Act 5, Scene 1

The plains of Philippi.

[Enter Octavius, Antony, and their Army.]
Octavius Caesar
2207 Now, Antony, our hopes are answered.
2208 You said the enemy would not come down,
2209 But keep the hills and upper regions:
2210 It proves not so; their battles are at hand:
2211 They mean to warn us at Philippi here,
2212 Answering before we do demand of them.
Mark Antony
2213 Tut, I am in their bosoms, and I know
2214 Wherefore they do it: they could be content
2215 To visit other places; and come down
2216 With fearful bravery, thinking by this face
2217 To fasten in our thoughts that they have courage;
2218 But 'tis not so.
[Enter a Messenger.]
Messenger
2219 Prepare you, generals:
2220 The enemy comes on in gallant show;
2221 Their bloody sign of battle is hung out,
2222 And something to be done immediately.
Mark Antony
2223 Octavius, lead your battle softly on,
2224 Upon the left hand of the even field.
Octavius Caesar
2225 Upon the right hand I; keep thou the left.
Mark Antony
2226 Why do you cross me in this exigent?
Octavius Caesar
2227 I do not cross you; but I will do so.
[March. Drum. Enter Brutus, Cassius, and their Army; Lucilius, Titinius, Messala, and Others.]
Marcus Brutus
2228 They stand, and would have parley.
Caius Cassius
2229 Stand fast, Titinius: we must out and talk.
Octavius Caesar
2230 Mark Antony, shall we give sign of battle?
Mark Antony
2231 No, Caesar, we will answer on their charge.
2232 Make forth; the generals would have some words.
Octavius Caesar
2233 Stir not until the signal.
Marcus Brutus
2234 Words before blows: is it so, countrymen?
Octavius Caesar
2235 Not that we love words better, as you do.
Marcus Brutus
2236 Good words are better than bad strokes, Octavius.
Mark Antony
2237 In your bad strokes, Brutus, you give good words:
2238 Witness the hole you made in Caesar's heart,
2239 Crying, "Long live! Hail, Caesar!"
Caius Cassius
2240 Antony,
2241 The posture of your blows are yet unknown;
2242 But for your words, they rob the Hybla bees,
2243 And leave them honeyless.
Mark Antony
2244 Not stingless too.
Marcus Brutus
2245 O, yes, and soundless too,
2246 For you have stol'n their buzzing, Antony,
2247 And very wisely threat before you sting.
Mark Antony
2248 Villains, you did not so when your vile daggers
2249 Hack'd one another in the sides of Caesar:
2250 You show'd your teeth like apes, and fawn'd like hounds,
2251 And bow'd like bondmen, kissing Caesar's feet;
2252 Whilst damned Casca, like a cur, behind
2253 Struck Caesar on the neck. O flatterers!
Caius Cassius
2254 Flatterers!—Now, Brutus, thank yourself:
2255 This tongue had not offended so to-day,
2256 If Cassius might have ruled.
Octavius Caesar
2257 Come, come, the cause: if arguing makes us sweat,
2258 The proof of it will turn to redder drops.
2259 Look,—
2260 I draw a sword against conspirators:
2261 When think you that the sword goes up again?
2262 Never, till Caesar's three and thirty wounds
2263 Be well avenged; or till another Caesar
2264 Have added slaughter to the sword of traitors.
Marcus Brutus
2265 Caesar, thou canst not die by traitors' hands,
2266 Unless thou bring'st them with thee.
Octavius Caesar
2267 So I hope;
2268 I was not born to die on Brutus' sword.
Marcus Brutus
2269 O, if thou wert the noblest of thy strain,
2270 Young man, thou couldst not die more honourably.
Caius Cassius
2271 A peevish school boy, worthless of such honour,
2272 Join'd with a masker and a reveller!
Mark Antony
2273 Old Cassius still!
Octavius Caesar
2274 Come, Antony; away!—
2275 Defiance, traitors, hurl we in your teeth:
2276 If you dare fight today, come to the field;
2277 If not, when you have stomachs.
[Exeunt Octavius, Antony, and their Army.]
Caius Cassius
2278 Why, now, blow wind, swell billow, and swim bark!
2279 The storm is up, and all is on the hazard.
Marcus Brutus
2280 Ho, Lucilius! Hark, a word with you.
Lucilius
2281 My lord?
[Brutus and Lucilius talk apart.]
Caius Cassius
2282 Messala,—
Messala
2283 What says my General?
Caius Cassius
2284 Messala,
2285 This is my birth-day; as this very day
2286 Was Cassius born. Give me thy hand, Messala:
2287 Be thou my witness that against my will,
2288 As Pompey was, am I compell'd to set
2289 Upon one battle all our liberties.
2290 You know that I held Epicurus strong,
2291 And his opinion: now I change my mind,
2292 And partly credit things that do presage.
2293 Coming from Sardis, on our former ensign
2294 Two mighty eagles fell; and there they perch'd,
2295 Gorging and feeding from our soldiers' hands;
2296 Who to Philippi here consorted us:
2297 This morning are they fled away and gone;
2298 And in their steads do ravens, crows, and kites
2299 Fly o'er our heads and downward look on us,
2300 As we were sickly prey: their shadows seem
2301 A canopy most fatal, under which
2302 Our army lies, ready to give up the ghost.
Messala
2303 Believe not so.
Caius Cassius
2304 I but believe it partly;
2305 For I am fresh of spirit, and resolved
2306 To meet all perils very constantly.
Marcus Brutus
2307 Even so, Lucilius.
Caius Cassius
2308 Now, most noble Brutus,
2309 The gods to-day stand friendly, that we may,
2310 Lovers in peace, lead on our days to age!
2311 But, since th' affairs of men rest still incertain,
2312 Let's reason with the worst that may befall.
2313 If we do lose this battle, then is this
2314 The very last time we shall speak together:
2315 What are you then determined to do?
Marcus Brutus
2316 Even by the rule of that philosophy
2317 By which I did blame Cato for the death
2318 Which he did give himself;—I know not how,
2319 But I do find it cowardly and vile,
2320 For fear of what might fall, so to prevent
2321 The time of life;—arming myself with patience
2322 To stay the providence of some high powers
2323 That govern us below.
Caius Cassius
2324 Then, if we lose this battle,
2325 You are contented to be led in triumph
2326 Thorough the streets of Rome?
Marcus Brutus
2327 No, Cassius, no: think not, thou noble Roman,
2328 That ever Brutus will go bound to Rome;
2329 He bears too great a mind. But this same day
2330 Must end that work the Ides of March begun;
2331 And whether we shall meet again I know not.
2332 Therefore our everlasting farewell take:
2333 For ever, and for ever, farewell, Cassius!
2334 If we do meet again, why, we shall smile;
2335 If not, why, then this parting was well made.
Caius Cassius
2336 For ever and for ever farewell, Brutus!
2337 If we do meet again, we'll smile indeed;
2338 If not, 'tis true this parting was well made.
Marcus Brutus
2339 Why then, lead on. O, that a man might know
2340 The end of this day's business ere it come!
2341 But it sufficeth that the day will end,
2342 And then the end is known.—Come, ho! away!
[Exeunt.]

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Word definitions on hover

Notes

TLN 2211archaic vocab
“They mean to warn us at Philippi here”
Here 'warn' means to summon or challenge to battle, not merely to caution. Octavius notes that the enemy has advanced to Philippi to force an engagement on their own terms rather than waiting to be attacked.
TLN 2216rhetorical device
“with fearful bravery, thinking by this face”
The phrase 'fearful bravery' is an oxymoron: a deliberate self-contradiction that says both things at once. Antony means the enemy's bold advance is a performance meant to look courageous, but actually masks fear. The staging is bravado, not real confidence.
TLN 2221historical topical
“Their bloody sign of battle is hung out”
Roman generals signaled the beginning of battle by hanging a red cloth (a soldier's cloak called a vexillum) from the general's tent or a pole on the camp walls. The 'bloody sign' literally refers to this red flag, which told all troops to prepare to fight.
TLN 2242classical allusion
“they rob the Hybla bees, / And leave them honeyless”
Hybla was a town in Sicily famous in antiquity for the sweetness of its honey; Cassius is saying that Antony's words are sweeter than the most celebrated honey in the ancient world -- but that he steals sweetness without providing any real substance.
TLN 2250rhetorical device
“show'd your teeth like apes, and fawn'd like hounds, / And bow'd like bondmen”
Antony uses a rapid triple simile -- apes (grinning), hounds (fawning), bondmen (bowing) -- to paint the conspirators as servile flatterers who smiled and bowed while stabbing Caesar. The three comparisons build in social degradation: from animals to enslaved people.
TLN 2262historical topical
“Caesar's three and thirty wounds”
Ancient sources disagree on the exact number of wounds Caesar received: Suetonius gives 23, Plutarch mentions a similar count. Shakespeare here follows a different tradition that put the number at 33. The high count dramatizes the frenzied brutality of the killing and Octavius's resolve for revenge.
TLN 2271historical topical
“A peevish school boy, worthless of such honour, / Join'd with a masker and a reveller”
Cassius dismisses Octavius as a 'peevish schoolboy' because at the time of Philippi (42 BCE) Octavius was only about 21 years old and had no military record. 'Masker and reveller' attacks Antony's reputation for dissolute parties and theatrical entertainments -- a charge his enemies made repeatedly in Cicero's Philippics.
TLN 2277archaic vocab
“when you have stomachs”
'Stomachs' here means courage or appetite for a fight, not the body part. Octavius is taunting: come to the battlefield today, or come when you can summon the nerve. The word 'stomach' routinely carried the sense of proud spirit or fighting will in Elizabethan English.
TLN 2285historical topical
“This is my birth-day; as this very day / Was Cassius born”
Plutarch records that Cassius was born on the very day the battle of Philippi was fought -- a coincidence Cassius explicitly notes to Messala as a dark omen. Shakespeare follows this detail closely from North's translation of Plutarch.
classical Plutarch's Lives (North's Translation)historical Pompey the Great
TLN 2290historical topical
“I held Epicurus strong, / And his opinion: now I change my mind, / And partly credit things that do presage”
Epicurus (341-270 BCE) was a Greek philosopher who taught that the gods do not interfere in human affairs and that omens and signs are superstitions without real meaning. Cassius says he used to believe this, but the ominous birds overhead are shaking his rationalism.
classical Plutarch's Lives (North's Translation)
TLN 2294historical topical
“Two mighty eagles fell; and there they perch'd, / Gorging and feeding from our soldiers' hands”
Eagles were the sacred bird of Jupiter and the symbol of Roman military power -- each legion carried a golden eagle standard into battle. Two eagles accompanying the army from Sardis and then feeding from the soldiers' hands was treated as a divine sign of favor. Their replacement by ravens and crows (carrion birds) signals death. Cassius read this as an omen of defeat.
historical Roman Augury and Omens
TLN 2325historical topical
“contented to be led in triumph / Thorough the streets of Rome”
A Roman 'triumph' was a formal victory parade through Rome awarded to a conquering general. Defeated enemy leaders were led in chains through the streets as the central exhibit of the procession, displayed as trophies before the watching crowds. Cassius asks whether Brutus can accept this public humiliation if they lose.
historical The Roman Triumph