JULIUS CAESAR. William Shakespeare
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CASSIUS.
There’s a bargain made.
Now know you, Casca, I have moved already
Some certain of the noblest-minded Romans
To undergo with me an enterprise
Of honorable-dangerous consequence;
And I do know by this, they stay for me
In Pompey’s Porch: for now, this fearful night,
There is no stir or walking in the streets;
And the complexion of the element
Is favor’d like the work we have in hand,
Most bloody, fiery, and most terrible.
CASCA.
Stand close awhile, for here comes one in haste.
CASSIUS.
‘Tis Cinna; I do know him by his gait;
He is a friend.—
[Enter Cinna.]
Cinna, where haste you so?
CINNA.
To find out you. Who’s that? Metellus Cimber?
CASSIUS.
No, it is Casca, one incorporate
To our attempts. Am I not stay’d 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 stay’d for? tell me.
CINNA.
Yes,
You are. O Cassius, if you could 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
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
And so bestow these papers as you bade me.
CASSIUS.
That done, repair to Pompey’s theatre.—
[Exit Cinna.]
Come, Casca, you and I will yet, ere day,
See Brutus at his house: three parts of him
Is ours already; and the man entire,
Upon the next encounter, yields him ours.
CASCA.
O, he sits high in all the people’s hearts!
And that which would appear offense in us,
His countenance, like richest alchemy,
Will change to virtue and to worthiness.
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.]
ACT II.
SCENE I. Rome. BRUTUS’S orchard.
[Enter Brutus.]
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!
[Enter Lucius.]
LUCIUS.
Call’d 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,
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:
It is the bright day that brings forth the adder;
And that craves wary walking. Crown him?—that:
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 sway’d
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,
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 color for the thing he is,
Fashion it thus,—that what he is, augmented,
Would run to these and these extremities:
And therefore think him as a serpent’s egg
Which hatch’d, would, as his kind grow mischievous;
And kill him in the shell.
[Re-enter Lucius.]
LUCIUS.
The taper burneth in your closet, sir.
Searching the window for a flint I found
This paper thus seal’d up, and I am sure
It did not lie there when I went to bed.
BRUTUS.
Get you to bed again; it is not day.
Is not tomorrow, boy, the Ides of March?
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