Ca.s.sIUS. Is it come to this? 50

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 n.o.ble men.

Ca.s.sIUS. You wrong me every way; you wrong me, Brutus; 55 I said an elder soldier, not a better: Did I say 'better'?

BRUTUS. If you did, I care not.

Ca.s.sIUS. When Caesar liv'd, he durst not thus have mov'd me.

BRUTUS. Peace, peace! you durst not so have tempted him.

Ca.s.sIUS. I durst not! 60

BRUTUS. No.

Ca.s.sIUS. What, durst not tempt him!

BRUTUS. For your life you durst not.

Ca.s.sIUS. Do not presume too much upon my love; I may do that I shall be sorry for.

[Note 54: /n.o.ble/ Ff

abler Collier.]

[Note 55: Two lines in Ff.]

[Note 51-54: This mistake of Brutus is well conceived. Ca.s.sius was much the abler soldier, and Brutus knew it; and the mistake grew from his consciousness of the truth of what he thought he heard. Ca.s.sius had served as quaestor under Marcus Cra.s.sus in his expedition against the Parthians; and, when the army was torn all to pieces, both Cra.s.sus and his son being killed, Ca.s.sius displayed great ability in bringing off a remnant. He showed remarkable military power, too, in Syria.]

[Page 128]

BRUTUS. You have done that you should be sorry for. 65 There is no terror, Ca.s.sius, in your threats; For I am arm'd so strong in honesty, That they pa.s.s by me as the idle wind, Which I respect not. I did send to you For certain sums of gold, which you denied me: 70 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 75 To you for gold to pay my legions, Which you denied me. Was that done like Ca.s.sius?

Should I have answer'd Caius Ca.s.sius so?

When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous, To lock such rascal counters from his friends, 80 Be ready, G.o.ds, with all your thunderbolts, Dash him to pieces!

[Note 75: /indirection:/ crookedness, malpractice. In _King John_, III, i, 275-278, is an interesting pa.s.sage ill.u.s.trating this use of 'indirection.' Cf. _2 Henry IV_, IV, v, 185.]

[Note 80: The omission of the conjunction 'as' before expressions denoting result is a common usage in Shakespeare.--/rascal counters:/ worthless money. 'Rascal' is properly a technical term for a deer out of condition. So used literally in _As You Like It_, III, iii, 58. 'Counters' were disks of metal, of very small intrinsic value, much used for reckoning. Cf. _As You Like It_, II, vii, 63; _The Winter's Tale_, IV, iii, 38. Professor Dowden comments aptly on what we have here: "Brutus loves virtue and despises gold; but in the logic of facts there is an irony cruel or pathetic. Brutus maintains a lofty position of immaculate honour above Ca.s.sius; but ideals, and a heroic contempt for gold, will not fill the military coffer, or pay the legions, and the poetry of n.o.ble sentiment suddenly drops down to the prosaic complaint that Ca.s.sius had denied the demands made by Brutus for certain sums of money. Nor is Brutus, though he worships an ideal of Justice, quite just in matters of practical detail."]

[Page 129]

Ca.s.sIUS. I denied you not.

BRUTUS. You did.

Ca.s.sIUS. I did not: he was but a fool that brought My answer back. Brutus hath riv'd my heart: 85 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.

Ca.s.sIUS. You love me not.

BRUTUS. I do not like your faults.

Ca.s.sIUS. A friendly eye could never see such faults. 90

BRUTUS. A flatterer's would not, though they do appear As huge as high Olympus.

[Note 84: /that brought/

Ff give to l. 85.]

[Note 82-83: "Whilst Brutus and Ca.s.sius were together in the city of Smyrna, Brutus prayed Ca.s.sius to let him have part of his money whereof he had great store.... Ca.s.sius's friends hindered this request, and earnestly dissuaded him from it; persuading him, that it was no reason that Brutus should have the money which Ca.s.sius had gotten together by sparing, and levied with great evil will of the people their subjects, for him to bestow liberally upon his soldiers, and by this means to win their good wills, by Ca.s.sius's charge. This notwithstanding, Ca.s.sius gave him the third part of this total sum."--Plutarch, _Marcus Brutus_.]

[Page 130]

Ca.s.sIUS. Come, Antony, and young Octavius, come, Revenge yourselves alone on Ca.s.sius, For Ca.s.sius is a-weary of the world; 95 Hated by one he loves; brav'd by his brother; Check'd like a bondman; all his faults observ'd, Set in a note-book, learn'd, and conn'd by rote, To cast into my teeth. O, I could weep My spirit from mine eyes! There is my dagger, 100 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 Caesar; for I know, 105 When thou didst hate him worst, thou lov'dst him better Than ever thou lov'dst Ca.s.sius.

BRUTUS. Sheathe your dagger: Be angry when you will, it shall have scope; Do what you will, dishonour shall be humour.

O Ca.s.sius, you are yoked with a lamb 110 That carries anger as the flint bears fire; Who, much enforced, shows a hasty spark, And straight is cold again.

Ca.s.sIUS. Hath Ca.s.sius liv'd To be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus, When grief and blood ill-temper'd vexeth him? 115

BRUTUS. When I spoke that, I was ill-temper'd too.

Ca.s.sIUS. Do you confess so much? Give me your hand.

BRUTUS. And my heart too.

Ca.s.sIUS. O Brutus!

BRUTUS. What's the matter?

[Note 102: /Plutus'/ Pope

Pluto's Ff.]

[Note 96: /brav'd:/ defied. The verb connotes bl.u.s.ter and bravado.]

[Note 102: Plutus (for the Folio reading see note on 'Antonio'

for Antonius, I, ii, 5) is the old G.o.d of riches, who had all the world's gold in his keeping and disposal. Pluto was the lord of Hades.]

[Note 109: Whatever dishonorable thing you may do, I will set it down to the caprice of the moment.--/humour./ See note, p.

60, l. 250.]

[Note 111-113: Cf. the words of Ca.s.sius, I, ii, 176-177. See also _Troilus and Cressida_, III, iii, 257. It was long a popular notion that fire slept in the flint and was awaked by the stroke of the steel. "It is not sufficient to carry religion in our hearts, as fire is carried in flintstones, but we are outwardly, visibly, apparently, to serve and honour the living G.o.d."--Hooker, _Ecclesiastical Polity_, VII, xxii, 3.]

[Page 131]

Ca.s.sIUS. Have not you love enough to bear with me, When that rash humour which my mother gave me 120 Makes me forgetful?

BRUTUS. Yes, Ca.s.sius; 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 125 They be alone.

LUCILIUS. [_Within_] You shall not come to them.