That Rome holds of his name; wherein obscurely
Cæsar's ambition shall be glanced at°;

And, after this, let Cæsar seat him sure;

For we will shake him, or worse days endure Exit.

SCENE III. A street

Thunaer 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 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 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° ?

10

Casca. A common slave-you know him well by sight

Held

up

his left hand, which did flame and burn Like twenty torches joined, and yet his hand Not sensible of fire remained unscorched. Besides - I ha' not since put up my sword

Against the Capitol I met a lion,

Who glazed 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.

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39

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 walked about the streets,

Submitting me unto the perilous night,

And thus unbraced, Casca, as you see,

Have bared my bosom to the thunder-stone°;

And when the cross blue lightning seemed to open 50 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.
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

You look pale and gaze

Why all these fires, why all these gliding ghosts
Why birds and beasts from quality and kind,°
Why old men fool 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.

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70

Casca. 'Tis Cæsar that you mean; is it not, Cas sius?

Cas. Let it be who it is: for Romans now

80

Have thews and limbs like to their ancestors;
But, woe the while! our fathers' minds are dead,
And we are governed 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.

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[Thunder still.

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