Julius Caesar Act 1 Scene 3

Good evening, Casca. Did you see Caesar home?

Why are you out of breath? Why that stare?

Aren't you shaken, when the whole steady order of the earth

trembles like something unstable? Cicero,

I've seen storms where the raging winds

split gnarled oaks apart, and I've seen

the ambitious sea swell and rage and foam

as if to rise as high as the threatening clouds.

But never until tonight, never until now,

have I walked through a storm raining fire.

Either there's civil war in heaven,

or the world has been too insolent to the gods

and provoked them into sending destruction.

Why — have you seen anything stranger still?

A common slave — you know him by sight —

held up his left hand, and it flamed and burned

like twenty torches together — and yet his hand,

feeling no fire, stayed unburnt.

What's more — and I haven't sheathed my sword since —

near the Capitol I met a lion,

which glared at me and went sullenly past

without touching me. And there were

a hundred terrified women huddled together,

transformed by fear, who swore they'd seen

men entirely on fire walking the streets.

And yesterday an owl sat

in the marketplace at midday,

hooting and shrieking. When such omens

all happen at once, don't let anyone say

'here are the causes, they're perfectly natural.'

I believe they're warnings

aimed at the country they appear over.

It's certainly a strangely ordered time.

But men will interpret things to suit themselves,

entirely apart from what the things actually mean. (The most sensible line in the play, and nobody listens to it.)

Is Caesar coming to the Capitol tomorrow?

He is. He told Antony

to send you word that he'd be there.

Good night then, Casca. This troubled sky

isn't fit to walk under.

Goodbye, Cicero.

Who's there?

A Roman.

Casca — I know your voice.

Your ear is good. Cassius — what a night this is!

A very pleasant night for honest men.

Who has ever known the heavens to threaten like this?

Those who've known the earth to be so full of crimes.

As for me, I've been walking the streets,

exposing myself to this dangerous night.

And with my shirt open, as you can see,

I've bared my chest to the thunderbolt.

And when the zigzag blue lightning seemed to split

open the chest of heaven, I offered myself

right in its path, in the flash itself.

But why provoke the heavens like that?

Men are supposed to fear and tremble

when the mighty gods send signs like these

as dreadful heralds to shock us.

You're slow, Casca. Those sparks of spirit

that ought to be in a Roman, you either lack

or don't use. You look pale and stare

and put on fear and throw yourself into amazement

at the strange fury of the heavens.

But if you'd think about the real reason

for all these fires, all these drifting ghosts,

why birds and beasts act against their nature,

why old men act like fools and children reason like adults,

why all these things depart from what they were made to be,

from their natures and their given faculties,

into something monstrous — then you'd realise

that heaven has filled them with these forces

to make them instruments of fear and warning

about some monstrous state of affairs.

Now, Casca, I could name you a man

very like this dreadful night —

who thunders, flashes, opens graves and roars

like that lion at the Capitol.

A man no stronger than you or me

in himself, yet grown monstrous

and frightening, like these strange disturbances.

You mean Caesar, don't you, Cassius?

Let it be whoever it is. Romans today

have the muscles and limbs of their ancestors,

but — alas for the times — our fathers' minds are dead,

and we're ruled by our mothers' spirits.

The way we endure this yoke shows us up as unmanly.

In fact, they say the senators tomorrow

intend to make Caesar a king,

and that he'll wear his crown by sea and land,

everywhere except here in Italy.

Then I know where I'll wear this dagger.

Cassius will free Cassius from slavery.

In that, you gods, you make the weak strongest;

in that, you gods, you defeat tyrants.

No stone tower, no walls of beaten brass,

no airless dungeon, no strong iron chains

can hold in the strength of the spirit.

Life, once weary of these worldly bars,

never lacks the power to dismiss itself.

If I know this, let the whole world know it too:

the share of tyranny that I endure,

I can shake off whenever I choose.

So can I.

Every slave holds in his own hand

the power to end his captivity.

So why should Caesar be a tyrant, then?

Poor man — I know he wouldn't be a wolf

if he didn't see that Romans are sheep.

He'd be no lion if Romans weren't deer.

Men in a hurry to build a great fire

start it with feeble straw. What rubbish Rome is,

what garbage and waste, when it serves

as the cheap fuel to light up

something as worthless as Caesar! — But, oh no,

where has my anger led me? I may be saying this

in front of a willing slave — in which case

I'll have to answer for it. But I'm armed,

and danger means nothing to me.

You're speaking to Casca — a man

who's no smirking informer. Here, take my hand.

Start a faction to put right all these grievances,

and I'll go as far

as whoever goes furthest.

That's a deal.

Now understand, Casca — I've already persuaded

certain of the noblest-minded Romans

to join me in an undertaking

that is honourably dangerous.

And I know that by now they're waiting for me

at Pompey's portico. Tonight, on this terrifying night,

there's nobody moving or walking the streets,

and the look of the sky

matches the work we have in hand:

bloody, fiery, and utterly terrible.

Stand back a moment — someone's coming in a hurry.

It's Cinna. I know him by his walk.

He's one of us.

Cinna — where are you rushing to?

To find you. Who's that — Metellus Cimber?

No, it's Casca — someone now joined

to our plans. Aren't they waiting for me, Cinna?

I'm glad of it. What a frightening night!

Two or three of us have seen strange things.

Are they waiting for me? Tell me.

Yes, they are.

Cassius — if you could only

win noble Brutus over to our side—

Don't worry. Good Cinna, take this paper

and make sure you leave it on the praetor's chair,

where Brutus can't miss it. And throw this one

in at his window. Fix this one with wax

onto old Brutus's statue. Once that's done,

come to Pompey's portico, where you'll find us.

Are Decius Brutus and Trebonius there?

All but Metellus Cimber, who's gone

to look for you at your house. Right, I'll hurry

and place these papers as you've told me.

When that's done, come to Pompey's theatre.

Come, Casca — before daybreak you and I

will visit Brutus at his house. Three-quarters of him

is ours already, and the whole man

will be ours at the next meeting.

He sits high in everyone's affections.

And what would look like a crime in us,

his support — like the finest alchemy —

will transform into virtue and merit. (This is why they need him. Not his judgment — his reputation.)

You've understood him, and his value, and how badly

we need him, exactly right. Let's go —

it's after midnight, and before daybreak

we'll wake him and make sure of him.