SCENE II.- - A Room in CESAR'S Palace.

Thunder and Lightning. Enter CÆSAR, in his night-gown.

Cæs. Nor Heaven nor Earth have been at peace to-night: Thrice hath Calpurnia in her sleep cried out,

Help, ho! they murder Cæsar! - Who's within?

Serv. My lord?

Enter a Servant.

Cas. Go bid the priests do present sacrifice,

And bring me their opinions of success.1

Serv. I will, my lord.

[Exit.

Enter CALPURNIA.

Cal. What mean you, Cæsar? think you to walk forth? You shall not stir out of your house to-day.

Cæs. Cæsar shall forth: the things that threaten me Ne'er look but on my back; when they shall see

The face of Cæsar, they are vanished.

Cal. Cæsar, I never stood on ceremonies,2
Yet now they fright me. There is one within,
-Besides the things that we have heard and seen,
Recounts most horrid sights seen by the watch.
A lioness hath whelped in the streets;

-And graves have yawn'd, and yielded up their dead;
Fierce fiery warriors fought upon the clouds,

In ranks and squadrons and right form of war,
Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol ;

1 Their opinions of what is to follow. The Poet often uses success in this sense: so that we have "good success" and "ill success."

2 Ceremonies is here put for the ceremonial or sacerdotal interpretation of prodigies and omens.

The noise of battle hurtled3 in the air;

Horses did neigh, and dying men did groan;

And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets.
O Cæsar, these things are beyond all use,

And I do fear them!

Cæs.

What can be avoided

Whose end is purposed by the mighty gods?
Yet Cæsar shall go forth; for these predictions
Are to the world in general as to Cæsar.

Cal. When beggars die, there are no comets seen; The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes. Cæs. Cowards die many times before their deaths;

The valiant never taste of death but once.1

Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,

It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,

Will come when it will come.

Re-enter the Servant.

What say the augurers?

Serv. They would not have you to stir forth to-day.

Plucking the entrails of an offering forth,

They could not find a heart within the beast.

Cas. The gods do this in shame of cowardice:

8 To hurtle is to clash, or move with violence and noise.

4 Plutarch relates that, a short time before Cæsar fell, some of his friends urged him to have a guard about him, and he replied that it was better to die at once than live in the continual fear of death. He is also said to have given as his reason for refusing a guard, that he thought Rome had more need of him than he of Rome; which was indeed true. And it is further stated that, on the eve of the fatal day, Cæsar being at the house of Lepidus with some friends, and the question being raised, "What kind of death is best?" he cut short the discussion by saying, "That which is least expected."

Cæsar should be a beast without a heart,
If he should stay at home to-day for fear.
No, Cæsar shall not: danger knows full well
That Cæsar is more dangerous than he :
-We are two lions litter'd in one day,
And I the elder and more terrible ; →→
And Cæsar shall go forth.

Your wisdom is consumed in confidence!
Do not go forth to-day: call it my fear

That keeps you in the house, and not your own.
We'll send Mark Antony to the Senate-house;
And he shall say you are not well to-day :
Let me, upon my knee, prevail in this.

Cæs. Mark Antony shall say I am not well;
And, for thy humour, I will stay at home.5

Enter DECIUS.

Here's Decius Brutus, he shall tell them so.

5 Then going to bed the same night, as his manner was, and lying with his wife Calpurnia, all the windows and doors of his chamber flying open, the noise awoke him, and made him afraid when he saw such light; but more, when he heard his wife Calpurnia, being fast asleep, weep and sigh, and put forth many fumbling lamentable speeches: for she dreamed that Cæsar was slain, and that she had him in her arms. Cæsar rising in the morning, she prayed him, if it were possible, not to go out of the doors that day, but to adjourn the session of the Senate until another day. And if that he made no reckoning of her dream, yet that he would search further of the soothsayers by their sacrifices, to know what should happen him that day. Thereby it seemed that Cæsar did likewise fear or suspect somewhat, because his wife Calpurnia until that time was never given to any fear and superstition; and that then he saw her so troubled in mind with this dream she had. But much more afterwards, when the soothsayers having sacrificed many beasts one after another, told him that none did like them: then he determined to send Antonius to adjourn the session of the Senate.PLUTARCH.

Dec. Cæsar, all hail! Good morrow, worthy Cæsar :

I come to fetch you to the Senate-house.

Cæs. And you are come in very happy time

To bear my greeting to the Senators,

And tell them that I will not come to-day.

-Cannot, is false; and that I dare not, falser

I will not come to-day.

Cal. Say he is sick.

Cæs.

Tell them so, Decius.

Shall Cæsar send a lie?

Have I in conquest stretch'd mine arm so far,
To be afeard to tell gray-beards the truth?

Decius, go tell them Cæsar will not come.

Dec. Most mighty Cæsar, let me know some cause,

Lest I be laugh'd at when I tell them so.

Cæs. The cause is in my will; I will not come :

That is enough to satisfy the Senate.

But, for your private satisfaction,

Because I love you, I will let you know:
Calpurnia here, my wife, stays me at home:
She dreamt to-night she saw my statua,6
Which, like a fountain with an hundred spouts,
Did run pure blood; and many lusty Romans
Came smiling, and did bathe their hands in it:
And these doth she apply for warnings and portents
Of evils imminent; and on her knee

Hath begg'd that I will stay at home to-day.

Dec. This dream is all amiss interpreted:

It was a vision fair and fortunate.

6 In Shakespeare's time statue was pronounced indifferently as a word of two syllables or three. Bacon uses it repeatedly as a trisyllable, and spells it statua, as in his Advancement of Learning: "It is not possible to have the true pictures or statuas of Cyrus, Alexander, Cæsar, no, nor of the kings or great personages of much later years."

Your statue spouting blood in many pipes,
In which so many smiling Romans bathed,
Signifies that from you great Rome shall suck
Reviving blood; and that great men shall press
For tinctures, stains, relics, and cognizance.7
This by Calpurnia's dream is signified.

Cas. And this way have you well expounded it.
Dec. I have, when you have heard what I can say;
And know it now: The Senate have concluded

To give this day a crown to mighty Cæsar.8
If you shall send them word you will not come,
Their minds may change. Besides, it were a mock
Apt to be render'd,9 for some one to say,
Break up the Senate till another time,

When Caesar's wife shall meet with better dreams.
If Cæsar hide himself, shall they not whisper,

Lo, Cæsar is afraid?

7 Cognizance is here used in a heraldic sense, as meaning any badge or token to show whose friends or servants the owners or wearers were. In ancient times, when martyrs or other distinguished men were executed, their friends often pressed to stain handkerchiefs with their blood, or to get some other relic, which they might keep, either as precious memorials of them, or as having a kind of sacramental virtue.

8 The Roman people were specially yearning to avenge the slaughter of Marcus Crassus and his army by the Parthians; and Cæsar was at this time preparing an expedition against them. But a Sibylline oracle was alleged, that Parthia could only be conquered by a king; and it was proposed to invest Cæsar with the royal title and authority over the foreign subjects of the State. It is agreed on all hands that, if his enemies did not originate this proposal, they at least craftily urged it on, in order to make him odious, and exasperate the people against him. To the same end, they had for some time been plying the arts of extreme sycophancy, heaping upon him all possible honours, human and divine, hoping thereby to kindle such a fire of envy as would consume him.

9 It were apt, or likely, to be construed or represented as a piece of mockery. So the Poet repeatedly uses the verb to render.