[This was a pretty fellow to have about a king's privacy taking notes of this sort on his tablets. Among 'those saw and forms and pressures past, which youth and observatior copied there,' all that part reserved for Caesar and his history, appears to have escaped the sponge in some way.
'They told me I was every thing, 'tis a lie! I am not ague
proof.'—Lear.
His coward lips did from their colour fly.
'And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world,
Did lose his lustre!—Julius Caesar.
'—When I do stare see how the subject quakes.—'Lear.]
I did hear him groan:
Aye, 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.
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?
* * * * *
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 shamed:
Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!
When went there by an age, since the great flood,
But it was famed with more than with One man?
When could they say, till now, that talked of Rome,
That her wide walls encompass'd but One man?
Now is it Home indeed, and room enough,
When there is in it but one only man.
[When there is in it (truly) but One only,—MAN].
O! you and I have heard our fathers say,
There was a Brutus once, that would have brook'd
The eternal devil to keep his state in Rome,
As easily as a king.
Brutus. 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. [Chew upon this].
Cassius. I am glad that my weak words
Have struck but thus much show of fire from Brutus.
[Re-enter Caesar and his train.]
Brutus. The games are done, and Caesar is returning.