"Let me have men about me that are fat;
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep of nights;
Yonder Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much; such men are dangerous;
And are never at heart's ease
Whiles they behold a greater than themselves!"
Casca, one of the senatorial conspirators, tells Cassius that Cæsar is to be crowned king, and he replies thus, contemplating suicide:
"I know where I will wear this dagger then;
Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius;
Therein, ye gods, you make the weak most strong;
Therein, ye gods, you tyrants do defeat;
Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass,
Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron
Can be retentive to the strength of spirit;
But life being weary of these worldly bars,
Never lacks power to dismiss itself;
That part of tyranny that I do bear
I can shake off at pleasure!"
Brutus, contemplating assassination, says in soliloquy:
"To speak the truth of Cæsar,
I have not known when his affections swayed
More than his reason. But 'tis a common proof,
That lowliness is young ambition's ladder,
Whereto the climber upward turns his face;
But when he once attains the upmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend!"
This ingratitude of the great to the people is often recompensed by defeat and death.
After the senatorial conspirators decided that Cæsar should die, Cassius insisted wisely that Marcus Antonius should not outlive the great Julius, and said:
"Let Antony and Cæsar fall together!"
But Brutus would not consent to the death of Antony, believing that he was not dangerous to their future, yet insisting that "Cæsar must bleed for it."
"Let's kill him bodily, but not wrathfully;
Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods,
Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds;
And let our hearts as subtle masters do,
Stir up their servants to an act of rage,
And after seem to chide them!"