SCENE III. The same. A street. The Life and Death of Julius Caesar  Shakespeare homepage  |  Julius Caesar  | Act 1, Scene 3 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  SCENE III. The same. A street. 

 Thunder and lightning. Enter from opposite sides, CASCA, with his sword drawn, and CICERO  CICERO  Good even, Casca: brought you Caesar home? 

 Why are you breathless? and why stare you so? 

 CASCA  Are not you moved, when all the sway of earth 

 Shakes like a thing unfirm? O Cicero, 

 I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds 

 Have rived 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. 

 CICERO  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 ha' not since put up my sword-- 

 Against the Capitol I met a lion, 

 Who glared upon me, 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 

 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. 

 CICERO  Indeed, it is a strange-disposed time: 

 But men may construe things after their fashion, 

 Clean from the purpose of the things themselves. 

 Come Caesar to the Capitol to-morrow? 

 CASCA  He doth; for he did bid Antonius 

 Send word to you he would be there to-morrow. 

 CICERO  Good night then, Casca: this disturbed sky 

 Is not to walk in. 

 CASCA  Farewell, Cicero. 



 Exit CICERO 

 Enter CASSIUS  CASSIUS  Who's there? 

 CASCA  A Roman. 

 CASSIUS  Casca, by your voice. 

 CASCA  Your ear is good. Cassius, what night is this! 

 CASSIUS  A very pleasing night to honest men. 

 CASCA  Who ever knew the heavens menace so? 

 CASSIUS  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 bared 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. 

 CASSIUS  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 fool and children calculate, 

 Why all these things change from their ordinance 

 Their natures and preformed faculties 

 To monstrous quality,--why, you shall find 

 That heaven hath infused 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 Caesar that you mean; is it not, Cassius? 

 CASSIUS  Let it be who it is: for Romans now 

 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. 

 CASCA  Indeed, they say the senators tomorrow 

 Mean to establish Caesar as a king; 

 And he shall wear his crown by sea and land, 

 In every place, save here in Italy. 

 CASSIUS  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. 



 Thunder still  CASCA  So can I: 

 So every bondman in his own hand bears 

 The power to cancel his captivity. 

 CASSIUS  And why should Caesar 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 Caesar! 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, my hand: 

 Be factious for redress of all these griefs, 

 And I will set this foot of mine as far 

 As who goes farthest. 

 CASSIUS  There's a bargain made. 

 Now know you, Casca, I have moved already 

 Some certain of the noblest-minded Romans 

 To undergo with me an enterprise 

 Of honourable-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; 

 And the complexion of the element 

 In favour's like the work we have in hand, 

 Most bloody, fiery, and most terrible. 

 CASCA  Stand close awhile, for here comes one in haste. 

 CASSIUS  'Tis Cinna; I do know him by his gait; 

 He is a friend. 



 Enter CINNA  Cinna, where haste you so? 

 CINNA  To find out you. Who's that? Metellus Cimber? 

 CASSIUS  No, it is Casca; one incorporate 

 To our attempts. Am I not stay'd for, Cinna? 

 CINNA  I am glad on 't. What a fearful night is this! 

 There's two or three of us have seen strange sights. 

 CASSIUS  Am I not stay'd for? tell me. 

 CINNA  Yes, you are. 

 O Cassius, if you could 

 But win the noble Brutus to our party-- 

 CASSIUS  Be you content: good Cinna, take this paper, 

 And look you lay it in the praetor'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? 

 CINNA  All but Metellus Cimber; and he's gone 

 To seek you at your house. Well, I will hie, 

 And so bestow these papers as you bade me. 

 CASSIUS  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. 

 CASSIUS  Him and his worth and our great need of him 

 You have right well conceited. Let us go, 

 For it is after midnight; and ere day 

 We will awake him and be sure of him. 



 Exeunt  Shakespeare homepage  |  Julius Caesar  | Act 1, Scene 3 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene 