That is no fleering tell-tale. Hold my hand ;3 Cas. There's a bargain made. Now know you, Casca, I have mov'd already Is favour'd, like the work we have in hand, Enter CINNA. Casca. Stand close awhile, 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 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 Upon old Brutus' statue: all this done, Repair to Pompey's porch, where you shall find us. Cin. All but Metellus Cimber; and he's gone To seek you at your house. Well, I will hie, Cas. That done, repair to Pompey's theatre. [ExitCIN. [3] Here's my hand. JOH. [4] Factious, seems here to mean active. JOH. Casca. O, he sits high, in all the people's hearts: 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. [Exeunt. SCENE 1.-The same. BRUTUS's Orchard. 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.- 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. [Exit. Bru. 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. And that craves wary walking. Crown him?—That ;- Remorse from power:4 And, to speak truth of Cæsar, More than his reason. But 'tis a common proof, Then, lest he may, prevent. And, since the quarrel Remorse for mercy. WARB.. [5] That is, low steps. JOHNS. Will bear no colour for the thing he is, 6 Re-enter LuCIUS. Luc. The taper burneth in your closet, sir. Bru. Look in the calendar, and bring me word. Bru. The exhalations, whizzing in the air, [Exit [Opens the letter, and reads. Such instigations have been often dropp'd 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. To speak, and strike? O Rome! I make thee promise, 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 [6] According to his nature. JOHNS. [7] That nice critic, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, complains that of all kind of beauties, those great strokes, which he calls the terrible graces, and which The genius, and the mortal instruments, 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 mark of favour. Bru. Let them enter. They are the faction. O conspiracy! [Exit LUCIUS. Sham'st thou to show thy dangerous brow by night, Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough To mask thy monstrous visage? Seek none, conspiracy; Hide in it smiles, and affability : For if thou path thy native semblance on, 2 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 ? 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. Fill'd up with horror all, and big with death." Cats. WARB. Shakspeare 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. JOHNS. [9] Cassius married Junia, Brutus's sister. STEEV. [1] Any distinctions of countenance. JOHNS. [2] If thou walk in thy true form. JOHNS. 20 VOL. VI. 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, Which every noble Roman bears of you. 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. 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, Some two months hence, up higher toward the north Bru. Give me your hands all over, one by one. Bru. No, not an oath: If not the face of men,3 To kindle cowards, and to steel with valour Than secret Romans, that have spoke the word, [3] Mr. Mason would read faiths of men, which might easily have been confounded with face. MÄL. [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. STEEV. |