Julius Caesar

Caesar

Good friends, go in, and taste some wine with me;
And we, like friends, will straightway go together.

Brutus

[Aside] That every like is not the same, O Caesar,
The heart of Brutus yearns to think upon!
[Exit.]

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.

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?

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.
[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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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