University of Virginia Library

SCENE THE THIRD.

Anthony, Cassius, Brutus, Cimber.
An.
Oh Brutus, I come here in quest of thee;
I wish to speak with thee.

Bru.
Speak on: I listen.

An.
But the dictator charged me with this message ...

Bru.
And what of that, I pray thee?

An.
I should speak
To thee alone.

Bru.
And here I am alone.
Cassius is husband of my sister Junia;
Cimber was friend, and the most faithful friend,
Of the great Cato, my wife's father: blood,
The love of Rome, and friendship, render us,
Though three we be in person, one in soul.
Cæsar can never utter aught to Brutus,
That he re-utters not immediately
To Cassius and to Cimber.

An.
Is their father
Also the same with thine?

Bru.
They too have shared
With me the shame and sorrow of my birth;
They know it all. Speak on.—I am assured
That Cæsar, generous, once again himself,
Sends thee to take from me the past disgrace
Of having once been deem'd a tyrant's son.
Divulge the whole, be quick: thou can'st not have
More acceptable witnesses than these
Of Cæsar's sublime transit, from a tyrant,
As he was lately, to a citizen.
Make haste; his new-born lofty love for Rome
Reveal to us; his true paternal views
Towards me, that I may bless the day in which
He gave me birth.

An.
Cæsar commanded me
To speak to thee alone. A blind and true,
As much as wretched father, he would yet
Flatter himself, that thou would'st yield at last
To nature's sacred and persuasive voice.

Bru.
And in what fashion am I then to yield?
To what submit myself? ...

An.
To love and honour
The author of thy life: or if, perchance,
Thy hard heart is incapable of love,
Not to betray thy most imperious duties;
To shew thyself not mindless and unworthy
Of benefits received; and finally
To merit those which he reserves for thee
In future. Fear'st thou to be too humane
If thou submit to this?

Bru.
Those which thou now
Giv'st artfully to me are empty words.
Advance, and answer me. Is Cæsar ready
To-morrow, in full senate, to renounce
The office of dictator? Is he ready
His standing army to disband? To free
The Romans from their universal terror?
To free his friends and enemies from this,
And finally himself? To restore life
To the most sacred laws by him despised,
The enervated, obliterated laws?
To be the first to place himself beneath them?
These are the express, only benefits,
That a true father can confer on Brutus.

An.
Enough. Would'st thou say more to me?

Bru.
I say
No more to him that merits not to hear me.—
Return then to thy lord, and say to him,
That yet I hope, nay, more, I trust, am certain,
That in the senate by to-morrow's dawn,
He will propose useful and lofty things
For Rome's prosperity and liberty:
Tell him, that then, before assembled Rome,
Brutus will first fall prostrate at his feet,
As citizen and son; if he too be
A citizen and father. Lastly, tell him,
That in my heart I burn as much to make
Rome live again for all of us, as I
Burn to make Cæsar live again for her ...

An.
I understand thee. I will tell him that
Which I (too fruitlessly, alas!) already
Long since have said to him.

Bru.
I esteem thee,
A faithless and malignant messenger
'Twixt Cæsar and myself: nevertheless,
If he for this selected thee, thou hast
Thy answer now received.

An.
If the dictator
Consulted me, or the interests of Rome,
No other messenger would he dispatch
To Brutus but the lictors with their axes.