Caesar What can be avoided Whose end is purposed by the mighty gods? Yet Caesar shall go forth; for these predictions Are to the world in general as to Caesar. Calpurnia When beggars die, there are no comets seen; The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes. Read more about Act 2, Scene 2: Popup Note Index Item: “blaze”
Brutus You are my true and honorable wife, As dear to me as are the ruddy drops That visit my sad heart. Portia If this were true, then should I know this secret. I grant I am a woman; but withal A woman that Lord Brutus took to wife. I grant I am a woman; but withal A woman well-reputed, Cato's daughter. Think you I am no stronger than my sex, Being so fathered and so husbanded? Tell me your counsels, I will not disclose ‘em. Read more about Act 2, Scene 1: Popup Note Index Item: Cato
Decius Brutus Let me work, For I can give his humor the true bent, And I will bring him to the Capitol. Cassius Nay, we will all of us be there to fetch him. Read more about Act 2, Scene 1: Popup Note Index Item: Caesar’s entourage
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, 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 valor 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 Than honesty to honesty engaged, That this shall be, or we will fall for it? Read more about Act 2, Scene 1: Popup Note Index Item: "high-sighted"
Brutus 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, And then, I grant, we put a sting in him That at his will he may do danger with. The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins Remorse from power, and — to speak truth of Caesar — I have not known when his affections swayed 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, hatched, would, as his kind, grow mischievous — And kill him in the shell. Read more about Act 2, Scene 1: Popup Note Index Item: "ambition's ladder"
Cinna 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. Read more about Act 1, Scene 3: Popup Note Index Item: "praetor”
Cassius 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 In favor's like the work we have in hand — Most bloody, fiery, and most terrible. Read more about Act 1, Scene 3: Popup Note Index Item: “Pompey’s Porch”
Cassius A 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, Cassius? Cassius Let it be who it is. For Romans now Have thews 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 tomorrow Mean to establish Caesar as a king, And he shall wear his crown by sea and land, In every place save here in Italy. Read more about Act 1, Scene 3: Popup Note Index Item: “Caesar as a king...save here in Italy”
Casca Your ear is good. Cassius, what night is this! Cassius A very pleasing night to honest men. Casca Who ever knew the heavens menace so? Cassius Those that have known the earth so full of faults. For my part, I have walked about the streets, Submitting me unto the perilous night, And thus unbracèd, Casca, as you see, Have bared my bosom to the thunder-stone; And when the cross blue lightning seemed to open The breast of heaven, I did present myself Even in the aim and very flash of it. Read more about Act 1, Scene 3: Popup Note Index Item: "pleasing night to honest men”
[Thunder and lightning. Enter Casca and Cicero.] Cicero Good even, Casca. Brought you Caesar home? Why are you breathless, and why stare you so? Casca Are not you moved, when all the sway of earth Shakes like a thing unfirm? O Cicero, I have seen tempests when the scolding winds Have rived the knotty oaks, and I have seen Th'ambitious ocean swell, and rage, and foam, To be exalted with the threat'ning clouds: But never till tonight, never till now, Did I go through a tempest dropping fire. Either there is a civil strife in heaven, Or else the world, too saucy with the gods, Incenses them to send destruction. Read more about Act 1, Scene 3: Popup Note Index Item: "sway"
