Mateship in Shakespeare's Rome

And this, my masters, brings me home, Bush-born bard, to Ancient Rome.

Cassius: ....How many ages hence Shall this our lofty scene be acted over In states unborn and accents yet unknown?

Brutus: How many times shall Caesar bleed in sport, That now at Pompey’s basis lies along No worthier than the dust!

Cassius: So oft as that shall be, So often shall the knot of us be call’d The men that gave their country liberty.

Antony: That’s all I seek: And am moreover suitor that I may Produce his body to the market place, And in the pulpit, as becomes a friend, Speak in the order of his funeral.

Brutus: You shall, Mark Antony.

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them, The good is oft interred with their bones.

I’d rather be a dog and bay the moon, Than such a Roman.

Cassius says: Brutus, bait 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.

Cassius: Is it come to this?

Brutus: 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.

Cassius: You wrong me every way; you wrong me, Brutus; I said, an elder soldier, not a better. Did I say better?

Brutus: If you did, I care not.

Cassius: When Caesar lived he durst not thus have moved me.

Brutus: Peace, peace! you durst not thus have tempted him.

Cassius: I durst not!

Brutus: No.

Cassius: What! Durst not tempt him!

Brutus: For your life you durst not.

Cassius: Do not presume too much upon my love; I may do that I shall be sorry for.

Brutus: You have done that you should be sorry for.

Cassius: .... Brutus hath rived my heart A friend should bear his friend’s infirmities, But Brutus makes mine greater than they are.

Brutus: I do not, till you practise them on me.

Cassius: You love me not.

Brutus: I do not like your faults.

Cassius: A friendly eye could never see such faults.

Brutus: A flatterer’s would not, though they do appear As huge as high Olympus.

.... Dishonour shall be humour. O Cassius, you are yoked with a lamb That carries anger as the flint bears fire, Who, much enforced, shows a hasty spark And straight is cold again.

Hath Cassius lived To be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus, When grief and blood ill-temper’d vexeth him.

Brutus: When I spoke that, I was ill-temper’d too.

Cassius: Do you confess so much? Give me your hand.

Brutus: And my heart too.

Cassius: O Brutus!

Brutus: What’s the matter? [Shakespeare should have added `now.‘]

Cassius: Have not you love enough to bear with me, When that rash humour which my mother gave me Makes me forgetful?

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

Poet (within): Let me go in to see the generals; There is some grudge between ‘em—‘tis not meet They be alone.

Lucilius (within): You shall not come to them.

Poet (within): Nothing but death shall stay me.

Cassius: How now! What’s the matter?

Poet: For shame, you generals! What do you mean? Love, and be friends, as two such men should be: For I have seen more years, I’m sure, than ye.

Cassius: Ha, ha! how vilely doth this cynic rhyme!

Brutus: Get you hence, sirrah; saucy fellow, hence!

Cassius: Bear with him, Brutus; ‘tis his fashion.

Brutus: I’ll know his humour when he knows his time: What should the wars do with these jingling fools? Companion, hence!

Cassius: Away, away, be gone!

Brutus (to Lucius, his servant): Lucius, a bowl of wine! Cassius: I did not think you could have been so angry. Brutus: O Cassius, I am sick of many griefs.

Cassius: Of your philosophy you make no use, If you give place to accidental evils.

Brutus: No man bears sorrow better:—Portia is dead.

Cassius: Ha! Portia!

Brutus: She is dead.

Cassius: How ‘scaped I killing when I cross’d you so! O insupportable and touching loss! Upon what sickness?

Brutus: Impatient of my absence, And grief that young Octavius with Mark Antony Have made themselves so strong: for with her death That tidings came; with this she fell distract, And, her attendants absent, swallowed fire.

Cassius: And died so?

Brutus: Even so.

Cassius: O, ye immortal gods!

Brutus: Come in, Titinius!! Welcome, good Messala. Now sit we close about this taper here, And call in question our necessities.

Cassius (on whom the wine seems to have taken some effect): Portia, art thou gone?

Brutus: No more, I pray you. Messala, I have here received letters, That young Octavius and Mark Antony Come down upon us with a mighty power, Bending their expedition towards Philippi.

Cassius: Cicero one! Messala: Cicero is dead.

Messala: Had you your letters from your wife, my lord?

Brutus: No, Messala.

Messala: Nor nothing in your letters writ of her?

Brutus: Nothing, Messala.

Messala: That, methinks, is strange.

Brutus: Why ask you? Hear you aught of her in yours?

Messala: No, my lord.

Brutus: Now, as you are a Roman, tell me true.

Messala: Then like a Roman bear the truth I tell: For certain she is dead, and by strange manner.

Brutus: Why, farewell, Portia. We must die, Messala: With meditating that she must die once I have the patience to endure it now.

I have as much of this in art as you, But yet my nature could not bear it so.

Brutus: Well, to our work alive. What do you think Of marching on Philippi presently?

Good night, Titinius: noble, noble Cassius, Good night, and good repose!

Cassius: O my dear brother! This was an ill beginning of the night Never come such division ‘tween our souls! Let it not, Brutus.

Brutus: Everything is well.

Cassius: Good night, my lord.

Brutus: Good sight, good brother.

Titinius and Messala: Good night, Lord Brutus.

Brutus: Farewell, every one.

Look, Lucius, here’s the book I sought for so: I put it in the pocket of my gown.

Lucius: I was sure your lordship did not give it to me.

Brutus: Bear with me, good boy, I am much forgetful, etc.

Lucius: Ay, my lord, an’t please you.

Brutus: It does, my boy: I trouble thee too much, but thou art willing.

Lucius: It is my duty, sir.

Brutus: I should not urge thy duty past thy might; I know young bloods look for a time of rest.

Lucius: I have slept, my lord, already.

Brutus: It was well done; and thou shalt sleep again; I will not hold thee long: if I do live, I will be good to thee. (Music, and a song.) This is a sleepy tune. O murderous slumber, Lay’st thou thy leaden mace upon my boy That plays thee music? Gentle knave, good-night; I will not do thee so much wrong to wake thee: If thou dost nod, thou break’st thy instrument; I’ll take it from thee; and, good boy, good-night. Let me see, let me see; is not the leaf turn’d down Where I left reading? Here it is, I think.

Brutus: How ill this taper burns! Ha! who comes here? I think it is the weakness of mine eyes That shapes this monstrous apparition. It comes upon me. Art thou any thing? Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil That makest my blood cold, and my hair to stare? Speak to me what thou art!

Ghost: Thy evil spirit, Brutus.

Brutus: Why comest thou?

Ghost: To tell thee thou shalt see me at Philippi.

Brutus: Well; then I shall see thee again?

Ghost: Ay, at Philippi.

Lucius: The strings, my lord, are false.

Brutus: He thinks he is still at his instrument. Lucius, awake!

Brutus: Go and commend me to my brother Cassius;

Bid him set on his powers betimes before, And we will follow.

Varro and Claudius: It shall be done, my lord.

Brutus: Words before blows: is it so, countrymen?

Octavius: Not that we love words better, as you do.

Brutus: Good words are better than bad strokes, Octavius.

Antony: In your bad strokes, Brutus, you give good words: Witness the hole you made in Caesar’s heart, Crying, “Long live! hail, Caesar!”

Cassius: Antony, The posture of your blows are yet unknown, But, for your words, they rob the Hybla bees And leave them honeyless.

Antony: Not stingless too.

Brutus: O, yes, and soundless too; For you have stol’n their buzzing, Antony, And very wisely threat before you sting.

Or till another Caesar Have added slaughter to the sword of traitors.

Brutus: O, if thou wert the noblest of thy strain, Young man, thou couldst not die more honourable.

Cassius: A peevish schoolboy, worthless of such honour, Join’d with a masker and a reveller!

Cassius: Why, now, blow wind, swell billow, and swim bark! The storm is up, and all is on the hazard.

Stand not to answer: here, take thou the hilts; And when my face is cover ‘d, as ‘tis now, Guide thou the sword. Caesar, thou art revenged, Even with the sword that kill’d thee.

Brutus: Where, where, Messala, doth his body lie?

Messala: Lo, yonder, and Titinius mourning it.

Brutus: Titinius’ face is upward.

Cato: He is slain.

O Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet!

Brutus: Friends, I owe more tears To this dead man than you shall see me pay. I shall find time, Cassius, I shall find time.

Brutus: Come, poor remains of friends, rest on this rock.

Volumnius: That’s not the office for a friend, my lord.

Brutus: Farewell to you; and you; and you, Volumnius. Strato, thou hast been all this while asleep; Farewell to thee too, Strato! Countrymen, My heart doth joy that yet in all my life I found so man but he was true to me.

Brutus: I prithee, Strato, stay thou by thy lord: Thou art a fellow of a good respect; Thy life hath had some snatch of honour in it Hold then my sword, and turn away thy face, While I do run upon it. Wilt thou, Strato?

Strato: Give me your hand first: fare you well, my lord.

Brutus: Farewell, good Strato. Caesar, now be still: I kill’d not thee with half so good a will. Brutus, good night!

1 Serv.: Hear you, master steward, where’s our master? Are we undone? cast off? nothing remaining?

Flav.: Alack, my fellows, what should I say to you? Let me be recorded by the righteous gods, I am as poor as you.

1 Serv.: Such a house broke! So noble a master fall’n! All gone! and not One friend to take his fortune by the arm, And go along with him!

2 Serv.: As we do turn our backs From our companion thrown into his grave, So his familiars to his buried fortunes Slink all away; leave their false vows with him, Like empty purses pick’d; and his poor self, A dedicated beggar to the air, With his disease of all-shunn’d poverty, Walks, like contempt, alone. More of our fellows.

Enter other Servants

Flav.: All broken implements of a ruin’d house.

3 Serv.: Yet do our hearts wear Timon’s livery; That see I by our faces; we are fellows still, Serving alike in sorrow: leak’d is our bark, And we, poor mates, stand on the dying deck, Hearing the surges threat; we must all part Into this sea of air.

Flav.: Good fellows all, The latest of my wealth I’ll share amongst you. Wherever we shall meet, for Timon’s sake Let’s yet be fellows; let’s shake our heads, and say, As ‘twere a knell unto our master’s fortunes, “We have seen better days.” Let each take some. (Giving them money.) Nay, put out all your hands. Not one word more: Thus part we rich in sorrow, parting poor.