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Casca. Ay, he spoke Greek.
Cas. To what effect?

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Casco. Nay, an I tell you that, I'll ne'er look you i' the face again: But those, that understood him, smiled at one another and skook their beads: but, for mine own part, it was Greek to me. could tell you more news too: Marullus and Flavius, for pulling scarfs off Caesar's images, are put to silence. Fare you well. There was more foolery yet, if I could remember it.

Cas. Will you sup with me to-night, Casca?
Casca. No, I am promised forth,
Cas. Will you dine with me to-morrow?
Casca. Ay, if 1 be alive, and your mind hold,

and your dinner worth the eating

Cas. Good; I will expect you,
Casca. Do so: Farewell, both.

th.

[Exit CASCA.

Bru. What a blunt fellow is this grown to be?

He was quick mettle, when he went to school.
Cas. So he is now, in execution
Of any bold or noble enterprize.gr
However he puts on this tardy forum.
This rudeness is a sauce to his good wit,
Which gives men stomach to digest his words.
With better appetite.

Bru. And so it is. For this time I will leave you:
To-morrow, if you please to speak with me,...
I will come home to you; or, if you will,
Come home to me, and I will wait for you.

Cas. I will do so, till then, think of the world.
[Exit BRUTUS.

see,

Well, Brutus, thou art noble yet, I
Thy honourable metal may be wrought
From that it is dispos'd: Therefore 'tis meet
That noble minds keep ever with their likes:
For who so firm, that cannot be seduc'd?:

Caesar doth bear me hard; but he loves Brutus:
If I were Brutus now, and he were Cassins,
He should not humour me, I will this night,
In several hauds, in at his windows throw,
As if they came from several citizens,
Writings, all tending to the great opinion
That Rome holds of his name; wherein obscurely
Caesar's ambition shall be glanced at:
And, after this, let Caesar seat him sure;

For we will shake him or worse days endure.

SOENE Ш.

[Exit.

The same.

A Street.

Thunder and lightning. Enter, from opposite sides, CASCA, with his sword drawn, and

CICERO,

Cic. Good even, Casca: Brought you Caesar

home?

Why are you breathless? and why stare you so? Casca. Are not you mov'd, when all the sway

of carth

Shakes, like a thing unfarm? O Cheero,
1 have seen tempests, when the scolding winds
Have riv'd the knotty oaks; and I have seen
The ambitious ocean swell, and rage, and foam,
To be exalted with the threat ping 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 sancy with the Gods,
Incenses them to send destruction.

Cic. Why, saw you any thing more wonderful?
Casca.

Casca. A common slave (you know him well

by sight,)

Held up his left hand, which did flame, and burn
Like twenty torches join'd; and yet his hand,
Not sensible of fire, remain'd unscorch'd.
Besides, (I have not since put up my sword,)
Against the Capitol I met a lion,
Who glar'd upon me, and went surly by,
Without annoying me: And there were drawn
Upon a heap a hundred ghastly women,
Trapsformed 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 Caesar to the Capitol to-morrow?

Casca. He doth; for he did bid Autonius Send word to you, he would be there to-morrow. Cic. Good night then, Casca: this disturbed sky Is not to walk-in.

Casca. Farewell, Cicero.

[Exit CICERO.

Enter CASSIUS.

Cas. Who's there?

Casca. A Roman.

Cas. Casca, by your voice.

Casca. Your ear is good. Cassitis, what night

VOL. XV.

is this?

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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 walk'd about the streets,
Submitting me unto the perilous night;
And, thus unbraced, Casca, as you see,

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Have bar'd my bosom to the thunder-stone:
And, when the cross blue lightning seem'd to open
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

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That should be in a Roman, you do want,
Or else you use not: You look pale, and gaze,
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,
Why all these fires, why all these gliding ghosts,
Why birds, and beasts, from quality and kind;
Why old men fools, and children calculate;
Why all these things change, from their ordinance,
Their natures, and pre-formed faculties,

The To monstrous quality; why, you shall find,
To behat heaven hath infus'd them with these spirits,
But neo make them instruments of fear, and warning,
Did I nto some monstrous state. Now could I, Casca,
Either ame to thee a man most like this dreadful night;
Or eishat thunders, lightens, opens graves, and roars
Incenss doth the lion in the Capitol:

Cic. man no mightier than thyself, or me,

In personal action; yet prodigious grown,
And fearful, as these strange eruptions are.

Casca. 'Tis Caesar that you mean: Is it not,

Cassins?

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

Casca. Indeed, they say, the senators to-morrow

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Mean to establish Caesar 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 wordly 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. So can I:

So every bondman in his own hand bears
The power to cancel his captivity.

Cas. And why should Caesar be a tyrant then?
Poor man! I know, he would not be a wolf,
But that he sees, the Romans are but sheep:
He were no lion, were not Romans hinds.
Those that with haste will make a mighty fire,
Begin it with weak straws: What trash is Rome,
What rubbish, and what offal, when it serves
For the base matter to illuminate

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