the generals would have some words.
Stir not until the signal.
Words before blows: is it so, countrymen?
Not that we love words better, as you do.
Good words are better than bad strokes, Octavius.
In your bad strokes, Brutus, you give good words:
Witness the hole you made in Caesar's heart,
Crying 'Long live! hail, Caesar!'
Antony,
The posture of your blows are yet unknown;
But for your words, they rob the Hybla bees,
And leave them honeyless.
Not stingless too.
O, yes, and soundless too;
For you have stol'n their buzzing, Antony,
And very wisely threat before you sting.
Villains, you did not so, when your vile daggers
Hack'd one another in the sides of Caesar:
You show'd your teeth like apes, and fawn'd like hounds,
And bow'd like bondmen, kissing Caesar's feet;
Whilst damned Casca, like a cur, behind
Struck Caesar on the neck. O you flatterers!
Flatterers! Now, Brutus, thank yourself:
This tongue had not offended so to-day,
If Cassius might have ruled.
Come, come, the cause: if arguing make us sweat,
The proof of it will turn to redder drops. Look;
I draw a sword against conspirators;
When think you that the sword goes up again?
Never, till Caesar's three and thirty wounds
Be well avenged; or till another Caesar
Have added slaughter to the sword of traitors.
Caesar, thou canst not die by traitors' hands,
Unless thou bring'st them with thee.
So I hope;
I was not born to die on Brutus' sword.
O, if thou wert the noblest of thy strain,
Young man, thou couldst not die more honourable.
A peevish schoolboy, worthless of such honour,
Join'd with a masker and a reveller!
Old Cassius still!
Come, Antony, away!
Defiance, traitors, hurl we in your teeth:
If you dare fight to-day, come to the field;
If not, when you have stomachs.
Why, now, blow wind, swell billow and swim bark!
The storm is up, and all is on the hazard.
Ho, Lucilius! hark, a word with you.
My lord?
Messala!
What says my general?
Messala,
This is my birth-day; as this very day
Was Cassius born. Give me thy hand, Messala:
Be thou my witness that against my will,
As Pompey was, am I compell'd to set
Upon one battle all our liberties.
You know that I held Epicurus strong
And his opinion: now I change my mind,
And partly credit things that do presage.
Coming from Sardis, on our former ensign
Two mighty eagles fell, and there