Part 95

MELUN. Have I not hideous death within my view, Retaining but a quantity of life, Which bleeds away even as a form of wax Resolveth from his figure ’gainst the fire? What in the world should make me now deceive, Since I must lose the use of all deceit? Why should I then be false, since it is true That I must die here and live hence by truth? I say again, if Louis do win the day, He is forsworn if e’er those eyes of yours Behold another day break in the east. But even this night, whose black contagious breath Already smokes about the burning crest Of the old, feeble, and day-wearied sun, Even this ill night, your breathing shall expire, Paying the fine of rated treachery Even with a treacherous fine of all your lives, If Louis by your assistance win the day. Commend me to one Hubert, with your king; The love of him, and this respect besides, For that my grandsire was an Englishman, Awakes my conscience to confess all this. In lieu whereof, I pray you, bear me hence From forth the noise and rumour of the field, Where I may think the remnant of my thoughts In peace, and part this body and my soul With contemplation and devout desires.

SALISBURY. We do believe thee, and beshrew my soul But I do love the favour and the form Of this most fair occasion, by the which We will untread the steps of damned flight, And like a bated and retired flood, Leaving our rankness and irregular course, Stoop low within those bounds we have o’erlook’d, And calmly run on in obedience Even to our ocean, to our great King John. My arm shall give thee help to bear thee hence; For I do see the cruel pangs of death Right in thine eye.—Away, my friends! New flight, And happy newness, that intends old right.

[_Exeunt, leading off Melun._]

SCENE V. The same. The French camp.

Enter Louis and his train.

LOUIS. The sun of heaven, methought, was loath to set, But stay’d, and made the western welkin blush, When the English measure backward their own ground In faint retire. O, bravely came we off, When with a volley of our needless shot, After such bloody toil, we bid good night, And wound our tott’ring colours clearly up, Last in the field, and almost lords of it!

Enter a Messenger.

MESSENGER. Where is my prince, the Dauphin?

LOUIS. Here. What news?

MESSENGER. The Count Melun is slain; the English lords By his persuasion are again fall’n off, And your supply, which you have wish’d so long, Are cast away and sunk on Goodwin Sands.

LOUIS. Ah, foul shrewd news! Beshrew thy very heart! I did not think to be so sad tonight As this hath made me. Who was he that said King John did fly an hour or two before The stumbling night did part our weary powers?

MESSENGER. Whoever spoke it, it is true, my lord.

LOUIS. Well, keep good quarter and good care tonight. The day shall not be up so soon as I, To try the fair adventure of tomorrow.

[_Exeunt._]

SCENE VI. An open place in the neighborhood of Swinstead Abbey.

Enter the Bastard and Hubert, meeting.

HUBERT. Who’s there? Speak, ho! Speak quickly, or I shoot.

BASTARD. A friend. What art thou?

HUBERT. Of the part of England.

BASTARD. Whither dost thou go?

HUBERT. What’s that to thee? Why may I not demand Of thine affairs, as well as thou of mine?

BASTARD. Hubert, I think.

HUBERT. Thou hast a perfect thought. I will, upon all hazards, well believe Thou art my friend, that know’st my tongue so well. Who art thou?

BASTARD. Who thou wilt. And if thou please, Thou mayst befriend me so much as to think I come one way of the Plantagenets.

HUBERT. Unkind remembrance! Thou and eyeless night Have done me shame. Brave soldier, pardon me, That any accent breaking from thy tongue Should ’scape the true acquaintance of mine ear.

BASTARD. Come, come; sans compliment, what news abroad?

HUBERT. Why, here walk I in the black brow of night, To find you out.

BASTARD. Brief, then; and what’s the news?

HUBERT. O, my sweet sir, news fitting to the night, Black, fearful, comfortless, and horrible.

BASTARD. Show me the very wound of this ill news. I am no woman, I’ll not swoon at it.

HUBERT. The King, I fear, is poison’d by a monk. I left him almost speechless, and broke out To acquaint you with this evil, that you might The better arm you to the sudden time, Than if you had at leisure known of this.

BASTARD. How did he take it? Who did taste to him?

HUBERT. A monk, I tell you, a resolved villain, Whose bowels suddenly burst out. The King Yet speaks, and peradventure may recover.

BASTARD. Who didst thou leave to tend his majesty?

HUBERT. Why, know you not? The lords are all come back, And brought Prince Henry in their company; At whose request the King hath pardon’d them, And they are all about his majesty.

BASTARD. Withhold thine indignation, mighty heaven, And tempt us not to bear above our power! I’ll tell thee, Hubert, half my power this night, Passing these flats, are taken by the tide; These Lincoln Washes have devoured them; Myself, well mounted, hardly have escap’d. Away, before. Conduct me to the King; I doubt he will be dead or ere I come.

[_Exeunt._]

SCENE VII. The orchard of Swinstead Abbey.

Enter Prince Henry, Salisbury and Bigot.

PRINCE HENRY. It is too late. The life of all his blood Is touch’d corruptibly, and his pure brain, Which some suppose the soul’s frail dwelling-house, Doth, by the idle comments that it makes, Foretell the ending of mortality.

Enter Pembroke.

PEMBROKE. His Highness yet doth speak, and holds belief That, being brought into the open air, It would allay the burning quality Of that fell poison which assaileth him.

PRINCE HENRY. Let him be brought into the orchard here. Doth he still rage?

[_Exit Bigot._]

PEMBROKE. He is more patient Than when you left him; even now he sung.

PRINCE HENRY. O vanity of sickness! Fierce extremes In their continuance will not feel themselves. Death, having prey’d upon the outward parts, Leaves them invisible, and his siege is now Against the mind, the which he pricks and wounds With many legions of strange fantasies, Which, in their throng and press to that last hold, Confound themselves. ’Tis strange that death should sing. I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan, Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings His soul and body to their lasting rest.

SALISBURY. Be of good comfort, prince; for you are born To set a form upon that indigest Which he hath left so shapeless and so rude.

Enter Bigot and Attendants, who bring in King John in a chair.

KING JOHN. Ay, marry, now my soul hath elbow-room It would not out at windows nor at doors. There is so hot a summer in my bosom That all my bowels crumble up to dust. I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen Upon a parchment, and against this fire Do I shrink up.

PRINCE HENRY. How fares your majesty?

KING JOHN. Poison’d, ill fare; dead, forsook, cast off, And none of you will bid the winter come To thrust his icy fingers in my maw, Nor let my kingdom’s rivers take their course Through my burn’d bosom, nor entreat the north To make his bleak winds kiss my parched lips And comfort me with cold. I do not ask you much, I beg cold comfort; and you are so strait, And so ingrateful, you deny me that.

PRINCE HENRY. O, that there were some virtue in my tears That might relieve you!

KING JOHN. The salt in them is hot. Within me is a hell; and there the poison Is, as a fiend, confin’d to tyrannize On unreprievable condemned blood.

Enter the Bastard.

BASTARD. O, I am scalded with my violent motion And spleen of speed to see your majesty!

KING JOHN. O cousin, thou art come to set mine eye. The tackle of my heart is crack’d and burn’d, And all the shrouds wherewith my life should sail Are turned to one thread, one little hair. My heart hath one poor string to stay it by, Which holds but till thy news be uttered; And then all this thou seest is but a clod And module of confounded royalty.

BASTARD. The Dauphin is preparing hitherward, Where God He knows how we shall answer him; For in a night the best part of my power, As I upon advantage did remove, Were in the Washes all unwarily Devoured by the unexpected flood.

[_The King dies._]

SALISBURY. You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear. My liege! My lord!—But now a king, now thus.

PRINCE HENRY. Even so must I run on, and even so stop. What surety of the world, what hope, what stay, When this was now a king, and now is clay?

BASTARD. Art thou gone so? I do but stay behind To do the office for thee of revenge, And then my soul shall wait on thee to heaven, As it on earth hath been thy servant still. Now, now, you stars that move in your right spheres, Where be your powers? Show now your mended faiths, And instantly return with me again, To push destruction and perpetual shame Out of the weak door of our fainting land. Straight let us seek, or straight we shall be sought; The Dauphin rages at our very heels.

SALISBURY. It seems you know not, then, so much as we. The Cardinal Pandulph is within at rest, Who half an hour since came from the Dauphin, And brings from him such offers of our peace As we with honour and respect may take, With purpose presently to leave this war.

BASTARD. He will the rather do it when he sees Ourselves well sinewed to our defence.

SALISBURY. Nay, ’tis in a manner done already, For many carriages he hath dispatch’d To the sea-side, and put his cause and quarrel To the disposing of the cardinal, With whom yourself, myself, and other lords, If you think meet, this afternoon will post To consummate this business happily.

BASTARD. Let it be so. And you, my noble prince, With other princes that may best be spar’d, Shall wait upon your father’s funeral.

PRINCE HENRY. At Worcester must his body be interr’d; For so he will’d it.

BASTARD. Thither shall it, then, And happily may your sweet self put on The lineal state and glory of the land! To whom, with all submission, on my knee, I do bequeath my faithful services And true subjection everlastingly.

SALISBURY. And the like tender of our love we make, To rest without a spot for evermore.

PRINCE HENRY. I have a kind soul that would give you thanks And knows not how to do it but with tears.

BASTARD. O, let us pay the time but needful woe, Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs. This England never did, nor never shall, Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror, But when it first did help to wound itself. Now these her princes are come home again, Come the three corners of the world in arms And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue, If England to itself do rest but true.

[_Exeunt._]

THE TRAGEDY OF JULIUS CAESAR

Contents

ACT I Scene I. Rome. A street Scene II. The same. A public place Scene III. The same. A street

ACT II Scene I. Rome. Brutus’ orchard Scene II. A room in Caesar’s palace Scene III. A street near the Capitol Scene IV. Another part of the same street, before the house of Brutus

ACT III Scene I. Rome. Before the Capitol; the Senate sitting Scene II. The same. The Forum Scene III. The same. A street

ACT IV Scene I. A room in Antony’s house Scene II. Before Brutus’ tent, in the camp near Sardis Scene III. Within the tent of Brutus

ACT V Scene I. The plains of Philippi Scene II. The same. The field of battle Scene III. Another part of the field Scene IV. Another part of the field Scene V. Another part of the field

Dramatis Personæ

JULIUS CAESAR OCTAVIUS CAESAR, Triumvir after his death. MARCUS ANTONIUS, ” ” ” M. AEMILIUS LEPIDUS, ” ” ” CICERO, PUBLIUS, POPILIUS LENA, Senators. MARCUS BRUTUS, Conspirator against Caesar. CASSIUS, ” ” ” CASCA, ” ” ” TREBONIUS, ” ” ” LIGARIUS,” ” ” DECIUS BRUTUS, ” ” ” METELLUS CIMBER, ” ” ” CINNA, ” ” ” FLAVIUS, tribune MARULLUS, tribune ARTEMIDORUS, a Sophist of Cnidos. A Soothsayer CINNA, a poet. Another Poet. LUCILIUS, TITINIUS, MESSALA, young CATO, and VOLUMNIUS, Friends to Brutus and Cassius. VARRO, CLITUS, CLAUDIUS, STRATO, LUCIUS, DARDANIUS, Servants to Brutus PINDARUS, Servant to Cassius

CALPHURNIA, wife to Caesar PORTIA, wife to Brutus

The Ghost of Caesar

Senators, Citizens, Soldiers, Commoners, Messengers, and Servants.

SCENE: Rome, the conspirators’ camp near Sardis, and the plains of Philippi.

ACT I

SCENE I. Rome. A street.

Enter Flavius, Marullus and a throng of Citizens.

FLAVIUS. Hence! home, you idle creatures, get you home. Is this a holiday? What, know you not, Being mechanical, you ought not walk Upon a labouring day without the sign Of your profession? Speak, what trade art thou?

CARPENTER. Why, sir, a carpenter.

MARULLUS. Where is thy leather apron and thy rule? What dost thou with thy best apparel on? You, sir, what trade are you?

COBBLER. Truly, sir, in respect of a fine workman, I am but, as you would say, a cobbler.

MARULLUS. But what trade art thou? Answer me directly.

COBBLER. A trade, sir, that I hope I may use with a safe conscience, which is indeed, sir, a mender of bad soles.

MARULLUS. What trade, thou knave? Thou naughty knave, what trade?

COBBLER. Nay, I beseech you, sir, be not out with me; yet, if you be out, sir, I can mend you.

MARULLUS. What mean’st thou by that? Mend me, thou saucy fellow!

COBBLER. Why, sir, cobble you.

FLAVIUS. Thou art a cobbler, art thou?

COBBLER. Truly, sir, all that I live by is with the awl; I meddle with no tradesman’s matters, nor women’s matters, but withal I am indeed, sir, a surgeon to old shoes: when they are in great danger, I recover them. As proper men as ever trod upon neat’s leather have gone upon my handiwork.

FLAVIUS. But wherefore art not in thy shop today? Why dost thou lead these men about the streets?

COBBLER. 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.

MARULLUS. 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 climb’d 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 an 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? Be gone! Run to your houses, fall upon your knees, Pray to the gods to intermit the plague That needs must light on this ingratitude.

FLAVIUS. Go, go, good countrymen, and, for this fault Assemble all the poor men of your sort, Draw them to Tiber banks, and weep your tears Into the channel, till the lowest stream Do kiss the most exalted shores of all.

[_Exeunt Citizens._]

See whether their basest metal be not mov’d; They vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness. Go you down that way towards the Capitol; This way will I. Disrobe the images, If you do find them deck’d with ceremonies.

MARULLUS. May we do so? You know it is the feast of Lupercal.

FLAVIUS. It is no matter; let no images Be hung with Caesar’s trophies. I’ll about And drive away the vulgar from the streets; So do you too, where you perceive them thick. These growing feathers pluck’d 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.

[_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. The same. A public place.

Enter, in procession, with music, Caesar; Antony, for the course; Calphurnia, Portia, Decius, Cicero, Brutus, Cassius and Casca; a great crowd following, among them a Soothsayer.

CAESAR. Calphurnia.

CASCA. Peace, ho! Caesar speaks.

[_Music ceases._]

CAESAR. Calphurnia.

CALPHURNIA. Here, my lord.

CAESAR. Stand you directly in Antonius’ way, When he doth run his course. Antonius.

ANTONY. Caesar, my lord?

CAESAR. Forget not in your speed, Antonius, To touch Calphurnia; for our elders say, The barren, touched in this holy chase, Shake off their sterile curse.

ANTONY. I shall remember. When Caesar says “Do this,” it is perform’d.

CAESAR. Set on; and leave no ceremony out.

[_Music._]

SOOTHSAYER. Caesar!

CAESAR. Ha! Who calls?

CASCA. Bid every noise be still; peace yet again!

[_Music ceases._]

CAESAR. Who is it in the press that calls on me? I hear a tongue shriller than all the music, Cry “Caesar”! Speak. Caesar is turn’d to hear.

SOOTHSAYER. Beware the Ides of March.

CAESAR. What man is that?

BRUTUS. A soothsayer bids you beware the Ides of March.

CAESAR. Set him before me; let me see his face.

CASSIUS. Fellow, come from the throng; look upon Caesar.

CAESAR. What say’st thou to me now? Speak once again.

SOOTHSAYER. Beware the Ides of March.

CAESAR. He is a dreamer; let us leave him. Pass.

[_Sennet. Exeunt all but Brutus and Cassius._]

CASSIUS. Will you go see the order of the course?

BRUTUS. Not I.

CASSIUS. I pray you, do.

BRUTUS. 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.

CASSIUS. 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.

BRUTUS. Cassius, Be not deceived: if I have veil’d 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.

CASSIUS. Then, Brutus, I have much mistook your passion; By means whereof this breast of mine hath buried Thoughts of great value, worthy cogitations. Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face?

BRUTUS. No, Cassius, for the eye sees not itself But by reflection, by some other thing.

CASSIUS. ’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 wish’d that noble Brutus had his eyes.

BRUTUS. Into what dangers would you lead me, Cassius, That you would have me seek into myself For that which is not in me?

CASSIUS. 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: Were I a common laugher, or did use To stale with ordinary oaths my love To every new protester; if you know That I do fawn on men, and hug them hard, And after scandal them; or if you know That I profess myself in banqueting, To all the rout, then hold me dangerous.

[_Flourish and shout._]

BRUTUS. What means this shouting? I do fear the people Choose Caesar for their king.

CASSIUS. Ay, do you fear it? Then must I think you would not have it so.

BRUTUS. I would not, Cassius; yet I love him well, But wherefore do you hold me here so long? What is it that you would impart to me? If it be aught toward the general good, Set honour in one eye and death i’ the other, And I will look on both indifferently; For let the gods so speed me as I love The name of honour more than I fear death.

CASSIUS. I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus, As well as I do know your outward favour. Well, honour 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 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, Accoutred as I was, I plunged in, And bade him follow: so indeed he did. The torrent roar’d, 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 propos’d, Caesar cried, “Help me, Cassius, or I sink!” I, 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 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: His coward lips did from their colour fly, And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world Did lose his lustre. 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.

[_Shout. Flourish._]

BRUTUS. Another general shout? I do believe that these applauses are For some new honours that are heap’d on Caesar.

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 dishonourable graves. Men at some time are 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 as fair a 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, thou art sham’d! Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods! When went there by an age since the great flood, But it was fam’d with more than with one man? When could they say, till now, that talk’d of Rome, That her wide walls encompass’d 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 brook’d Th’ eternal devil to keep his state in Rome, As easily as a king!

BRUTUS. That you do love me, I am nothing jealous; What you would work me to, I have some aim: How I have thought of this, and of these times, I shall recount hereafter. For this present, I would not, so with love I might entreat you, Be any further mov’d. What you have said, I will consider; what you have to say I will with patience hear; and find a time Both meet to hear and answer such high things. Till then, my noble friend, chew upon this: Brutus had rather be a villager Than to repute himself a son of Rome Under these hard conditions as this time Is like to lay upon us.

CASSIUS. I am glad that my weak words Have struck but thus much show of fire from Brutus.

Enter Caesar and his Train.

BRUTUS. The games are done, and Caesar is returning.

CASSIUS. As they pass by, pluck Casca by the sleeve, And he will, after his sour fashion, tell you What hath proceeded worthy note today.