Page:The Tragedy of Julius Caesar (The Warwick Shakespeare).djvu/43

 The breast of heaven, I did present myself Even in the aim and very flash of it.

Casca. But wherefore did you so much tempt the heavens? It is the part of men to fear and tremble, When the most mighty gods by tokens send Such dreadful heralds to astonish us.

Cas. You are dull, Casca, and those sparks of life That should be in a Roman you do want, Or else you use not.You look pale and gaze And put on fear and cast yourself in wonder, To see the strange impatience of the heavens: But if you would consider the true cause Why all these fires, why all these gliding ghosts, Why birds and beasts from quality and kind, Why old men fool and children calculate, Why all these things change from their ordinance Their natures and preformed faculties To monstrous quality,—why, you shall find That heaven hath infused them with these spirits, To make them instruments of fear and warning Unto some monstrous state. Now could I, Casca, name to thee a man Most like this dreadful night, That thunders, lightens, opens graves, and roars As doth the lion in the Capitol, A man no mightier than thyself or me In personal action, yet prodigious grown And fearful, as these strange eruptions are.

Casca. 'T is Cæsar that you mean; is it not, Cassius?

Cas. Let it be who it is: for Romans now Have thews and limbs like to their ancestors; But, woe the while! our fathers' minds are dead, And we are govern'd with our mothers' spirits: Our yoke and sufferance show us womanish.