Trebonius.

Bru. He is welcome hither.

Cas. This Decius Brutus.
Bru. He is welcome too.

Cas. This, Casca; this, Cinna ;

And this, Metellus Cimber.

Bru. They are all welcome.

What watchful cares do interpose themselves

Betwixt your eyes and night?

Cas. Shall I entreat a word?

[They whisper.

Dec. Here lies the east: Doth not the day break here? Casca. No.

Cin. O, pardon, sir, it doth; and yon grey lines, That fret the clouds, are messengers of day.

s;

Casca. You shall confess, that you are both deceiv'd.
Here, as I point my sword, the sun arises
Which is a great way growing on the south,
Weighing the youthful season of the year.
Some two months hence, up higher toward the north
He first presents his fire; and the high east
Stands, as the Capitol, directly here.

Bru. Give me your hands all over, one by one.
Cas. And let us swear our resolution.

Bru. No, not an oath: If not the face of men,3
The sufferance of our souls, the time's abuse,-
If these be motives weak, break off betimes,
And every man hence to his idle bed;

So let high-sighted tyranny range on,
Till each man drop by lottery. But if these,
As I am sure they do, bear fire enough
To kindle cowards, and to steal with valour
The melting spirits of women; then, countrymen,
What need we any spur, but our own cause,
To prick us to redress? what other bond,
Than secret Romans, that have spoke the word,

[3] Mr. Mason would read faiths of men, which might easily have been confound ed with face.

MALONE.

[4] Perhaps the poet alluded to the custom of decimation, i. e. the selection by lot of every tenth soldier, in a general mutiny, for punishment STEEVENS.

And will not palter ? and what other oath,
Than honesty to honesty engag'd,

That this shall be, or we will fall for it?
Swear priests, and cowards, and men cautelous,
Old feeble carrions, and such suffering souls
That welcome wrongs; unto bad causes swear
Such creatures as men doubt: but do not stain
The even virtue of our enterprize,

Nor the insuppressive mettle of our spirits,
To think, that, or our cause, or our performance,
Did need an oath; when every drop of blood,
That every Roman bears, and nobly bears,
Is guilty of a several bastardy,

If he do break the smallest particle

Of any promise that hath pass'd from him.

Cas. But what of Cicero ? Shall we sound him?

I think, he will stand very strong with us.
Casca. Let us not leave him out.

Cim. No, by no means.

Met. O let us have him; for his silver hairs
Will purchase us a good opinion,

And buy men's voices to commend our deeds:
It shall be said, his judgment rul'd our hands;
Our youths, and wildness, shall no whit appear,
But all be buried in his gravity.

Bru. O, name him not let us not break with him;
For he will never follow any thing

That other men begin.

Cas. Then leave him out.

Casca. Indeed, he is not fit.

Dec. Shall no man else be teuch'd but only Cæsar? Cas. Decius, well urg'd :—I think it is not meet, Mark Antony, so well belov'd of Cæsar,

Should outlive Cæsar: We shall find of him
A shrewd contriver; and, you know, his means,
If he improves them, may well stretch so far,
As to annoy us all which to prevent,

Let Antony, and Cæsar, fall together.

Bru. Our course will seem too bloody, Caius Cassius,

To cut the head off, and then hack the limbs ;

Like wrath in death, and envy afterwards :"

For Antony is but a limb of Cæsar.

Will not fly from his engagements. MALONE.

Bulloker, in his English Expositor, 1616, explains cautelous thus, "Warie, circumspect."

MALONE.

[7] Envy is here, as almost always in Shakespeare's plays, malice.

MALONE.

Let us be sacrificers, but no butchers, Caius.
We all stand up against the spirit of Cæsar;
And in the spirit of men there is no blood :
O, that we then could come by Cæsar's spirit,
And not dismember Cæsar! But, alas,

Cæsar must bleed for it! And, gentle friends,
Let's kill him boldly, but not wrathfully;
Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods,
Not hew him as a carcase fit for hounds :
And let our hearts, as subtle masters do,
Stir up
their servants to an act of rage,
And after seem to chide them. This shall make
Our purpose necessary, and not envious :
Which so appearing to the common eyes,
We shall be call'd purgers, not murderers.
And for Mark Antony, think not of him;
For he can do no more than Cæsar's arm,
When Cæsar's head is off.

Cas. Yet do I fear him :

For in the ingrafted love he bears to Cæsar,

Bru. Alas, good Cassius, do not think of him :
If he love Cæsar, all that he can do
Is to himself; take thought, and die for Cæsar :
And that were much he should; for he is given
To sports, to wildness, and much company.

8

Treb. There is no fear in him; let him not die ; For he will live, and laugh at this hereafter. [Clock strikes. Bru. Peace, count the clock.

Cas. The clock hath stricken three.

Treb. 'Tis time to part.

Cas. But it is doubtful yet,

If Cæsar will come forth to-day, or no :
For he is superstitious grown of late;
Quite from the main opinion he held once
Of fantasy, of dreams, and ceremonies :
It may be, these apparent prodigies,
The unaccustom'd terror of this night,
And the persuasion of his augurers,
May hold him from the Capitol to-day.

Dec. Never fear that: If he be so resolv'd,
I can o'ersway him: for he loves to hear,
That unicorns may be betray'd with trees,

[8] here used in a disreputable

HENLEY.

Ceremonies means omens or signs deduced from sacrifices, or other ceremo

1