1    Good even, Casca: brought you Caesar home?
2    Why are you breathless? and why stare you so?

3    Are not you moved, when all the sway of earth
4    Shakes like a thing unfirm? O Cicero,
5    I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds
6    Have rived the knotty oaks, and I have seen
7    The ambitious ocean swell and rage and foam,
8    To be exalted with the threatening clouds:
9    But never till to-night, never till now,
10   Did I go through a tempest dropping fire.
11   Either there is a civil strife in heaven,
12   Or else the world, too saucy with the gods,
13   Incenses them to send destruction.

14   Why, saw you any thing more wonderful?

15   A common slave--you know him well by sight--
16   Held up his left hand, which did flame and burn
17   Like twenty torches join'd, and yet his hand,
18   Not sensible of fire, remain'd unscorch'd.
19   Besides--I ha' not since put up my sword--
20   Against the Capitol I met a lion,
21   Who glared upon me, and went surly by,
22   Without annoying me: and there were drawn
23   Upon a heap a hundred ghastly women,
24   Transformed with their fear; who swore they saw
25   Men all in fire walk up and down the streets.
26   And yesterday the bird of night did sit
27   Even at noon-day upon the market-place,
28   Hooting and shrieking. When these prodigies
29   Do so conjointly meet, let not men say
30   'These are their reasons; they are natural;'
31   For, I believe, they are portentous things
32   Unto the climate that they point upon.

33   Indeed, it is a strange-disposed time:
34   But men may construe things after their fashion,
35   Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.
36   Come Caesar to the Capitol to-morrow?

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

39   Good night then, Casca: this disturbed sky
40   Is not to walk in.

41   Farewell, Cicero.

42   Who's there?

43   A Roman.

44   Casca, by your voice.

45   Your ear is good. Cassius, what night is this!

46   A very pleasing night to honest men.

47   Who ever knew the heavens menace so?

48   Those that have known the earth so full of faults.
49   For my part, I have walk'd about the streets,
50   Submitting me unto the perilous night,
51   And, thus unbraced, Casca, as you see,
52   Have bared my bosom to the thunder-stone;
53   And when the cross blue lightning seem'd to open
54   The breast of heaven, I did present myself
55   Even in the aim and very flash of it.

56   But wherefore did you so much tempt the heavens?
57   It is the part of men to fear and tremble,
58   When the most mighty gods by tokens send
59   Such dreadful heralds to astonish us.

60   You are dull, Casca, and those sparks of life
61   That should be in a Roman you do want,
62   Or else you use not. You look pale and gaze
63   And put on fear and cast yourself in wonder,
64   To see the strange impatience of the heavens:
65   But if you would consider the true cause
66   Why all these fires, why all these gliding ghosts,
67   Why birds and beasts from quality and kind,
68   Why old men fool and children calculate,
69   Why all these things change from their ordinance
70   Their natures and preformed faculties
71   To monstrous quality,--why, you shall find
72   That heaven hath infused them with these spirits,
73   To make them instruments of fear and warning
74   Unto some monstrous state.
75   Now could I, Casca, name to thee a man
76   Most like this dreadful night,
77   That thunders, lightens, opens graves, and roars
78   As doth the lion in the Capitol,
79   A man no mightier than thyself or me
80   In personal action, yet prodigious grown
81   And fearful, as these strange eruptions are.

82   'Tis Caesar that you mean; is it not, Cassius?

83   Let it be who it is: for Romans now
84   Have thews and limbs like to their ancestors;
85   But, woe the while! our fathers' minds are dead,
86   And we are govern'd with our mothers' spirits;
87   Our yoke and sufferance show us womanish.

88   Indeed, they say the senators tomorrow
89   Mean to establish Caesar as a king;
90   And he shall wear his crown by sea and land,
91   In every place, save here in Italy.

92   I know where I will wear this dagger then;
93   Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius:
94   Therein, ye gods, you make the weak most strong;
95   Therein, ye gods, you tyrants do defeat:
96   Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass,
97   Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron,
98   Can be retentive to the strength of spirit;
99   But life, being weary of these worldly bars,
100  Never lacks power to dismiss itself.
101  If I know this, know all the world besides,
102  That part of tyranny that I do bear
103  I can shake off at pleasure.

104  So can I:
105  So every bondman in his own hand bears
106  The power to cancel his captivity.

107  And why should Caesar be a tyrant then?
108  Poor man! I know he would not be a wolf,
109  But that he sees the Romans are but sheep:
110  He were no lion, were not Romans hinds.
111  Those that with haste will make a mighty fire
112  Begin it with weak straws: what trash is Rome,
113  What rubbish and what offal, when it serves
114  For the base matter to illuminate
115  So vile a thing as Caesar! But, O grief,
116  Where hast thou led me? I perhaps speak this
117  Before a willing bondman; then I know
118  My answer must be made. But I am arm'd,
119  And dangers are to me indifferent.

120  You speak to Casca, and to such a man
121  That is no fleering tell-tale. Hold, my hand:
122  Be factious for redress of all these griefs,
123  And I will set this foot of mine as far
124  As who goes farthest.

125  There's a bargain made.
126  Now know you, Casca, I have moved already
127  Some certain of the noblest-minded Romans
128  To undergo with me an enterprise
129  Of honourable-dangerous consequence;
130  And I do know, by this, they stay for me
131  In Pompey's porch: for now, this fearful night,
132  There is no stir or walking in the streets;
133  And the complexion of the element
134  In favour's like the work we have in hand,
135  Most bloody, fiery, and most terrible.

136  Stand close awhile, for here comes one in haste.

137  'Tis Cinna; I do know him by his gait;
138  He is a friend.
Enter CINNA
139  Cinna, where haste you so?

140  To find out you. Who's that? Metellus Cimber?

141  No, it is Casca; one incorporate
142  To our attempts. Am I not stay'd for, Cinna?

143  I am glad on 't. What a fearful night is this!
144  There's two or three of us have seen strange sights.

145  Am I not stay'd for? tell me.

146  Yes, you are.
147  O Cassius, if you could
148  But win the noble Brutus to our party--

149  Be you content: good Cinna, take this paper,
150  And look you lay it in the praetor's chair,
151  Where Brutus may but find it; and throw this
152  In at his window; set this up with wax
153  Upon old Brutus' statue: all this done,
154  Repair to Pompey's porch, where you shall find us.
155  Is Decius Brutus and Trebonius there?

156  All but Metellus Cimber; and he's gone
157  To seek you at your house. Well, I will hie,
158  And so bestow these papers as you bade me.

159  That done, repair to Pompey's theatre.
Exit CINNA
160  Come, Casca, you and I will yet ere day
161  See Brutus at his house: three parts of him
162  Is ours already, and the man entire
163  Upon the next encounter yields him ours.

164  O, he sits high in all the people's hearts:
165  And that which would appear offence in us,
166  His countenance, like richest alchemy,
167  Will change to virtue and to worthiness.

168  Him and his worth and our great need of him
169  You have right well conceited. Let us go,
170  For it is after midnight; and ere day
171  We will awake him and be sure of him.