The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare (moboreader .TXT) 📕

You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!

O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome, Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft Have you climb’d up to walls and battlements, To towers and windows, yea, to chimney tops, Your infants in your arms, and there have sat The livelong day with patient expectation To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome.

And when you saw his chariot but appear, Have you not made an universal shout

That Tiber trembled underneath her banks To hear the replication of your sounds Made in her concave shores?

And do you now put on your best attire?

And do you now cull out a holiday?

And do you now strew flowers in his way That comes in triumph over Pompey’s blood?

Be gone!

Run to your houses, fall upon your knees, Pray to the gods to intermit the plague That needs must light on this ingratitude.

FLAVIUS. Go, go, good countrymen, and, for this fault, Assemble all the poor men of your sort, Draw them to Tiber banks, and weep your tears Into the channel, till the lowest stream Do kiss the most exalted shores of all.

Exeunt all Commoners.

See whether their basest metal be not moved; They vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness.

Go you down that way towards the Capitol; This way will I. Disrobe the images

If you do find them deck’d with ceremonies.

MARULLUS. May we do so?

You know it is the feast of Lupercal.

FLAVIUS. It is no matter; let no images Be hung with Caesar’s trophies. I’ll about And drive away the vulgar from the streets; So do you too, where you perceive them thick.

These growing feathers pluck’d from Caesar’s wing Will make him fly an ordinary pitch,

Who else would soar above the view of men And keep us all in servile fearfulness. Exeunt.

SCENE II.

A public place.

Flourish. Enter Caesar; Antony, for the course; Calpurnia, Portia, Decius, Cicero, Brutus, Cassius, and Casca; a great crowd follows, among them a Soothsayer.

CAESAR. Calpurnia!

CASCA. Peace, ho! Caesar speaks.

Music ceases.

CAESAR. Calpurnia!

CALPURNIA. Here, my lord.

CAESAR. Stand you directly in Antonio’s way, When he doth run his course. Antonio!

ANTONY. Caesar, my lord?

CAESAR. Forget not in your speed, Antonio, To touch Calpurnia, for our elders say The barren, touched in this holy chase, Shake off their sterile curse.

ANTONY. I shall remember.

When Caesar says “Do this,” it is perform’d.

CAESAR. Set on, and leave no ceremony out. Flourish.

SOOTHSAYER. Caesar!

CAESAR. Ha! Who calls?

CASCA. Bid every noise be still. Peace yet again!

CAESAR. Who is it in the press that calls on me?

I hear a tongue, shriller than all the music, Cry “Caesar.” Speak, Caesar is turn’d to hear.

SOOTHSAYER. Beware the ides of March.

CAESAR. What man is that?

BRUTUS. A soothsayer you beware the ides of March.

CAESAR. Set him before me let me see his face.

CASSIUS. Fellow, come from the throng; look upon Caesar.

CAESAR. What say’st thou to me now? Speak once again.

SOOTHSAYER. Beware the ides of March.

CAESAR. He is a dreamer; let us leave him. Pass.

Sennet. Exeunt all but Brutus and Cassius.

CASSIUS. Will you go see the order of the course?

BRUTUS. Not I.

CASSIUS. I pray you, do.

BRUTUS. I am not gamesome; I do lack some part Of that quick spirit that is in Antony.

Let me not hinder, Cassius, your desires; I’ll leave you.

CASSIUS. Brutus, I do observe you now of late; I have not from your eyes that gentleness And show of love as I was wont to have; You bear too stubborn and too strange a hand Over your friend that loves you.

BRUTUS. Cassius,

Be not deceived; if I have veil’d my look, I turn the trouble of my countenance

Merely upon myself. Vexed I am

Of late with passions of some difference, Conceptions only proper to myself,

Which give some soil perhaps to my behaviors; But let not therefore my good friends be grieved-Among which number, Cassius, be you one-Nor construe any further my neglect

Than that poor Brutus with himself at war Forgets the shows of love to other men.

CASSIUS. Then, Brutus, I have much mistook your passion, By means whereof this breast of mine hath buried Thoughts of great value, worthy cogitations.

Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face?

BRUTUS. No, Cassius, for the eye sees not itself But by reflection, by some other things.

CASSIUS. ‘Tis just,

And it is very much lamented, Brutus, That you have no such mirrors as will turn Your hidden worthiness into your eye

That you might see your shadow. I have heard Where many of the best respect in Rome, Except immortal Caesar, speaking of Brutus And groaning underneath this age’s yoke, Have wish’d that noble Brutus had his eyes.

BRUTUS. Into what dangers would you lead me, Cassius, That you would have me seek into myself For that which is not in me?

CASSIUS. Therefore, good Brutus, be prepared to hear, And since you know you cannot see yourself So well as by reflection, I your glass Will modestly discover to yourself

That of yourself which you yet know not of.

And be not jealous on me, gentle Brutus; Were I a common laugher, or did use

To stale with ordinary oaths my love

To every new protester, if you know

That I do fawn on men and hug them hard And after scandal them, or if you know That I profess myself in banqueting

To all the rout, then hold me dangerous.

Flourish and shout.

BRUTUS. What means this shouting? I do fear the people Choose Caesar for their king.

CASSIUS. Ay, do you fear it?

Then must I think you would not have it so.

BRUTUS. I would not, Cassius, yet I love him well.

But wherefore do you hold me here so long?

What is it that you would impart to me?

If it be aught toward the general good, Set honor in one eye and death i’ the other And I will look on both indifferently.

For let the gods so speed me as I love The name of honor more than I fear death.

CASSIUS. I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus, As well as I do know your outward favor.

Well, honor is the subject of my story.

I cannot tell what you and other men

Think of this life, but, for my single self, I had as lief not be as live to be

In awe of such a thing as I myself.

I was born free as Caesar, so were you; We both have fed as well, and we can both Endure the winter’s cold as well as he.

For once, upon a raw and gusty day,

The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores, Caesar said to me, “Darest thou, Cassius, now Leap in with me into this angry flood And swim to yonder point?” Upon the word, Accoutred as I was, I plunged in

And bade him follow. So indeed he did.

The torrent roar’d, and we did buffet it With lusty sinews, throwing it aside

And stemming it with hearts of controversy.

But ere we could arrive the point proposed, Caesar cried, “Help me, Cassius, or I sink!

I, as Aeneas our great ancestor

Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber Did I the tired Caesar. And this man

Is now become a god, and Cassius is

A wretched creature and must bend his body If Caesar carelessly but nod on him.

He had a fever when he was in Spain,

And when the fit was on him I did mark How he did shake. ‘Tis true, this god did shake; His coward lips did from their color fly, And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world Did lose his luster. I did hear him groan.

Ay, and that tongue of his that bade the Romans Mark him and write his speeches in their books, Alas, it cried, “Give me some drink, Titinius,”

As a sick girl. Ye gods! It doth amaze me A man of such a feeble temper should

So get the start of the majestic world And bear the palm alone. Shout. Flourish.

BRUTUS. Another general shout!

I do believe that these applauses are For some new honors that are heap’d on Caesar.

CASSIUS. Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world Like a Colossus, and we petty men

Walk under his huge legs and peep about To find ourselves dishonorable graves.

Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves that we are underlings.

Brutus and Caesar: what should be in that “Caesar”?

Why should that name be sounded more than yours?

Write them together, yours is as fair a name; Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well; Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure with ‘em, “Brutus” will start a spirit as soon as “Caesar.”

Now, in the names of all the gods at once, Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed That he is grown so great? Age, thou art shamed!

Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!

When went there by an age since the great flood But it was famed with more than with one man?

When could they say till now that talk’d of Rome That her wide walls encompass’d but one man?

Now is it Rome indeed, and room enough, When there is in it but one only man.

O, you and I have heard our fathers say There was a Brutus once that would have brook’d The eternal devil to keep his state in Rome As easily as a king.

BRUTUS. That you do love me, I am nothing jealous; What you would work me to, I have some aim.

How I have thought of this and of these times, I shall recount hereafter; for this present, I would not, so with love I might entreat you, Be any further moved. What you have said I will consider; what you have to say I will with patience hear, and find a time Both meet to hear and answer such high things.

Till then, my noble friend, chew upon this: Brutus had rather be a villager

Than to repute himself a son of Rome

Under these hard conditions as this time Is like to lay upon us.

CASSIUS. I am glad that my weak words

Have struck but thus much show of fire from Brutus.

Re-enter Caesar and his Train.

BRUTUS. The games are done, and Caesar is returning.

CASSIUS. As they pass by, pluck Casca by the sleeve, And he will, after his sour fashion, tell you What hath proceeded worthy note today.

BRUTUS. I will do so. But, look you, Cassius, The angry spot doth glow on Caesar’s brow, And all the rest look like a chidden train: Calpurnia’s cheek is pale, and Cicero Looks with such ferret and such fiery eyes As we have seen him in the Capitol,

Being cross’d in conference by some senators.

CASSIUS. Casca will tell us what the matter is.

CAESAR. Antonio!

ANTONY. Caesar?

CAESAR. Let me have men about me that are fat, Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o’ nights: Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much; such men are dangerous.

ANTONY. Fear him not, Caesar; he’s not dangerous; He is a noble Roman and well given.

CAESAR. Would he were fatter! But I fear him not, Yet if my name were liable to fear,

I do not know the man I should avoid

So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much, He is a great observer, and he looks