suburbs

Of your good pleasure? If it be no more,

Portia is Brutus’ harlot, not his wife.

BRUTUS

You are my true and honourable 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.

I have made strong proof of my constancy,

Giving myself a voluntary wound

Here in the thigh. Can I bear that with patience,

And not my husband’s secrets?

BRUTUS O ye gods,

Render me worthy of this noble wife!

Knocking within

Hark, hark, one knocks. Portia, go in a while,

And by and by thy bosom shall partake

The secrets of my heart.

All my engagements I will construe to thee,

All the charactery of my sad brows.

Leave me with haste.

Exit Portia

Lucius, who’s that knocks?

Enter Lucius, and Ligarius, with a kerchief ⌈round his head⌉

LUCIUS

Here is a sick man that would speak with you.

BRUTUS

Caius Ligarius, that Metellus spake of.—

Boy, stand aside.

⌈Exit⌉ Lucius

Caius Ligarius, how?

LIGARIUS

Vouchsafe good morrow from a feeble tongue.

BRUTUS

O, what a time have you chose out, brave Caius,

To wear a kerchief! Would you were not sick!

LIGARIUS

I am not sick if Brutus have in hand

Any exploit worthy the name of honour.

BRUTUS

Such an exploit have I in hand, Ligarius,

Had you a healthful ear to hear of it.

LIGARIUS

By all the gods that Romans bow before,

I here discard my sickness.

He pulls off his kerchief Soul of Rome,

Brave son derived from honourable loins,

Thou like an exorcist hast conjured up

My mortifièd spirit. Now bid me run,

And I will strive with things impossible,

Yea, get the better of them. What’s to do?

BRUTUS

A piece of work that will make sick men whole.

LIGARIUS

But are not some whole that we must make sick?

BRUTUS

That must we also. What it is, my Caius,

I shall unfold to thee as we are going

To whom it must be done.

LIGARIUS Set on your foot,

And with a heart new-fired I follow you

To do I know not what; but it sufficeth

That Brutus leads me on.

BRUTUS Follow me then.

Exeunt

2.2 Thunder and lightning. Enter Julius Caesar in his nightgown

CAESAR

Nor heaven nor earth have been at peace tonight.

Thrice hath Calpurnia in her sleep cried out

‘Help, ho! They murder Caesar!’—Who’s within?

Enter a Servant

SERVANT My lord.

CAESAR

Go bid the priests do present sacrifice,

And bring me their opinions of success.

SERVANT I will, my lord.

Exit

Enter Calpurnia

CALPURNIA

What mean you, Caesar? Think you to walk forth?

You shall not stir out of your house today.

CAESAR

Caesar shall forth. The things that threatened me

Ne’er looked but on my back; when they shall see

The face of Caesar, they are vanished.

CALPURNIA

Caesar, I never stood on ceremonies,

Yet now they fright me. There is one within,

Besides the things that we have heard and seen,

Recounts most horrid sights seen by the watch.

A lioness hath whelpèd in the streets,

And graves have yawned and yielded up their dead.

Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds,

In ranks and squadrons and right form of war,

Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol.

The noise of battle hurtled in the air.

Horses do neigh, and dying men did groan,

And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets.

O Caesar, these things are beyond all use,

And I do fear them.

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.

CAESAR

Cowards die many times before their deaths;

The valiant never taste of death but once.

Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,

It seems to me most strange that men should fear,

Seeing that death, a necessary end,

Will come when it will come.

Enter Servant

What say the augurers?

SERVANT

They would not have you to stir forth today.

Plucking the entrails of an offering forth,

They could not find a heart within the beast.

CAESAR

The gods do this in shame of cowardice.

Caesar should be a beast without a heart

If he should stay at home today for fear.

No, Caesar shall not. Danger knows full well

That Caesar is more dangerous than he.

We are two lions littered in one day,

And I the elder and more terrible.

And Caesar shall go forth.

CALPURNIA Alas, my lord,