The genius, and the mortal instruments,
Are then in council; and the state of man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then

The nature of an insurrection.

Re-enter Lucius.

Luc. Sir, 'tis your brother Cassius at the door,' Who doth desire to see you.

Bru. Is he alone?

Luc. No, sir, there are more with him.

Bru. Do you know them?

Luc. No, sir; their hats are pluck'd about their ears,

And half their faces buried in their cloaks,

That by no means I may discover them

By any marks of favour.1

Bru. Let them enter.

They are the faction. O conspiracy!

[Exit Lucius.

Sham'st thou to show thy dangerous brow by night,

When evils are most free? O, then, by day,

Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough

To mask thy monstrous visage? Seek none, conspiracy; Hide it in smiles, and affability:

For if thou path thy native semblance on,*

Not Erebus itself were dim enough

To hide thee from prevention.

Enter CASSIUS, CASCA, DECIUS, CINNA, METELLUS CIMBER, and TREBONIUS.

Cas. I think we are too bold upon your rest :' Good-morrow, Brutus ; Do we trouble you?

beauties, those great strokes, which he calls the terrible graces, and which are so frequent in Homer, are not to be found in any of the following writers. Among our countrymen, it seems to be as much confined to the British Homer. This description of the condition of conspirators, before the execution of their design, has a pomp and terror in it that perfectly astonishes. The excellent Mr. Addison, whose modesty made him sometimes diffident of his own genius, but whose true judgment always led him to the safest guides (as we may see by those fine strokes in his Cato borrowed from the Philippics of Cicero) has paraphrased this fine description; but we are no longer to expect those terrible graces which animate his original.

"O think, what anxious moments pass between
The birth of plots, and their last fatal periods.
Oh, 'tis a dreadful interval of time,

Fill'd up with horror all, and big with death." Cato. WARB. Shakespeare is describing what passes in a single bosom, the insurrection which a conspirator feels agitating the little kingdom of his own mind; when the genius, or power that watches for his protection, and the mortal instruments, the passions, which excite him to a deed of honour and danger, are in council and debate; when the desire of action and the care of safety keep the mind in continual fluctuation and disturbance.

JOHNSON.

[9] Cassius married Junia, Brutus's sister. STEEVENS.

1 Any distinctions of countenance.

JOHNSON.

[2] If thou walk in thy true form, JOHNSON.

Bru. I have been up this hour; awake, all night.
Know I these men, that come along with you?

Cas. Yes, every man of them; and no man here,
But honours you; and every one doth wish,
You had but that opinion of yourself,
Which every noble Roman bears of you.
This is Trebonius.

Bru. He is welcome hither.

Cas. This Decius Brutus.
Bru. He is welcome too.

Cas. This, Casca; this, Cinna;

And this, Metellus Cimber.

Bru. They are all welcome.

What watchful cares do interpose themselves

Betwixt your eyes and night?

Cas. Shall I entreat a word?

[They whisper.

Dec. Here lies the east: Doth not the day break here? Casca. No.

Cin. O, pardon, sir, it doth; and yon grey lines,

That fret the clouds, are messengers of day.

Casca. You shall confess, that you are both deceiv'd. Here, as I point my sword, the sun arises;

Which is a great way growing on the south,
Weighing the youthful season of the year.

Some two months hence, up higher toward the north
He first presents his fire; and the high east
Stands, as the Capitol, directly here.

Bru. Give me your hands all over, one by one.
Cas. And let us swear our resolution.

Bru. No, not an oath: If not the face of men,'
The sufferance of our souls, the time's abuse,-
If these be motives weak, break off betimes,
And every man hence to his idle bed;

So let high-sighted tyranny range on,
Till each man drop by lottery. But if these,
As I am sure they do, bear fire enough

To kindle cowards, and to steal with valour

The melting spirits of women; then, countrymen,
What need we any spur, but our own cause,
To prick us to redress? what other bond,

Than secret Romans, that have spoke the word,

[3] Mr. Mason would read faiths of men, which might easily have been confound. ed with face. MALONE.

[4] Perhaps the poet alluded to the custom of decimation, i. e. the selection by lot of every tenth soldier, in a general mutiny, for punishment. STEEVENS.

And will not palter ? and what other oath,
Than honesty to honesty engag'd,
That this shall be, or we will fall for it?
Swear priests, and cowards, and men cautelous,"
Old feeble carrions, and such suffering souls
That welcome wrongs; unto bad causes swear
Such creatures as men doubt: but do not stain
The even virtue of our enterprize,

Nor the insuppressive mettle of our spirits,
To think, that, or our cause, or our performance,
Did need an oath; when every drop of blood,
That every Roman bears, and nobly bears,,
Is guilty of a several bastardy,

If he do break the smallest particle

Of any promise that hath pass'd from him.

Cas. But what of Cicero ? Shall we sound him?

I think, he will stand very strong with us.
Casca. Let us not leave him out.

Cim. No, by no means.

Met. O let us have him; for his silver hairs Will purchase us a good opinion,

And buy men's voices to commend our deeds:

It shall be said, his judgment rul'd our hands ;
Our youths, and wildness, shall no whit appear,
But all be buried in his gravity.

Bru, O, name him not: let us not break with him;
For he will never follow any thing
That other men begin.

Cas. Then leave him out.

Casca. Indeed, he is not fit.

Dec. Shall no man else be touch'd but only Cæsar? Cas. Decius, well urg'd :-I think it is not meet, Mark Antony, so well belov'd of Cæsar,

Should outlive Cæsar: We shall find of him

A shrewd contriver; and, you know, his means,

If he improves them, may well stretch so far,

As to annoy us all which to prevent,

Let Antony, and Cæsar, fall together.

Bru. Our course will seem too bloody, Caius Cassius,

To cut the head off, and then hack the limbs ;

Like wrath in death, and envy afterwards :"

For Antony is but a limb of Cæsar.

[5] Will not fly from his engagements. MALONE.

[6] Bulloker, in his English Expositor, 1616, explains cautelous thus, "Warie, ci eumspect." MALONE.

[7] Envy is here, as almost always in Shakespeare's plays, malice. MALONE

Let us be sacrificers, but no butchers, Caius.
We all stand up against the spirit of Cæsar;
And in the spirit of men there is no blood:
O, that we then could come by Cæsar's spirit,
And not dismember Cæsar! But, alas,
Cæsar must bleed for it! And, gentle friends,
Let's kill him boldly, but not wrathfully;
Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods,
Not hew him as a carcase fit for hounds :
And let our hearts, as subtle masters do,
Stir up their servants to an act of rage,
And after seem to chide them. This shall make
Our purpose necessary, and not envious:
Which so appearing to the common eyes,
We shall be call'd purgers, not murderers.
And for Mark Antony, think not of him ;
For he can do no more than Cæsar's arm,
When Cæsar's head is off.

Cas. Yet do I fear him :

For in the ingrafted love he bears to Cæsar,-
Bru. Alas, good Cassius, do not think of him:
If he love Cæsar, all that he can do

Is to himself; take thought, and die for Cæsar :
And that were much he should; for he is given
To sports, to wildness, and much company.

Treb. There is no fear in him; let him not die ; For he will live, and laugh at this hereafter. [Clock strikes. Bru. Peace, count the clock.

Cas. The clock hath stricken three.

Treb. 'Tis time to part.

Cas. But it is doubtful yet,

If Cæsar will come forth to-day, or no :
For he is superstitious grown of late;
Quite from the main opinion he held once
Of fantasy, of dreams, and ceremonies :
It may be, these apparent prodigies,
The unaccustom'd terror of this night,
And the persuasion of his augurers,
May hold him from the Capitol to-day.

Dec. Never fear that: If he be so resolv'd,

I can o'ersway him: for he loves to hear,

That unicorns may be betray'd with trees,

Company is here used in a disreputable sense. HENLEY.

[9] Ceremonies means omens or signs deduced from sacrifices, or other cerememial rites.

MALONE.

And bears with glasses, elephants with holes,'
Lions with toils, and men with flatterers :
But, when I tell him, he hates flatterers,
He says, he does; being then most flattered.
Let me work :

For I can give his humour the true bent;
And I will bring him to the Capitol.

Cas. Nay, we will all of us be there to fetch him.
Bru. By the eighth hour: is that the uttermost?
Cin. Be that the uttermost, and fail not then.
Met. Caius Ligarius doth bear Cæsar hard,
Who rated him for speaking well of Pompey;
I wonder, none of you have thought of him.

Bru. Now, good Metellus, go along by him :*
He loves me well, and I have given him reasons
Send him but hither, and I'll fashion him.

Cas. The morning comes upon us: We'll leave you, Brutus

And, friends, disperse yourselves: but all remember
What you have said, and show yourselves true Romans.
Bru. Good gentlemen, look fresh and merrily;
Let not our looks put on our purposes;
But bear it as our Roman actors do,
With untir'd spirits, and formal constancy:

And so, good-morrow to you every one.

[Exeunt all but BRUTUS,

Boy! Lucius!-Fast asleep? It is no matter;'
Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber :
Thou hast no figures, nor no fantasies,

Which busy care draws in the brains of men ;
Therefore thou sleep'st so sound.

Enter PORTIA.

Por. Brutus, my lord!

Bru. Portia, what mean you? Wherefore rise you now? It is not for your health, thus to commit

Your weak condition to the raw-cold morning.

Por. Nor for yours neither. You have ungently, Brutus, Stole from my bed: And yesternight, at supper,

[1] Unicorns are said to have been taken by one who, running behind a tree, eluded the violent push the animal was making at him, so that his horn spent its force on the trunk, and stuck fast, detaining the beast till he was despatched by the hunter. Bears are reported to have been surprised by means of a mirror, which they would gaze on, affording their pursuers an opportunity of taking the surer aim. This circumstance, I think, is mentioned by Claudian. Elephants were seduced into pit-falls, lightly covered with hurdles and turf, on which a proper bait to tempt them, was exposed. STEEVENS. MALONE.

[2] That is, by his house.