Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare [top ten books of all time txt] 📗

did not lie there when I went to bed. Gives him the letter. Brutus

Get you to bed again; it is not day.
Is not to-morrow, 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 air
Give so much light that I may read by them. Opens the letter and reads.
“Brutus, thou sleep’st: awake, and see thyself.
Shall Rome, etc. Speak, strike, redress!
Brutus, thou sleep’st: awake!”
Such instigations have been often dropp’d
Where I have took them up.
“Shall Rome, etc.” Thus must I piece it out:
Shall Rome stand under one man’s awe? What, Rome?
My ancestors did from the streets of Rome
The Tarquin drive, when he was call’d a king.
“Speak, strike, redress!” Am I entreated
To speak and strike? O Rome, I make thee promise:
If the redress will follow, thou receivest
Thy full petition at the hand of Brutus!

Re-enter Lucius. Lucius Sir, March is wasted fourteen days. Knocking within. Brutus

’Tis good. Go to the gate; somebody knocks. Exit Lucius.
Since Cassius first did whet me against Caesar,
I have not slept.
Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream:
The Genius and the mortal instruments
Are then in council; and the state of man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection.

Re-enter Lucius. Lucius

Sir, ’tis your brother Cassius at the door,
Who doth desire to see you.

Brutus Is he alone? Lucius No, sir, there are moe with him. Brutus Do you know them? Lucius

No, sir; their hats are pluck’d about their ears,
And half their faces buried in their cloaks,
That by no means I may discover them
By any mark of favour.

Brutus

Let ’em enter. Exit Lucius.
They are the faction. O conspiracy,
Shamest thou to show thy dangerous brow by night,
When evils are most free? O, then by day
Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough
To mask thy monstrous visage? Seek none, conspiracy;
Hide it in smiles and affability:
For if thou path, thy native semblance on,
Not Erebus itself were dim enough
To hide thee from prevention.

Enter the conspirators, Cassius, Casca, Decius, Cinna, Metellus Cimber, and Trebonius. Cassius

I think we are too bold upon your rest:
Good morrow, Brutus; do we trouble you?

Brutus

I have been up this hour, awake all night.
Know I these men that come along with you?

Cassius

Yes, every man of them, and no man here
But honours you; and everyone doth wish
You had but that opinion of yourself
Which every noble Roman bears of you.
This is Trebonius.

Brutus He is welcome hither. Cassius This, Decius Brutus. Brutus He is welcome too. Cassius This, Casca; this, Cinna; and this, Metellus Cimber. Brutus

They are all welcome.
What watchful cares do interpose themselves
Betwixt your eyes and night?

Cassius Shall I entreat a word? Brutus and Cassius whisper. Decius Here lies the east: doth not the day break here? Casca No. Cinna

O, pardon, sir, it doth; and yon gray lines
That fret the clouds are messengers of day.

Casca

You shall confess that you are both deceived.
Here, as I point my sword, the sun arises,
Which is a great way growing on the south,
Weighing the youthful season of the year.
Some two months hence up higher toward the north
He first presents his fire; and the high east
Stands, as the Capitol, directly here.

Brutus Give me your hands all over, one by one. 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 valour
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?
Swear priests and cowards and men cautelous,
Old feeble carrions and such suffering souls
That welcome wrongs; unto bad causes swear
Such creatures as men doubt; but do not stain
The even virtue of our enterprise,
Nor the insuppressive mettle of our spirits,
To think that or our cause or our performance
Did need an oath; when every drop of blood
That every Roman bears, and nobly bears,
Is guilty of a several bastardy,
If he do break the smallest particle
Of any promise that hath pass’d from him.

Cassius

But what of Cicero? shall we sound him?
I think he will stand very strong with us.

Casca Let us not leave him out. Cinna No, by no means. Metellus

O, let us have him, for his silver hairs
Will purchase us a good opinion
And buy men’s voices to commend our deeds:
It shall be said, his judgment ruled our hands;
Our youths and wildness shall no whit appear,
But all be buried in his gravity.

Brutus

O, name him not: let us not break with him;
For he will never follow anything
That other men begin.

Cassius Then leave him out. Casca Indeed he is not fit. Decius Shall no man else be touch’d but only Caesar? Cassius

Decius, well urged: I think it is not meet,
Mark Antony, so well beloved of Caesar,
Should outlive Caesar: we shall find of him
A shrewd contriver; and, you know, his means,
If he improve them, may well stretch so far
As to annoy us all: which to prevent,
Let Antony and Caesar fall together.

Brutus

Our course will seem too bloody, Caius Cassius,
To cut the head off and then hack the limbs,
Like wrath in death and envy afterwards;
For Antony is but a limb of Caesar:
Let us be sacrificers, but not butchers, Caius.
We all stand up against the spirit of Caesar;
And in the spirit of men there is no blood:
O, that we then could come by Caesar’s spirit,
And not dismember Caesar! But, alas,
Caesar must bleed for it! And, gentle friends,
Let’s kill him boldly, but not wrathfully;
Let’s carve him as