Act 1, Scene 3

The same. A street.

[Thunder and lightning. Enter, from opposite sides, CASCA, with his sword drawn, and CICERO.]
Cicero
396 Good even, Casca: brought you Caesar home?
397 Why are you breathless, and why stare you so?
Casca
398 Are not you moved, when all the sway of earth
399 Shakes like a thing unfirm? O Cicero,
400 I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds
401 Have rived the knotty oaks; and I have seen
402 Th' ambitious ocean swell and rage and foam,
403 To be exalted with the threatening clouds:
404 But never till tonight, never till now,
405 Did I go through a tempest dropping fire.
406 Either there is a civil strife in heaven,
407 Or else the world too saucy with the gods,
408 Incenses them to send destruction.
Cicero
409 Why, saw you anything more wonderful?
Casca
410 A common slave—you'd know him well by sight—
411 Held up his left hand, which did flame and burn
412 Like twenty torches join'd, and yet his hand
413 Not sensible of fire remain'd unscorch'd.
414 Besides,—I ha' not since put up my sword,—
415 Against the Capitol I met a lion,
416 Who glared upon me, and went surly by,
417 Without annoying me: and there were drawn
418 Upon a heap a hundred ghastly women,
419 Transformed with their fear; who swore they saw
420 Men, all in fire, walk up and down the streets.
421 And yesterday the bird of night did sit
422 Even at noonday upon the marketplace,
423 Howling and shrieking. When these prodigies
424 Do so conjointly meet, let not men say
425 "These are their reasons; they are natural";
426 For I believe they are portentous things
427 Unto the climate that they point upon.
Cicero
428 Indeed, it is a strange-disposed time.
429 But men may construe things after their fashion,
430 Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.
431 Comes Caesar to the Capitol tomorrow?
Casca
432 He doth, for he did bid Antonius
433 Send word to you he would be there to-morrow.
Cicero
434 Good then, Casca: this disturbed sky
435 Is not to walk in.
Casca
436 Farewell, Cicero.
[Exit Cicero.]
[Enter Cassius.]
Caius Cassius
437 Who's there?
Casca
438 A Roman.
Caius Cassius
439 Casca, by your voice.
Casca
440 Your ear is good. Cassius, what night is this!
Caius Cassius
441 A very pleasing night to honest men.
Casca
442 Who ever knew the heavens menace so?
Caius Cassius
443 Those that have known the earth so full of faults.
444 For my part, I have walk'd about the streets,
445 Submitting me unto the perilous night;
446 And, thus unbraced, Casca, as you see,
447 Have bared my bosom to the thunder-stone;
448 And when the cross blue lightning seem'd to open
449 The breast of heaven, I did present myself
450 Even in the aim and very flash of it.
Casca
451 But wherefore did you so much tempt the Heavens?
452 It is the part of men to fear and tremble,
453 When the most mighty gods by tokens send
454 Such dreadful heralds to astonish us.
Caius Cassius
455 You are dull, Casca; and those sparks of life
456 That should be in a Roman you do want,
457 Or else you use not. You look pale and gaze,
458 And put on fear and cast yourself in wonder,
459 To see the strange impatience of the Heavens:
460 But if you would consider the true cause
461 Why all these fires, why all these gliding ghosts,
462 Why birds and beasts, from quality and kind;
463 Why old men, fools, and children calculate;—
464 Why all these things change from their ordinance,
465 Their natures, and preformed faculties
466 To monstrous quality;—why, you shall find
467 That Heaven hath infused them with these spirits,
468 To make them instruments of fear and warning
469 Unto some monstrous state. Now could I, Casca,
470 Name to thee a man most like this dreadful night;
471 That thunders, lightens, opens graves, and roars,
472 As doth the lion in the Capitol;
473 A man no mightier than thyself or me
474 In personal action; yet prodigious grown,
475 And fearful, as these strange eruptions are.
Casca
476 'Tis Caesar that you mean; is it not, Cassius?
Caius Cassius
477 Let it be who it is: for Romans now
478 Have thews and limbs like to their ancestors;
479 But, woe the while! our fathers' minds are dead,
480 And we are govern'd with our mothers' spirits;
481 Our yoke and sufferance show us womanish.
Casca
482 Indeed they say the senators to-morrow
483 Mean to establish Caesar as a king;
484 And he shall wear his crown by sea and land,
485 In every place save here in Italy.
Caius Cassius
486 I know where I will wear this dagger then;
487 Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius:
488 Therein, ye gods, you make the weak most strong;
489 Therein, ye gods, you tyrants do defeat:
490 Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass,
491 Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron
492 Can be retentive to the strength of spirit;
493 But life, being weary of these worldly bars,
494 Never lacks power to dismiss itself.
495 If I know this, know all the world besides,
496 That part of tyranny that I do bear
497 I can shake off at pleasure.
[Thunders still.]
Casca
498 So can I:
499 So every bondman in his own hand bears
500 The power to cancel his captivity.
Caius Cassius
501 And why should Caesar be a tyrant then?
502 Poor man! I know he would not be a wolf,
503 But that he sees the Romans are but sheep:
504 He were no lion, were not Romans hinds.
505 Those that with haste will make a mighty fire
506 Begin it with weak straws: what trash is Rome,
507 What rubbish, and what offal, when it serves
508 For the base matter to illuminate
509 So vile a thing as Caesar! But, O grief,
510 Where hast thou led me? I perhaps speak this
511 Before a willing bondman: then I know
512 My answer must be made; but I am arm'd,
513 And dangers are to me indifferent.
Casca
514 You speak to Casca; and to such a man
515 That is no fleering tell-tale. Hold, my hand:
516 Be factious for redress of all these griefs;
517 And I will set this foot of mine as far
518 As who goes farthest.
Caius Cassius
519 There's a bargain made.
520 Now know you, Casca, I have moved already
521 Some certain of the noblest-minded Romans
522 To undergo with me an enterprise
523 Of honorable-dangerous consequence;
524 And I do know by this, they stay for me
525 In Pompey's Porch: for now, this fearful night,
526 There is no stir or walking in the streets;
527 And the complexion of the element
528 Is favor'd like the work we have in hand,
529 Most bloody, fiery, and most terrible.
Casca
530 Stand close awhile, for here comes one in haste.
Caius Cassius
531 'Tis Cinna; I do know him by his gait;
532 He is a friend.—
[Enter Cinna.]
Caius Cassius
533 Cinna, where haste you so?
Cinna
534 To find out you. Who's that? Metellus Cimber?
Caius Cassius
535 No, it is Casca, one incorporate
536 To our attempts. Am I not stay'd for, Cinna?
Cinna
537 I am glad on't. What a fearful night is this!
538 There's two or three of us have seen strange sights.
Caius Cassius
539 Am I not stay'd for? tell me.
Cinna
540 Yes,
541 You are. O Cassius, if you could but win
542 The noble Brutus to our party,—
Caius Cassius
543 Be you content. Good Cinna, take this paper,
544 And look you lay it in the praetor's chair,
545 Where Brutus may but find it; and throw this
546 In at his window; set this up with wax
547 Upon old Brutus' statue: all this done,
548 Repair to Pompey's Porch, where you shall find us.
549 Is Decius Brutus and Trebonius there?
Cinna
550 All but Metellus Cimber, and he's gone
551 To seek you at your house. Well, I will hie
552 And so bestow these papers as you bade me.
Caius Cassius
553 That done, repair to Pompey's theatre.—
[Exit Cinna.]
Caius Cassius
554 Come, Casca, you and I will yet, ere day,
555 See Brutus at his house: three parts of him
556 Is ours already; and the man entire,
557 Upon the next encounter, yields him ours.
Casca
558 O, he sits high in all the people's hearts!
559 And that which would appear offense in us,
560 His countenance, like richest alchemy,
561 Will change to virtue and to worthiness.
Caius Cassius
562 Him, and his worth, and our great need of him,
563 You have right well conceited. Let us go,
564 For it is after midnight; and, ere day,
565 We will awake him, and be sure of him.
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 400archaic vocab
“scolding winds Have rived the knotty oaks”
'Rived' means split or torn apart. Casca is saying he has seen violent storms before -- ones that cracked even the toughest oak trees -- but tonight's storm is something entirely different and more frightening.
TLN 421historical topical
“the bird of night did sit Even at noonday upon the marketplace, Howling and shrieking”
The 'bird of night' is the owl, a bird Romans associated with death and disaster. In Roman belief, an owl appearing in daylight -- especially in a public place like the forum -- was one of the gravest possible omens. Casca lists it alongside fire-men and a roaming lion as proof that nature itself is signaling catastrophe.
historical Roman Augury and Omens
TLN 423historical topical
“these prodigies Do so conjointly meet”
A 'prodigy' in Roman religion was not simply something amazing -- it was specifically a sign from the gods warning that the natural order had been violated and that disaster would follow unless priests performed ritual atonement. The Roman Senate kept official lists of prodigies reported each year. Casca's logic -- that multiple prodigies happening together must mean something terrible is coming -- is standard Roman religious reasoning.
historical Roman Augury and Omens
TLN 446archaic vocab
“thus unbraced, Casca, as you see, Have bared my bosom to the thunder-stone”
'Unbraced' means with his doublet or jacket unfastened and open. 'Thunder-stone' is what Elizabethans called a thunderbolt -- they believed lightning left a hard stone embedded where it struck. Cassius is saying he walked through the storm with his chest bare and deliberately exposed himself to lightning, performing a kind of defiant dare against heaven.
TLN 455archaic vocab
“those sparks of life That should be in a Roman you do want”
Here 'want' means 'lack,' not 'desire.' Cassius is insulting Casca: a true Roman should have fire and courage, but Casca lacks those qualities -- or isn't showing them. This usage of 'want' as 'lack' is extremely common in Shakespeare but trips up modern readers every time.
TLN 462archaic vocab
“birds and beasts, from quality and kind; Why old men, fools, and children calculate”
'From quality and kind' means acting contrary to their natural character -- birds and beasts abandoning their normal behavior. 'Calculate' here means to make astrological or prophetic calculations, to predict the future. Cassius is arguing that nature has been turned inside out: the lion wanders freely, old men predict doom, children prophecy -- all signs that the world is out of joint.
TLN 477historical topical
“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”
'Thews' means muscles or bodily strength. Cassius's point is bitterly ironic: modern Romans have the same strong bodies as the great ancestors who built the Republic, but they have lost the mental and moral courage those ancestors had. By saying Romans are now 'governed with our mothers' spirits,' he is deploying the standard Roman insult that passivity and submission are feminine weaknesses.
TLN 487historical topical
“Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius: Therein, ye gods, you make the weak most strong; Therein, ye gods, you tyrants do defeat”
Cassius is announcing that if Caesar becomes king, he will kill himself rather than live as a subject. In Roman Stoic philosophy -- especially as practiced by men like Cato -- suicide was not a moral failure but a rational escape from tyranny: you could always choose death, and therefore a tyrant could never truly own you. The power to kill yourself was the ultimate guarantee of freedom.
historical Cato the Youngerhistorical The antique Roman: honourable suicide
TLN 515archaic vocab
“no fleering tell-tale. Hold, my hand: Be factious for redress of all these griefs”
'Fleering' means sneering, mocking, or speaking with a contemptuous grin. A 'fleering tell-tale' would be someone who smirks and then reports your secrets to your enemies. Casca is assuring Cassius he is not a sneering spy. 'Be factious' means 'organize a faction' or 'take active political steps' -- Casca is inviting Cassius to lead the conspiracy with his support.
TLN 525historical topical
“In Pompey's Porch”
Pompey's Porch (the Porticus Pompeiana) was a large covered colonnade attached to the theatre that Pompey the Great built in 55 BC, the first permanent stone theatre in Rome. The conspirators are meeting in the portico of Pompey's own building -- a pointed irony, since Caesar defeated Pompey in civil war and now the men plotting against Caesar are sheltering in Pompey's monument.
historical Pompey the Great
TLN 544historical topical
“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”
Brutus holds the office of praetor -- a senior Roman magistrate just below consul, roughly equivalent to a chief judge. Cassius is planting forged letters in Brutus's official chair, his home window, and on the statue of Lucius Junius Brutus -- the legendary ancestor who expelled Rome's last king. The forgeries are designed to make Brutus think ordinary Romans are begging him to act against Caesar, just as his ancestor acted against Tarquin.
historical Tarquin and the First Brutus
TLN 560cultural context
“His countenance, like richest alchemy, Will change to virtue and to worthiness”
Casca is comparing Brutus's public authority to alchemy -- the medieval and Renaissance attempt to transmute base metals into gold. His point is that the same action that would look like criminal murder if Cassius or Casca did it will be transformed into honorable virtue simply because Brutus is involved. Brutus's personal reputation is the 'philosopher's stone' that turns lead into gold.