A few beautiful lines from Julius Caesar
Cassius; lean and hungry…
CASSIUS
I know that virtue to be in your, Brutus,
As well as I do know your outward favor.
Well, honor is the subject of my story.
I cannot tell what you and 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 with her shoes,
Said Caesar to me “Dar’st thou, Cassius, now
Leap in with me into this angry flood,
And swim to yonder point?” Upon the word,
Accoutred 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!”
Ay, as Aeneas our great ancestor
Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder.
The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber
Did I the tired Caesar. 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 has 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.
His coward lips did from their color fly;
And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world
Did lose his luster. I did hear him groan,
Ay, and that tongue of his that bade the Romans
Mark him and write his speeches in their books,
“Alas!” it cried, “Give me some drink, Titinius,”
As a sick girl. Ye gods, it doth amaze me
A man of such a feeble temper should
So get the start of the majestic world,
And bear the palm alone!
Flourish and shout within.
CASSIUS
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonorable graves.
Men at sometime were masters of their fates.
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars.
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
Brutus and Caesar: what should be in that “Caesar”?
Why should that name be sounded more than yours?
Write them together: yours is a fair name.
Sound them: it doth become the mouth as well.
Weigh them: it is as heavy. Conjure with ’em:
“Brutus” will start a spirit as soon as “Caesar.”
Now in the names of all the gods at once,
Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed
That he is grown so great? Age, though art shamed.
Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods.
When went there by an age since the great flood,
But it was famed with more than with one man?
When could they say till now, that talked of Rome,
That her wide walls encompassed but one man?
Now is it Rome indeed, and room enough
When there is in it but one only man.
O, you and I have heard our fathers say
There was a Brutus once that would have brooked
Th’ eternal devil to keep his state in Rome
As easily as a king.\
BRUTUS
But ’tis a common proof
That lowliness is young ambitions ladder,
Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;
But when he once attains the upmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend…\
CALPURNIA
When beggars die there are no comets seen;
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.\
CAESAR
The gods do this in shame of cowardice.
Caesar should be a beast without a heart
If he should stay 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.\
ARTEMDORUS
My heart laments that virtue cannot live
Out of the teeth of emulation.
ANTONY
O pardon me, though bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers.
Though art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times.
Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!
Over thy wounds now do I prophesy —
Which like dumb mouth do ope their ruby lips
To bed the voice and utterance of my tongue —
A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;
Domestic fury and fierce civil strife
Shall cumber all the parts of Italy;
Blood and destruction shall be so in use,
And dreadful objects so familiar,
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quartered with the hands of war,
All pity chocked with custom of fell deeds;
And Caesar’s spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Ate by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice
Cry “havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war,
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial.
O judgement, thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason!\
MESSALA O hateful Error, Melancholy’s child