Most bloody, fiery and most terrible.
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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
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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
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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
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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,
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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
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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.
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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
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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,
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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
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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,
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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,
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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.
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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?
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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.
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[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.
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‘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
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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.
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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:
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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,
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
BRUTUS He is welcome hither.
CASSIUS This, Decius Brutus.
BRUTUS He is welcome too.
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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?
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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,
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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.
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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,
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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
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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,
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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
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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
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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?
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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.
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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
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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,
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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.
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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.
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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
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 143