Julius Caesar (play)

Let me have men about me that are fat;
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights.
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.

Julius Caesar is a tragedy by William Shakespeare probably written in 1599. It portrays the conspiracy against the Roman dictator, Julius Caesar, his assassination and its aftermath.

Act I

Beware the ides of March.

• Beware the ides of March.
  • Soothsayer, scene ii

• And it is very much lamented, Brutus,
  That you have no such mirrors as will turn
  Your hidden worthiness into your eye.
  • Cassius, scene ii

• Into what dangers would you lead me, Cassius,
  That you would have me seek into myself
  For that which is not in me?
  • Brutus, scene ii

• Men at some time are masters of their fates:
  The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
  But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
  • Cassius, scene ii

• Let me have men about me that are fat;
  Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights.
  Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
  He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
  • Caesar, scene ii

• Cassius: Did Cicero say anything?
  Casca: Ay, he spoke Greek.
  Cassius: To what effect?
  Casca: Nay, an I tell you that I'll ne'er look you i' the face again: but those that understood him smiled at one another, and shook their heads; but, for mine own part, it was Greek to me.
  • Scene ii

• For who so firm that cannot be seduced?
  • Cassius, scene ii

• Indeed, it is a strange disposed time:
  But men may construe things after their fashion,
  Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.
  • Cicero, scene iii

• So every bondman in his own hand bears
  The power to cancel his captivity.
  • Casca, scene iii

Act II

Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.

• Cowards die many times before their deaths;
  The valiant never taste of death but once.
  Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
  It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
  Seeing that death, a necessary end,
  Will come when it will come.
  • Caesar scene ii

Act III

Et tu, Brute? — Then fall, Caesar!

How many ages hence
Shall this our lofty scene be acted over,
In states unborn and accents yet unknown!

• Caesar: The ides of March are come.
  Soothsayer: Aye, Caesar, but not gone.
  • Scene i

• Know, Caesar dost not wrong, nor without cause
  Will he be satisfied.
  • Caesar, Scene i
  • Ben Jonson quoted in his Discoveries (1641) an alternative version of this line: "Caesar did never wrong but with just cause." Jonson ridiculed this sentence as an "Irish bull". See Ovid, Heroides 7, 109

• I could be well moved if I were as you.
  If I could pray to move, prayers would move me.
  But I am constant as the Northern Star,
  Of whose true-fix'd and resting quality
  There is no fellow in the firmament.
  The skies are painted with unnumbered sparks;
  They are all fire, and every one doth shine;
  But there's but one in all doth hold his place.
  • Caesar, scene i

• Speak, hands, for me!
  • Casca, scene i

• Et tu, Brute? — Then fall, Caesar!
  • Caesar, scene i

• How many ages hence
  Shall this our lofty scene be acted over,
  In states unborn and accents yet unknown!
  • Cassius, scene i

• So often shall the knot of us be call'd,
  The men who gave their country liberty.
  • Cassius, scene i

• As fire drives out fire, so pity, pity.
  • Brutus, scene i

• O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
  That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!
  • Antony, scene i

• And Caesar’s spirit, ranging for revenge,
  With Ate by his side come hot from hell,
  Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice
  Cry Havoc! and let slip the dogs of war.
  • Antony, scene i

• As Caesar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honour him; but as he was ambitious I slew him. There is tears for his love; joy for his fortune; honour for his valour; and death for his ambition.
  • Brutus, scene ii

• Let him be Caesar:
  • Third Citizen, scene ii

• Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
  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;
  So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
  Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
  If it were so, it was a grievous fault;
  And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.
  Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest, —
  For Brutus is an honorable man;
  So are they all, all honorable men, —
  Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
  He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
  But Brutus says he was ambitious;
  And Brutus is an honorable man.
  • Antony, scene ii

• When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
  • Antony, scene ii

• Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
  And Brutus is an honourable man.
  You all did see that on the Lupercal
  I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
  Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
  Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
  And, sure, he is an honourable man.
  • Antony, scene ii

• O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
  And men have lost their reason.
  • Antony, scene ii

• My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
  And I must pause till it come back to me.
  • Antony, scene ii

• If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.
  • Antony, scene ii

• I am Cinna the poet, I am Cinna the poet.
  • Cinna the Poet, scene iii

Act IV

There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

• So is my horse, Octavius; and for that
  I do appoint him store of provender:
  It is a creature that I teach to fight,
  To wind, to stop, to run directly on,
  His corporal motion govern'd by my spirit.
  And, in some taste, is Lepidus but so;
  He must be taught, and train'd, and bid go forth:
  A barren-spirited fellow; one that feeds
  On objects, arts, and imitations,
  Which, out of use and staled by other men,
  Begin his fashion: do not talk of him
  But as a property.
  • Antony, scene i

• We, at the height, are ready to decline.
  There is a tide in the affairs of men
  Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
  Omitted, all the voyage of their life
  Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
  On such a full sea are we now afloat;
  And we must take the current when it serves,
  Or lose our ventures.
  • Brutus, scene iii

• Remember March, the ides of March remember:
  Did not great Julius bleed for justice' sake?
  What villain touch'd 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 honours
  For so much trash as may be grasped thus?
  I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon,
  Than such a Roman.
  • Brutus, scene iii

• There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats,
  For I am arm'd so strong in honesty
  That they pass by me as the idle wind,
  Which I respect not.
  • Brutus, scene iii

• 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;
  Cheque'd like a bondman; all his faults observed,
  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,
  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,
  When thou didst hate him worst, thou lovedst him better
  Than ever thou lovedst Cassius.
  • Cassius, scene iii

Act V

O, that a man might know
The end of this day's business ere it come!
But it sufficeth that the day will end,
And then the end is known.

• But this same day
  Must end that work the ides of March begun;
  And whether we shall meet again I know not.
  Therefore our everlasting farewell take:
  For ever, and for ever, farewell, Cassius!
  If we do meet again, why, we shall smile;
  If not, why, then, this parting was well made.
  • Brutus, scene i

• O, that a man might know
  The end of this day's business ere it come!
  But it sufficeth that the day will end,
  And then the end is known.
  • Brutus, scene i

• Caesar, now be still:
  I kill'd not thee with half so good a will.
  • Brutus, scene v

• This was the noblest Roman of all
  All the conspirators, save only he,
  Did that they did in envy of great Caesar;
  He only, in a general honest thought,
  And common good to all, made one of them.
  His life was gentle; and the elements
  So mix'd in him that Nature might stand up
  And say to all the world, This was a man!
  • Antony, scene v

• So call the field to rest: and let's away,
  To part the glories of this happy day.
  • Octavius, scene v