Bru. What a blunt fellow is this grown to be.
He was quick mettle when he went to school.
Cas. So is he now, in execution

Of any bold or noble enterprize,
However he puts on this tardy form.
This rudeness is a sauce to his good wit,

Which gives men stomach to digest his words

With better appetite.

Bru. And so it is. For this time I will leave you: To-morrow, if you please to speak with me,

I will come home to you; or, if you will,

Come home to me, and I will wait for you.

Cas. I will do so :-till then, think of the world. [Exit BRUTUS. Well, Brutus, thou art noble; yet, I see, Thy honourable metal may be wrought From that it is dispos'd: therefore, 'tis meet That noble minds keep ever with their likes; For who so firm that cannot be seduc'd? Cæsar doth bear me hard, but he loves Brutus: If I were Brutus now, and he were Cassius, He should not humour me. I will this night, In several hands, in at his windows throw, As if they came from several citizens, Writings, all tending to the great opinion That Rome holds of his name; wherein obscurely Cæsar's ambition shall be glanced at:

And, after this, let Cæsar seat him sure,

For we will shake him, or worse days endure.

[Exit.

9 Thy honourable METAL-] It may be doubted whether "mettle," a few lines above, ought not also to be printed metal. Butler says of Hudibras,

"Both kinds of metal he prepar'd,

Either to give blows or to ward:
Courage and steel both of great force,
Prepar'd for better or for worse."

SCENE III.

The Same. A Street.

Thunder and Lightning. Enter, from opposite sides, CASCA, with his Sword drawn, and CICERO.

Cic. Good even, Casca. Brought you Cæsar home? Why are you breathless, and why stare you so?

Casca. Are not you mov'd, when all the sway of earth

Shakes like a thing unfirm? O, Cicero!

I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds
Have riv'd the knotty oaks; and I have seen
The ambitious ocean swell, and rage, and foam,
To be exalted with the threatening clouds;
But never till to-night, 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.

Cic. Why, saw you any thing more wonderful?
Casca. A common slave (you know him well by
sight)

Held up his left hand, which did flame, and burn

Like twenty torches join'd; and yet his hand,

Not sensible of fire, remain'd unscorch'd.
Besides, (I have not since put up my sword)

Against the Capitol I met a lion,

Who glar'd upon me1o, and went surly by,
Without annoying me: and there were drawn
Upon a heap a hundred ghastly women,
Transformed with their fear, who swore they saw

10 Who GLAR'D upon me,] The old folios all read glaz'd; which Southern, in his copy of the folio, 1685, altered to "glar'd:" and there can be little doubt that it is the correct reading, and glaz'd a misprint.

Men, all in fire, walk up and down the streets.
And yesterday the bird of night did sit,
Even at noon-day, upon the market-place,
Hooting, and shrieking. When these prodigies
Do so conjointly meet, let not men say,
"These are their reasons,-they are natural;"
For, I believe, they are portentous things
Unto the climate that they point upon.

Cic. Indeed, it is a strange-disposed time:
But men may construe things after their fashion,
Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.
Comes Cæsar to the Capitol to-morrow?

Casca. He doth; for he did bid Antonius
Send word to you, he would be there to-morrow.
Cic. Good night then, Casca: this disturbed sky
Is not to walk in.

Casca. Your ear is good. Cassius, what night is

this?

Cas. A very pleasing night to honest men.

Casca. Who ever knew the heavens menace so?

Cas. Those that have known the earth so full of faults.

For my part, I have walk'd about the streets,
Submitting me unto the perilous night;
And, thus unbraced, Casca, as you see,

Have bar'd my bosom to the thunder-stone :

And, when the cross blue lightning seem'd to open
The breast of heaven, I did present myself

Even in the aim and very flash of it.

Casca. But wherefore did you so much tempt the heavens?

It is the part of men to fear and tremble,

When the most mighty gods by tokens send
Such dreadful heralds to astonish us.

Cas. You are dull, Casca; and those sparks of life, That should be in a Roman, you do want,

Or else you use not. You look pale, and gaze,
And put on fear, and cast yourself in wonder,
To see the strange impatience of the heavens;
But if you would consider the true cause,
Why all these fires, why all these gliding ghosts,
Why birds, and beasts, from quality and kind;
Why old men, fools, and children calculate;
Why all these things change from their ordinance,
Their natures, and pre-formed faculties,

To monstrous quality; why, you shall find,
That heaven hath infus'd them with these spirits,
To make them instruments of fear, and warning,
Unto some monstrous state.

Now could I, Casca, name to thee a man

Most like this dreadful night;

That thunders, lightens, opens graves, and roars
As doth the lion in the Capitol:

A man no mightier than thyself, or me,

In personal action; yet prodigious grown,
And fearful, as these strange eruptions are.

Casca. 'Tis Cæsar that you mean; is it not, Cassius?
Cas. Let it be who it is: for Romans now
Have thewes and limbs" like to their ancestors;
But, woe the while! our fathers' minds are dead,
And we are govern'd with our mothers' spirits;

11 Have THEWES and limbs-] "Thewe" seems to be from the Saxon word signifying the thigh, and it means muscular power: by a comparison of the old copies, we may ascertain about the time it became obsolete. It is found in the folios, 1623 and 1632, but is altered to sinews in the folios, 1664 and 1685. It was rather a favourite word with Shakespeare, and he uses it in "Hamlet," and in "Henry IV." part ii. It occurs in Chaucer and Spenser, in the sense of manners or qualities, but then it has a different etymology. Ben Jonson employs "thewes" in the same way as Shakespeare, and not Chaucer, as indeed Gifford suspected. (Works, vol. viii. p. 127.)

Our yoke and sufferance show us womanish.

Casca. Indeed, they say, the senators to-morrow
Mean to establish Cæsar as a king:

And he shall wear his crown by sea, and land,
In every place, save here in Italy.

Cas. I know where I will wear this dagger, then;
Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius :
Therein, ye gods, you make the weak most strong;
Therein, ye gods, you tyrants do defeat.

Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass,
Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron,
Can be retentive to the strength of spirit;
But life, being weary of these worldly bars,
Never lacks power to dismiss itself.

If I know this, know all the world besides,
That part of tyranny, that I do bear,

I can shake off at pleasure.

Casca.

So can I:

So every bondman in his own hand bears.

The power to cancel his captivity.

[Thunder still.

Cas. And why should Cæsar be a tyrant, then?
Poor man! I know, he would not be a wolf,
But that he sees the Romans are but sheep:
He were no lion, were not Romans hinds.
Those that with haste will make a mighty fire,
Begin it with weak straws: what trash is Rome,
What rubbish, and what offal, when it serves
For the base matter to illuminate

So vile a thing as Cæsar? But, O grief!
Where hast thou led me? I, perhaps, speak this
Before a willing bondman: then I know
My answer must be made; but I am arm'd,
And dangers are to me indifferent.

Casca. You speak to Casca; and to such a man,
That is no fleering tell-tale. Hold,
Hold, my hand:
Be factious for redress of all these griefs,
And I will set this foot of mine as far,