CINNA

All but Metellus Cimber, and he’s gone

To seek you at your house. Well, I will hie,

And so bestow these papers as you bade me.

CASSIUS

That done, repair to Pompey’s Theatre.

Exit Cinna

Come, Casca, you and I will yet ere day

See Brutus at his house. Three parts of him

Is ours already, and the man entire

Upon the next encounter yields him ours.

CASCA

O, he sits high in all the people’s hearts,

And that which would appear offence in us

His countenance, like richest alchemy,

Will change to virtue and to worthiness.

CASSIUS

Him and his worth, and our great need of him,

You have right well conceited. Let us go,

For it is after midnight, and ere day

We will awake him and be sure of him. Exeunt

2.1 Enter Brutus in his orchard

BRUTUS What, Lucius, ho!—

I cannot by the progress of the stars

Give guess how near to day.—Lucius, I say!—

I would it were my fault to sleep so soundty.—

When, Lucius, when? Awake, I say! What, Lucius!

Enter Lucius

LUCIUS Called you, my lord?

BRUTUS

Get me a taper in my study, Lucius. When it is lighted, come and call me here.

LUCIUS I will, my lord.

Exit

BRUTUS

It must be by his death. And for my part

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.

Th‘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 colour 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.

Enter Lucius, with a letter

LUCIUS

The taper burneth in your closet, sir.

Searching the window for a flint, I found

This paper, thus sealed up, and I am sure

It did not lie there when I went to bed.

He gives him the letter

BRUTUS

Get you to bed again; it is not day.

Is not tomorrow, 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.

He opens the letter and reads

‘Brutus, thou sleep’st. Awake, and see thyself.

Shall Rome, et cetera? Speak, strike, redress.‘—

‘Brutus, thou sleep‘st. Awake.’

Such instigations have been often dropped

Where I have took them up.

‘Shall Rome, et cetera?’ 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 called 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.

Enter Lucius

LUCIUS

Sir, March is wasted fifteen days. Knock 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 counsel, and the state of man,

Like to a little kingdom, suffers then

The nature of an insurrection.

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 more with him.

BRUTUS Do you know them?

LUCIUS

No, sir; their hats are plucked 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,

Sham‘st thou to show thy dang’rous 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 put thy native semblance on,