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 other 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. Endure 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 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 god 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.