Julius Caesar

Hence! Home, you idle creatures,

get you home! Is this a holiday?

What trade art thou?

Why, sir, a carpenter.

Where is thy leather apron and thy rule?

What dost thou with thy best apparel on?

You, sir, what trade are you?

Truly, sir, in respect of a fine workman,

I am but, as you would say, a cobbler.

But what trade art thou?

Answer me directly.

A trade, sir, that I hope I may use

with a safe conscience,

which is indeed, sir, a mender of bad soles.

But wherefore art not

in thy shop today?

Why dost thou lead these men

about the streets?

Truly, sir, to wear out their shoes,

to get myself into more work.

But indeed, sir, we make holiday to see Caesar

and to rejoice in his triumph.

Wherefore rejoice?

What conquest brings he home?

What tributaries follow him to Rome

to grace in captive bonds his chariot wheels?

You blocks,

you stones,

you worse than senseless things!

O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,

knew you not Pompey?

Many a time and oft

have you climbed up to walls and battlements,

to towers and windows, yea, to chimney tops,

your infants in your arms,

and there have sat the livelong day,

with patient expectation,

to see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome.

And when you saw his chariot but appear,

have you not made a universal shout,

that Tiber trembled underneath her banks

to hear the replication of your sounds

made in her concave shores?

And do you now put on your best attire?

And do you now cull out a holiday?

And do you now strew flowers in his way

that comes in triumph over Pompey's blood?

Begone!

Run to your houses, fall upon your knees,

pray to the gods to intermit the plague

that needs must light on this ingratitude.

See whe'er their basest mettle be not moved.

They vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness.

Go you down that way toward the capitol;

this way will I.

Disrobe the images if you do find them

decked with ceremonies.

May we do so?

You know it is the feast of Lupercal.

It is no matter.

Let no images be hung with Caesar's trophies.

These growing feathers plucked from Caesar's wing

will make him fly an ordinary pitch,

who else would soar above the view of men

and keep us all in servile fearfulness.

Man: Spoken like a traitor!

Calpurnia!

Peace, ho! Caesar speaks!

Caesar: Calpurnia!

Here, my lord.

Stand you directly in Antonius' way

when he doth run his course.

Antonius!

Caesar.

My lord?

Forget not, in your speed, Antonius,

to touch Calpurnia; For our elders say

the barren, touched in this holy chase,

shake off their sterile curse.

When Caesar says, "do this,"

it is performed.

Set on, and leave no ceremony out.

Man: Caesar!

Ay? Who calls?

Bid every noise be still!

Peace yet again!

Who is it in the press that calls on me?

I hear a tongue shriller than all the music

cry "Caesar!"

Speak.

Caesar is turned to hear.

Man: Beware the ides of march.

What man is that?

A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of march.

Set him before me. Let me see his face.

Fellow, come from the throng.

Look upon Caesar.

What sayst thou to me now?

Speak once again.

Beware the ides of march.

He is a dreamer. Let us leave him.

Pass! Pass!

Will you go see the order of the course?

Not I.

I pray you, do.

I am not gamesome. I do lack some part

of that quick spirit that is in Antony.

Let me not hinder, Cassius, your desires;

I'll leave you.

Brutus, I do observe you now of late.

I have not from your eyes

that gentleness and show of love

as I was wont to have.

You bear too stubborn and too strange a hand

over your friend that loves you.

Cassius, be not deceived. If I have veiled my look,

I turn the trouble of my countenance merely upon myself.

Vexed I am of late

with passions of some difference,

conceptions only proper to myself,

which give some soil, perhaps, to my behaviors.

But let not therefore my good friends be grieved--

among which number, Cassius, be you one--

nor construe any further my neglect

than that poor Brutus, with himself at war,

forgets the shows of love to other men.

Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face?

No, Cassius, for the eye sees not itself

but by reflection, by some other things.

'Tis just.

And it is very much lamented, Brutus,

that you have no such mirrors as will turn

your hidden worthiness into your eye,

that you might see your shadow.

I have heard where

many of the best respect in Rome,

except immortal Caesar,

speaking of Brutus

and groaning

underneath this age's yoke,

have wished that noble Brutus

had his eyes.

Into what dangers would you lead me, Cassius,

that you would have me seek into myself

for that which is not in me?

Therefore, good Brutus, be prepared to hear;

and since you know you cannot see yourself

so well as by reflection, I, your glass,

will modestly discover to yourself

that of yourself

which you yet know not of.

And be not jealous on me, gentle Brutus.

Where I a common laughter, and did use to stale

with ordinary oaths my love to every new protester;

if you know that I profess myself in banqueting

to all the rout, then hold me dangerous.

What means this shouting?

I do fear the people choose Caesar for their king.

Ay, do you fear it?

Then must I think

you would not have it so.

I would not, Cassius, yet I love him well.

But what is it you would impart to me?

If it be aught toward the general good,

set honor in one eye and death in the other

and I will look on both indifferently;

for let the gods so speed me

as I love the name of honor more than I fear death.

I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus,

as well as I do know your outward favor.

Well, honor is the subject of my story.

I cannot tell what you or other men think

of this life; But, for my single self,

I had as lief not be as live to be

in awe of such a thing as I myself.

I was born free as Caesar, so were you;

we both have fed as well,

and we can both endure the winter's cold

as well as he.

For once, upon a raw and gusty day,

the troubled Tiber chafing at her shores,

Caesar said to me, "dar'st thou, Cassius,

"now leap in with me into this angry flood

and swim to yonder point?"

Upon the word, accoutered as I was,

I plunged in and bade him follow;

so indeed he did.

The torrent roared, and we did buffet it

with lusty sinews, throwing it aside

and stemming it with hearts of controversy.

But ere we could arrive the point proposed,

Caesar cried,

"help me, Cassius, or I sink!"

And this man is now become a god,

and Cassius is a wretched creature

and must bend his body

if Caesar carelessly but nod on him.

He had a fever when he was in Spain,

and when the fit was on him I did Mark

how he did shake. 'Tis true, this god did shake.