Why birds and beasts from quality and kind,1
Why old men, fools, and children calculate,°
Why all these things change from their ordinance
Their natures and preformèd° 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 70
Unto some monstrous state.2

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.3 Casca. 'Tis Cæsar that you mean; is it not, Cassius? Cas. Let it be who it is. For Romans now

4

80

Have thews and limbs like to their ancestors,
But, woe the while! our fathers' minds are dead,
And we are govern'd with our mothers' spirits;
Our yoke and sufferance show us womanish.5
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.

1 Supply the verb change found in line 66.

2 Paraphrase lines 57-71 in your note-book. Do you always look up the words marked (°) in the Notes at the end of the book? 3 Meaning whom?

'Minds is the important word, contrasting with thews and limbs in the lines just preceding.

'Evidently Shakespeare was not playing before an audience composed mainly of women.

• Where? What is the meaning of the speech as a whole? Do you believe Cassius sincere in his threat?

90

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.

Thunder still.

So every bondman in his own hand bears
The power to cancel his captivity.1
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!
Where hast thou led me?
Before a willing bondman;
My answer must be made.2

But, O grief,

I perhaps speak this then I know

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, my hand.3
Be factious for redress of all these griefs,
And I will set this foot of mine as far

1 Evidently Casca is moved by Cassius's fiery rhetoric.
2 To whom?

What action accompanies this?

Cas.

As who goes farthest.

There's a bargain made. 120
Now know you, Casca, I have mov'd already
Some certain of the noblest-minded Romans
To undergo with me an enterprise

Of honorable-dangerous consequence;

And I do know by this they stay for me

In Pompey's porch. For now, this fearful
night,

There is no stir or walking in the streets,2
And the complexion of the element°

In favor's like the work we have in hand,
Most bloody, fiery, and most terrible.

Enter CINNA.

130

Casca. Stand close awhile, for here comes one in haste. Cas. 'Tis Cinna; I do know him by his gait;

He is a friend.

Cin. To find out you.
Cas. No, it is Casca;
To our attempts.

Cin. I am glad on't.
There's two or
sights.

Cinna, where haste you so?
Who's that? Metellus Cimber? 4
one incorporate
Am I not stay'd for, Cinna?
What a fearful night is this!
three of us have seen strange

Cas. Am I not stay'd for? Tell me.5

Cin.

O Cassius, if you could

Yes, you are.

140

-an honor

Notice the condensation of meaning in this line,

able enterprise of dangerous consequence.

2 Plainly the scene is supposed to take place in a street.

See Note I, page 9.

"Why does the dramatist make Cinna's guess a wrong one? "Where is he "stay'd for"?

But win the noble Brutus1 to our partyCas. Be you content. Good Cinna, take this paper, And look you lay it in the prætor's chair, Where Brutus may but find it; and throw this In at his window; set this up with wax Upon old Brutus' statue. All this done, Repair to Pompey's porch, where you shall find us.

Is Decius Brutus and Trebonius there? Cin. All but Metellus Cimber; and he's gone

To seek you at your house. Well, I will hie, 150 And so bestow these papers as you bade me. Cas. 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.
Cas. Him and his worth and our great need of him
You have right well conceited. Let us go,
For it is after midnight,2 and ere day
We will awake him and be sure of him.3

160

Exeunt.

1 Hints like this help to determine the real hero of the play. Who is he?

2 Here is a sure indication of the time.

"No rhyming "tag" occurs at the end of this scene. What is the dramatic purpose of the scene as a whole? What is its effect on the audience? Enter this item in your note-book outline under purpose.

How does Casca's motive for wishing to destroy Cæsar differ from Cassius's?

ACT SECOND

[SCENE I]

[Rome. ]

Enter BRUTUS in his orchard.1

Bru. What, Lucius, ho!

I cannot, by the progress of the stars,
Give guess how near to day.2 Lucius, I say!
I would it were my fault to sleep so soundly.
When, Lucius, when? Awake, I say! What, Lucius!

Enter LUCIUS.

Luc. Call'd you, my lord?

3

Bru. Get me a taper in my study, Lucius.

When it is lighted, come and call me here.

Luc. I will, my lord.

Bru. It must be by his death; and, for my part,

I know no personal cause to spurn° at him,

O

But for the general. He would be crown'd.

Exit.

IO

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;

Look up the word

1 Through what door does Brutus enter? orchard in an unabridged dictionary to find its early meaning. The probabilities are that the inner stage now shows some real trees or branches of trees brought on under cover of the curtains while the preceding scene was going on.

2 Time?

Place?

3 Where does Lucius enter? “study” on Shakespeare's stage?

What represented Brutus's