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Bru. Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself
Are much condemned to have an itching palm.
To sell and mart your offices for gold,
To rndeservers.

Cas. I an itching palm ?

You know that you are Brutus that speak this,
Or, by the gods, this speech were else your last!
Bru. The name of Cassius honors this corruption.
And chastisement doth therefore hide his head
Cas. Chastisement!

Bru. Remember March, the Ides of March remember
Did not great Julius bleed for justice' sake?
What villain touched his body, that did stab,
And not for justice? What! shall one of us,
That struck the foremost man of all this world,
But for supporting robbers, shall we now
Contaminate our fingers with base bribes,
And sell the mighty space of our large honors
For so much trash as may be graspéd thus ?
I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon,
Than such a Roman!

Cas. Brutus, bay not me!

I'll not endure it. You forget yourself,
To hedge me in: I am a soldier, I,
Older in practice, abler than yourself
To make conditions.

Bru. Go to! you are not, Cassius
Cas. I am.

Bru. I say you are not!

Cas. Urge me no more: I shall forget myself.

Have mind upon your health; tempt me no further!

Bru. Away, slight man!

Cas. Is 't possible?

Bru. Hear me, for I will speak.

Must I give way and room to your rash choler?

Shall I be frighted when a madman stares?

Cas. Must I endure all this?

Bru. All this? ay, more! Fret till your proud heart break

Go, show your slaves how choleric you are,

And make your bondmen tremble! Must I budge?

Must I observe you? Must I stand and crouch

Under your testy humor?

You shall digest the venom of your spleen,

Though it do split you; for, from this day forth,
I'll use you for my mirth,- yea, for my laughter,
When you are waspish!

Cas. Is it come to this?

Bru. You say you are a better soldier: Let it appear so; make your vaunting true, And it shall please me well.

For mine own part, I shall be glad to learn of noble men.

Cas. You wrong me every way, you wrong me, Brutus I said, an elder soldier, not a better.

I'd I say better?

I

Bru. If you did, I care not!

Cas. When Cæsar lived, he durst not thus have moved me Bru. Peace, peace: you durst not so have tempted him ' Cas. I durst not?

Bru. No.

Cas. What? durst not tempt him?

Bru. For your life, you durst not!

Cas. Do not presume too much upon my love;

may do that I shall be sorry for.

Bru. You have done that you should be sorry for.

There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats;

For I am armed so strong in honesty,

That they pass by me as the idle wind,
Which I respect not. I did send to you
For certain sums of gold, which you denied me;
For I can raise no money by vile means:
By Heaven, I had rather coin my heart,
And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wring
From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash
By any indirection! I did send

Το you for gold to pay my legions,

Which you denied me. Was that done like Cassius ?
Should I have answered Caius Cassius so?

When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous,
To lock such rascal counters from his friends,
Be ready, gods, with all your thunderbolts,
Dash him to pieces!

Cas. I denied you not.

Bru. You did.

Cas. I did not: he was but a fool

That brought my answer back. Brutus hath rived my heart.

A friend should bear his friend's infirmities,

But Brutus makes mine greater than they are.
Bru. I do not, till you practise them on me.
Cas. You love me not.

Bru. I do not like your faults.

Cas. A friendly eye could never see such faults.
Bru. A flatterer's would not, though they do appear

As huge as high Olympus.

Cas. Come, Antony, and young Octavius, come! Revenge yourselves alone on Cassius,

For Cassius is aweary of the world:

Hated by one he loves; braved by his brother;
Checked like a bondman; all his faults observed,
Set in a note-book, learned and conned by rote,
To cast into my teeth. O, I could weep

My spirit from mine eyes! There is my dagger,
And here my naked breast; within a heart
Dearer than Plutus' mine, richer than gold,
If that thou be'st a Roman, take it forth;
I, that denied thee gold, will give my heart
Strike as thou didst at Cæsar; for I know,

When thou didst hate him worst, thou lovedst him better
Than ever thou lovedst Cassius !

Bru. Sheathe your dagger:

Be angry when you will, it shall have scope;
Do what you will, dishonor shall be humor.
O Cassius, you are yokéd with a lamb,
That carries anger as the flint bears fire:
Who, much enforcéd, shows a hasty spark,
And straight is cold again.

Cas. Hath Cassius lived

To be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus,

When grief and blood ill-tempered vexeth him?
Bru. When I spoke that, I was ill-tempered, too:
Cas. Do you confess so much? Give me your hand
Bru. And my heart, too.

Cas. O Brutus!

Bru. What's the matter?

Cas. Have you not love enough to bear with me,
When that rash humor which my mother gave me
Makes me forgetful?

Bru. Yes, Cassius; and from henceforth,
When you are over-earnest with your Brutus,
He'll think your mother chides, and leave you so.

24. REGRETS OF DRUNKENNESS. - Shakspeare.

Iago. What! be you hurt, Lieutenant ?

Cassio. Past all surgery!

Iago. Marry, Heaven forbid!

Cassio. Reputation! reputation! reputation! O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself; and what remains is bestial. My reputation, Iago, my reputation!

:

Iago. As I am an honest man, I thought you had received some bodily wound there is more offence in that than in reputation. Repu tation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving. What, man! There are ways to recover the General again. Sue to him, and he is yours.

Cassio. I will rather sue to be despised than to deceive so good a commander with so light, so drunken, and so indiscreet an officer Drunk? and speak parrot? and squabble? swagger? swear? and discourse fustian with one's own shadow?-O, thou invisible spirit of wine! if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee Devil.

-

Iago. What was he that you followed with your sword? what had he done to you?

Cassio. I know not.

Iago. Is it possible?

Cassio. I remember a mass of things, but nothing distinctly; a quarrel, but nothing wherefore. O, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! that we should with joy pleasure, revel, and applause, transform ourselves into beasts!

Iago. Why, but you are now well enough: how came you thus recovered?

Cassio. It has pleased the devil Drunkenness to give place to the devil Wrath one imperfection shows me another, to make me frankly despise myself.

Iago. Come: you are too severe a moraler. As the time, the place, and the condition of this country stands, I could heartily wish this had not befallen; but since it is as it is, mend it, for your own good.

Cassio. I will ask him for my place again; he shall tell me I am a drunkard! Had I as many mouths as Hydra, such an answer would stop them all. To be now a sensible man, by and by a fool, and presently a beast! O, strange! - Every inordinate cup is unblessed, and the ingredient is a devil.

Iago. Come, come! good wine is a good familiar creature, if it be well used; exclaim no more against it; —and, good Lieutenant, I think you think I love you?

tell

Cassio. I have well approved it, Sir: — I drunk!

Iago. You, or any man living, may be drunk some time, man! I'll you what you shall do. Our General's wife is now the General; confess yourself freely to her importune her; she 'll help to put you in your place again. She is of so free, so kind, so apt, so blessed a disposition, she holds it a vice in her goodness not to do more than she is requested. This broken joint between you and her husband entreat her to splinter; and, my fortunes against any lay worth naming, this crack of your love shall grow stronger than it was before.

Cassio. You advise me well.

Iago. I protest, in the sincerity of love and honest kindness.

Cassio. I think it freely; and, betimes in the morning, I will beseech the virtuous Desdemona to undertake for me.

Iago. You are in the right. Good-night, Lieutenant. I must to watch.

Cassio. Good-night, honest Iago.

25. SPEECH OF CASSIUS, INSTIGATING BRUTUS TO JOIN THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST CESAR. — Shakspeare.

WELL, honor is the subject of my story.

I cannot tell what you, and other men,
Think of this life; but, for my single self.
I had as lief not be, as live to be
In awe of such a thing as I myself.

I was born free as Cæsar; so were you;
We both have fed as well; and we can both
Endure the winter's cold as well as he;
For once, upon a raw and gusty day,

The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores,
Cæsar said to me, "Dar'st thou, Cassius, now,

Leap in with me into this angry flood,
And swim to yonder point?: Upon the word,
Accoutred as I was, I plunged in,

And bade him follow; so, indeed, he did.
The torrent roared; and we did buffet it
With lusty sinews; throwing it aside,
And stemming it with hearts of controversy.
But, ere we could arrive the point proposed,
Cæsar cried, Help me, Cassius, or I sink!
I, as Æneas, our great ancestor,

Did, from the flames of Troy, upon his shoulder,
The old Anchises bear, so, from the waves of Tiber,
Did I the tired Cæsar: and this man

Is now become a god; and Cassius is

A wretched creature, and must bend his body,
If Cæsar carelessly but nod on him.

He had a fever when he was in Spain,

And, when the fit was on him, I did mark

How he did shake: 't is true, this god did shake:
His coward lips did from their color fly;
And that same eye, whose bend doth awe the world,
Did lose its lustre: I did hear him groan:
Ay, and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans
Mark him, and write his speeches in their books,
Alas! it cried, Give me some drink, Titinias,
As a sick girl. Ye gods, it doth amaze me,
A man of such a feeble temper should
So get the start of the majestic world,
And bear the palm alone!

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

Brutus and Cæsar; what should be in that Cæsar?
Why should that name be sounded more than yours
Write them together, yours is as fair a name;
Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well ⚫

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