style="font-size:15px;"> What, Brutus!
CASSIUS
Pardon, Caesar; Caesar, pardon:
As low as to thy foot doth Cassius fall,
To beg enfranchisement for Publius Cimber.
CASSIUS
I could be well moved, if I were as you:
If I could pray to move, prayers would move me:
But I am constant as the northern star,
Of whose true-fix’d and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament.
The skies are painted with unnumber’d sparks,
They are all fire and every one doth shine,
But there’s but one in all doth hold his place:
So in the world; ’tis furnish’d well with men,
And men are flesh and blood, and apprehensive;
Yet in the number I do know but one
That unassailable holds on his rank,
Unshaked of motion: and that I am he,
Let me a little show it, even in this;
That I was constant Cimber should be banish’d,
And constant do remain to keep him so.
CINNA
O Caesar, —
CAESAR
Hence! wilt thou lift up Olympus?
DECIUS BRUTUS
Great Caesar, —
CAESAR
Doth not Brutus bootless kneel?
CASCA
Speak, hands for me!
CASCA first, then the other Conspirators and BRUTUS stab CAESAR
CAESAR
Et tu, Brute! Then fall, Caesar.
Dies
CINNA
Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!
Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets.
CASSIUS
Some to the common pulpits, and cry out
’Liberty, freedom, and enfranchisement!’
BRUTUS
People and senators, be not affrighted;
Fly not; stand stiff: ambition’s debt is paid.
CASCA
Go to the pulpit, Brutus.
DECIUS BRUTUS
And Cassius too.
BRUTUS
Where’s Publius?
CINNA
Here, quite confounded with this mutiny.
METELLUS CIMBER
Stand fast together, lest some friend of Caesar’s
Should chance-
BRUTUS
Talk not of standing. Publius, good cheer;
There is no harm intended to your person,
Nor to no Roman else: so tell them, Publius.
CASSIUS
And leave us, Publius; lest that the people,
Rushing on us, should do your age some mischief.
BRUTUS
Do so: and let no man abide this deed,
But we the doers.
Re-enter TREBONIUS
CASSIUS
Where is Antony?
TREBONIUS
Fled to his house amazed:
Men, wives and children stare, cry out and run
As it were doomsday.
BRUTUS
Fates, we will know your pleasures:
That we shall die, we know; ’tis but the time
And drawing days out, that men stand upon.
CASSIUS
Why, he that cuts off twenty years of life
Cuts off so many years of fearing death.
BRUTUS
Grant that, and then is death a benefit:
So are we Caesar’s friends, that have abridged
His time of fearing death. Stoop, Romans, stoop,
And let us bathe our hands in Caesar’s blood
Up to the elbows, and besmear our swords:
Then walk we forth, even to the market-place,
And, waving our red weapons o’er our heads,
Let’s all cry ’Peace, freedom and liberty!’
CASSIUS
Stoop, then, and wash. How many ages hence
Shall this our lofty scene be acted over
In states unborn and accents yet unknown!
BRUTUS
How many times shall Caesar bleed in sport,
That now on Pompey’s basis lies along
No worthier
