It is the bright day that brings forth the adder,
And that craves wary walking.
—Julius Caesar, Act ii., Sc. 1.
And since the quarrel
Will bear no color for the thing he is,
Fashion it thus; that what he is, AUGMENTED,
Would run to these and these extremities.
—Ibid.
This reading brings out most clearly the rationale of Brutus’s attitude. The soliloquy should be studied in its entirety.