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Brutus, thou sleep’st: awake and see thyself.
Shall Rome, etc. Speak, strike, redress!
“Brutus, thou sleep’st: awake!”
Such instigations have been often dropp’d
Where I have took them up.
“Shall Rome, etc.” Thus must I piece it out:
Shall Rome stand under one man’s awe? What, Rome?
My ancestors did from the streets of Rome
The Tarquin drive, when he was call’d a king.
“Speak, strike, redress!” Am I entreated
To speak and strike? O Rome, I make thee promise,
If the redress will follow, thou receivest
Thy full petition at the hand of Brutus.
Enter Lucius.
Lucius:
Sir, March is wasted fifteen days.
(Knock within.)
Brutus:
’Tis good. Go to the gate, somebody knocks.
(Exit Lucius.)
Since Cassius first did whet me against Caesar,
I have not slept.
Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream:
The genius and the mortal instruments
Are then in council; and the state of man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection.
Enter Lucius.
Lucius:
Sir, ’tis your brother Cassius at the door,
Who doth desire to see you.
Brutus:
Is he alone?
Lucius:
No, sir, there are moe with him.
Brutus:
Do you know them?
Lucius:
No, sir, their hats are pluck’d about their ears,
And half their faces buried in their cloaks,
That by no means I may discover them
By any mark of favour.
Brutus:
Let ’em enter.
(Exit Lucius.)
They are the faction. O conspiracy,
Sham’st thou to show thy dangerous brow by night,
When evils are most free? O, then, by day
Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough
To mask thy monstrous visage? Seek none, conspiracy;
Hide it in smiles and affability:
For if thou path, thy native semblance on,
Not Erebus itself were dim enough
To hide thee from prevention.
Enter Cassius, Casca, Decius, Cinna, Metellus Cimber and Trebonius.
Cassius:
I think we are too bold upon your rest:
Good morrow, Brutus; do we trouble you?
Brutus:
I have been up this hour, awake all night.
Know I these men that come along with you?
Cassius:
Yes, every man of them; and no man here
But honours you; and everyone doth wish
You had but that opinion of yourself
Which every noble Roman bears of you.
This is Trebonius.
Brutus:
He is welcome hither.