Flavius twits the turncoat rabble in this style:
"O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,
Knew ye not Pompey? Many a time and oft
Have you climbed 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 a 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?"
Brutus and Cassius witness the triumphal march of Cæsar with jealous, vengeful and dagger hearts, and Cassius, the old, desperate soldier, first hints at blood conspiracy.
Brutus asks:
"What is it that you would impart to me?
If it be aught toward the general good,
Set honor in eye and death in the other,
And I will look on both indifferently."
Fine talk! Brutus is not the only political murderer that talks of "honor" through the centuries, a cloak for devils in human shape to work a personal purpose and not "the general good."
Cassius delivers this eloquent indictment against Cæsar, the grandest of its kind in all history:
"Well, Honor 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 to be, as live to be
In awe of such a thing as I, myself.
I was born free as Cæsar; 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,
Cæsar said to me, 'Dar'st thou, Cassius, now
Leap in with me, into this angry flood
And swim to yonder point?' Upon the word,
Accoutered as I was, I plunged in
And bade him follow; so, indeed, he did.
The torrent roared and we did buffet it
With lusty sinews; throwing it aside
And stemming it with hearts of controversy.
But ere we could arrive at the point proposed,
Cæsar cried, 'Help me, Cassius, or I sink!'
I, as Aeneas, our great ancestor,
Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulders
The old Anchisas bear, so, from the waves of Tiber
Did I the tired Cæsar; and this man
Is now become a god, and Cassius is
A wretched creature, and must bend his body,
If Cæsar 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 color 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!
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 dishonorable 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 Cæsar; what should be in that Cæsar?
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 them
Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Cæsar.
Now in the name of all the gods at once,
Upon what meat doth this our Cæsar feed
That he is grown so great?"
Unanimous applause followed this cunning conspiracy speech, and Jonson, Lodge and Drayton gave loud exclamations of approval.
Cæsar, with his staff, returning from the games in his honor, sees Cassius and remarks to Antonius: