Julius Caesar Act I, Scene ii

 

Julius Caesar      Act 1, Scene 2       Cassius

(This text is featured in our interview with Celeste Ciulla)

  1. I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus,
  2. As well as I do know your outward favour.
  3. Well, honour is the subject of my story.
  4. I cannot tell what you and o-ther men
  5. Think of this life; but for my single self,
  6. I had as lief not be as live to be
  7. In awe of such a thing as I myself.
  8. I was born free as Caesar; so were you:
  9. We both have fed as well, and we can both
  10. Edure the winter’s cold as well as he:
  11. For once upon a raw and gusty day,
  12. The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores,
  13. Caesar said to me Darest thou Cassius, now
  14. Leap in with me in to this angry flood,
  15. And swim to yonder point?  Upon the word,
  16. Accouterd as I was, I plunged in
  17. And bade him follow; so indeed he did.
  18. The torrent roar’d, and we did buffet it
  19. With lusty sinews, throwing it aside
  20. And stemming it with hearts of controversy;
  21. But ere we could arrive the point point proposed,
  22. Caesar cried Help me Cassius or I sink!
  23. I, as Aeneas, our great ancestor,
  24. Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder
  25. The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber
  26. Did I the tired Caesar.  And this man
  27. Is now become a go and Cassius is
  28. A wretched creature and must bend his body,
  29. If Caesar carelessly but nod on him.
  30. He had a fever when he was in Spain,
  31. And when the fit was on him, I did mark
  32. How he did shake:  ‘tis true, this god did shake;
  33. His coward lips did from their colour fly,
  34. And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world
  35. Did lose his lustre: I did hear him groan;
  36. Ay, and that tongue of his that bade the Romans
  37. Mark him and write his speeches in their books,
  38. Alas, it cried Give me some drink Titinius,
  39. As a sick girl.  Ye Gods it doth Amaze me
  40. A man of such a feeble temper should
  41. So get the start of the majestic world
  42. And bear the palm alone.

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