The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works

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The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 143

by William Shakespeare


  Most bloody, fiery and most terrible.

  130

  Enter CINNA.

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

  CASSIUS ’Tis Cinna. I do know him by his gait.

  He is a friend. Cinna, where haste you so?

  CINNA To find out you. Who’s that? Metellus Cimber?

  CASSIUS No, it is Caska, one incorporate

  135

  To our attempts. Am I not stayed for, Cinna?

  CINNA I am glad on’t. What a fearful night is this?

  There’s two or three of us have seen strange sights.

  CASSIUS Am I not stayed for? Tell me.

  CINNA Yes, you are.

  O Cassius, if you could

  140

  But win the noble Brutus to our party –

  CASSIUS Be you content. Good Cinna, take this paper

  And look you lay it in the praetor’s chair

  Where Brutus may but find it. And throw this

  In at his window. Set this up with wax

  145

  Upon old Brutus’ statue. All this done,

  Repair to Pompey’s Porch, where you shall find us.

  Is Decius Brutus and Trebonius there?

  CINNA All but Metellus Cimber, and he’s gone

  To seek you at your house. Well, I will hie,

  150

  And so bestow these papers as you bade me.

  CASSIUS That done, repair to Pompey’s Theatre.

  Exit Cinna.

  Come, Caska, you and I will yet ere day

  See Brutus at his house. Three parts of him

  Is ours already, and the man entire

  155

  Upon the next encounter yields him ours.

  CASKA O he sits high in all the people’s hearts:

  And that which would appear offence in us

  His countenance, like richest alchemy,

  Will change to virtue and to worthiness.

  160

  CASSIUS

  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.

  2.1 Enter BRUTUS in his orchard.

  BRUTUS 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.

  When, Lucius, when? Awake, I say: what, Lucius!

  5

  Enter LUCIUS.

  LUCIUS Called you, my lord?

  BRUTUS Get me a taper in my study, Lucius.

  When it is lighted, come and call me here.

  LUCIUS I will, my lord. Exit.

  BRUTUS It must be by his death: and for my part

  10

  I know no personal cause to spurn at him

  But for the general. He would be crowned:

  How that might change his nature, there’s the question.

  It is the bright day that brings forth the adder,

  And that craves wary walking. Crown him that,

  15

  And then I grant we put a sting in him

  That at his will he may do danger with.

  Th’abuse of greatness is when it disjoins

  Remorse from power; and to speak truth of Caesar

  I have not known when his affections swayed

  20

  More than his reason. But ’tis a common proof

  That lowliness is young ambition’s ladder

  Whereto the climber upward turns his face;

  But when he once attains the upmost round

  He then unto the ladder turns his back,

  25

  Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees

  By which he did ascend. So Caesar may.

  Then, lest he may, prevent. And since the quarrel

  Will bear no colour for the thing he is,

  Fashion it thus: that what he is, augmented,

  30

  Would run to these and these extremities.

  And therefore think him as a serpent’s egg

  Which hatched, would as his kind grow mischievous,

  And kill him in the shell.

  Enter LUCIUS.

  LUCIUS The taper burneth in your closet, sir.

  35

  Searching the window for a flint, I found

  This paper, thus sealed up, and I am sure

  It did not lie there when I went to bed.

  [Gives him the letter]

  BRUTUS Get you to bed again, it is not day.

  Is not tomorrow, boy, the first of March?

  40

  LUCIUS I know not, sir.

  BRUTUS Look in the calendar and bring me word.

  LUCIUS I will, sir. Exit.

  BRUTUS The exhalations whizzing in the air

  Give so much light that I may read by them.

  45

  [Opens the letter and reads]

  ‘Brutus, thou sleep’st; awake and see thyself.

  Shall Rome, et cetera. Speak, strike, redress.’

  ‘Brutus, thou sleep’st; awake.’

  Such instigations have been often dropped

  Where I have took them up.

  50

  ‘Shall Rome, et cetera.’ 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 called a king.

  ‘Speak, strike, redress.’ Am I entreated

  55

  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.

  Enter LUCIUS.

  LUCIUS Sir, March is wasted fifteen days. [Knock within.]

  BRUTUS ’Tis good. Go to the gate: somebody knocks.

  60

  Exit Lucius.

  Since Cassius first did whet me against Caesar

  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:

  65

  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.

  Enter LUCIUS.

  LUCIUS Sir, ’tis your brother Cassius at the door,

  70

  Who doth desire to see you.

  BRUTUS Is he alone?

  LUCIUS No, sir, there are moe with him.

  BRUTUS Do you know them?

  LUCIUS No, sir, their hats are plucked about their ears

  And half their faces buried in their cloaks,

  That by no means I may discover them

  75

  By any mark of favour.

  BRUTUS Let ’em enter. Exit Lucius.

  They are the faction. O conspiracy,

  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

  80

  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.

  85

  Enter the conspirators: CASSIUS, CASKA, DECIUS, CINNA, METELLUS and TREBONIUS.

  CASSIUS I think we are too bold upon your rest.

  Good morrow, Brutus. Do we trouble you?

  BRUTUS I have been up this hour, awake all night.

  Know I these men that come along with you?

  CASSIUS Yes, every man of them; and no man here

  90

  But honours you, and every one doth wishr />
  You had but that opinion of yourself

  Which every noble Roman bears of you.

  This is Trebonius.

  BRUTUS He is welcome hither.

  CASSIUS This, Decius Brutus.

  BRUTUS He is welcome too.

  95

  CASSIUS

  This, Caska. This, Cinna. And this, Metellus Cimber.

  BRUTUS They are all welcome.

  What watchful cares do interpose themselves

  Betwixt your eyes and night?

  CASSIUS Shall I entreat a word?

  [They whisper.]

  DECIUS

  Here lies the east. Doth not the day break here?

  100

  CASKA No.

  CINNA O pardon, sir, it doth, and yon grey lines

  That fret the clouds are messengers of day.

  CASKA You shall confess that you are both deceived.

  Here, as I point my sword, the sun arises,

  105

  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.

  110

  BRUTUS [Comes forward with Cassius.]

  Give me your hands all over, one by one.

  CASSIUS And let us swear our resolution.

  BRUTUS No, not an oath. If not the face of men,

  The sufferance of our souls, the time’s abuse;

  If these be motives weak, break off betimes,

  115

  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 steel with valour

  120

  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

  And will not palter? And what other oath,

  125

  Than honesty to honesty engaged,

  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

  130

  Such creatures as men doubt. But do not stain

  The even virtue of our enterprise,

  Nor th’insuppressive mettle of our spirits,

  To think that or our cause or our performance

  Did need an oath, when every drop of blood

  135

  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 passed from him.

  CASSIUS But what of Cicero? Shall we sound him?

  140

  I think he will stand very strong with us.

  CASKA Let us not leave him out.

  CINNA No, by no means.

  METELLUS O let us have him, for his silver hairs

  Will purchase us a good opinion,

  And buy men’s voices to commend our deeds.

  145

  It shall be said his judgement ruled our hands.

  Our youths and wildness shall no whit appear,

  But all be buried in his gravity.

  BRUTUS O name him not. Let us not break with him,

  For he will never follow anything

  150

  That other men begin.

  CASSIUS Then leave him out.

  CASKA Indeed he is not fit.

  DECIUS Shall no man else be touched but only Caesar?

  CASSIUS Decius, well urged. I think it is not meet

  Mark Antony, so well beloved of Caesar,

  155

  Should outlive Caesar. We shall find of him

  A shrewd contriver. And you know his means

  If he improve them may well stretch so far

  As to annoy us all: which to prevent

  Let Antony and Caesar fall together.

  160

  BRUTUS

  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 Caesar.

  Let’s be sacrificers but not butchers, Caius.

  165

  We all stand up against the spirit of Caesar,

  And in the spirit of men there is no blood.

  O that we then could come by Caesar’s spirit

 

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