Julius Caesar E-Book

William Shakespeare

• Herausgeber: Sovereign
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Serie: Timeless Classic
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 105

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

A tragedy by William Shakespeare, one of several plays written by Shakespeare based on true events from Roman history. The play opens with the commoners of Rome celebrating Caesar's triumphant return from defeating Pompey's sons at the battle of Munda. Two tribunes, Flavius and Marrullus, discover the commoners celebrating, insult them for their change in loyalty from Pompey to Caesar, and break up the crowd.

Leseprobe

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

Julius Caesar

LONDON ∙ NEW YORK ∙ TORONTO ∙ SAO PAULO ∙ MOSCOW

PARIS ∙ MADRID ∙ BERLIN ∙ ROME ∙ MEXICO CITY ∙ MUMBAI ∙ SEOUL ∙ DOHA

TOKYO ∙ SYDNEY ∙ CAPE TOWN ∙ AUCKLAND ∙ BEIJING

New Edition

Published by Sovereign Classic

www.sovereignclassic.net

This Edition

First published in 2015

Copyright © 2015 Sovereign Classic

Contents

CAST

ACT I

ACT II

ACT III

ACT IV

ACT V

CAST

JULIUS CAESAROCTAVIUS CAESAR, Triumvir after his death.MARCUS ANTONIUS, M. AEMIL. LEPIDUS CICERO, PUBLIUS, POPILIUS LENA, Senators.MARCUS BRUTUS, Conspirator against Caesar.CASSIUS, CASCA, TREBONIUS,LIGARIUS, DECIUS BRUTUS,METELLUS CIMBER,CINNA, FLAVIUS, tribuneMARULLUS, tribuneARTEMIDORUS, a Sophist of Cnidos.A SoothsayerCINNA, a poet. Another Poet.LUCILIUS, TITINIUS, MESSALA, young CATO, and VOLUMNIUS, Friendsto Brutus and Cassius.

VARRO, CLITUS, CLAUDIUS, STRATO, LUCIUS, DARDANIUS, Servants toBrutusPINDARUS, Servant to CassiusThe Ghost of CaesarSenators, Citizens, Soldiers, Commoners, Messengers, andServants

CALPURNIA, wife to CaesarPORTIA, wife to Brutus

SCENE: Rome, the conspirators’ camp near Sardis, and the plains of Philippi.

ACT I

SCENE I. ROME. A STREET.

Enter FLAVIUS, MARULLUS, and certain Commoners

FLAVIUS

Hence! home, you idle creatures get you home:Is this a holiday? what! know you not,Being mechanical, you ought not walkUpon a labouring day without the signOf your profession? Speak, what trade art thou?

First Commoner

Why, sir, a carpenter.

MARULLUS

Where is thy leather apron and thy rule?What dost thou with thy best apparel on?You, sir, what trade are you?

Second Commoner

Truly, sir, in respect of a fine workman, I am but,as you would say, a cobbler.

MARULLUS

But what trade art thou? answer me directly.

Second Commoner

A trade, sir, that, I hope, I may use with a safeconscience; which is, indeed, sir, a mender of bad soles.

MARULLUS

What trade, thou knave? thou naughty knave, what trade?

Second Commoner

Nay, I beseech you, sir, be not out with me: yet,if you be out, sir, I can mend you.

MARULLUS

What meanest thou by that? mend me, thou saucy fellow!

Second Commoner

Why, sir, cobble you.

FLAVIUS

Thou art a cobbler, art thou?

Second Commoner

Truly, sir, all that I live by is with the awl: Imeddle with no tradesman’s matters, nor women’smatters, but with awl. I am, indeed, sir, a surgeonto old shoes; when they are in great danger, Irecover them. As proper men as ever trod uponneat’s leather have gone upon my handiwork.

FLAVIUS

But wherefore art not in thy shop today?Why dost thou lead these men about the streets?

Second Commoner

Truly, sir, to wear out their shoes, to get myselfinto more work. But, indeed, sir, we make holiday,to see Caesar and to rejoice in his triumph.

MARULLUS

Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?What tributaries follow him to Rome,To grace in captive bonds his chariot-wheels?You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oftHave you climb’d up to walls and battlements,To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops,Your infants in your arms, and there have satThe livelong day, with patient expectation,To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome:And when you saw his chariot but appear,Have you not made an universal shout,That Tiber trembled underneath her banks,To hear the replication of your soundsMade in her concave shores?And do you now put on your best attire?And do you now cull out a holiday?And do you now strew flowers in his wayThat comes in triumph over Pompey’s blood? Be gone!Run to your houses, fall upon your knees,Pray to the gods to intermit the plagueThat needs must light on this ingratitude.

FLAVIUS

Go, go, good countrymen, and, for this fault,Assemble all the poor men of your sort;Draw them to Tiber banks, and weep your tearsInto the channel, till the lowest streamDo kiss the most exalted shores of all.

Exeunt all the Commoners

See whether their basest metal be not moved;They vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness.Go you down that way towards the Capitol;

This way will I

disrobe the images,If you do find them deck’d with ceremonies.

MARULLUS

May we do so?You know it is the feast of Lupercal.

FLAVIUS

It is no matter; let no imagesBe hung with Caesar’s trophies. I’ll about,And drive away the vulgar from the streets:So do you too, where you perceive them thick.These growing feathers pluck’d from Caesar’s wingWill make him fly an ordinary pitch,Who else would soar above the view of menAnd keep us all in servile fearfulness.

Exeunt

SCENE II. A PUBLIC PLACE.

Flourish. Enter CAESAR; ANTONY, for the course; CALPURNIA, PORTIA, DECIUS BRUTUS, CICERO, BRUTUS, CASSIUS, and CASCA; a great crowd following, among them a Soothsayer

CAESAR

Calpurnia!

CASCA

Peace, ho! Caesar speaks.

CAESAR

Calpurnia!

CALPURNIA

Here, my lord.

CAESAR

Stand you directly in Antonius’ way,When he doth run his course. Antonius!

ANTONY

Caesar, my lord?

CAESAR

Forget not, in your speed, Antonius,To touch Calpurnia; for our elders say,The barren, touched in this holy chase,Shake off their sterile curse.

ANTONY

I shall remember:When Caesar says ‘do this,’ it is perform’d.

CAESAR

Set on; and leave no ceremony out.

Flourish

Soothsayer

Caesar!

CAESAR

Ha! who calls?

CASCA

Bid every noise be still: peace yet again!

CAESAR

Who is it in the press that calls on me?I hear a tongue, shriller than all the music,Cry ‘Caesar!’ Speak; Caesar is turn’d to hear.

Soothsayer

Beware the ides of March.

CAESAR

What man is that?

BRUTUS

A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March.

CAESAR

Set him before me; let me see his face.

CASSIUS

Fellow, come from the throng; look upon Caesar.

CAESAR

What say’st thou to me now? speak once again.

Soothsayer

Beware the ides of March.

CAESAR

He is a dreamer; let us leave him: pass.

Sennet. Exeunt all except BRUTUS and CASSIUS

CASSIUS

Will you go see the order of the course?

BRUTUS

Not I.

CASSIUS

I pray you, do.

BRUTUS

I am not gamesome: I do lack some partOf that quick spirit that is in Antony.Let me not hinder, Cassius, your desires;I’ll leave you.

CASSIUS

Brutus, I do observe you now of late:I have not from your eyes that gentlenessAnd show of love as I was wont to have:You bear too stubborn and too strange a handOver your friend that loves you.

BRUTUS

Cassius,Be not deceived: if I have veil’d my look,I turn the trouble of my countenanceMerely upon myself. Vexed I amOf late with passions of some difference,Conceptions only proper to myself,Which give some soil perhaps to my behaviors;But let not therefore my good friends be grieved--Among which number, Cassius, be you one--Nor construe any further my neglect,Than that poor Brutus, with himself at war,Forgets the shows of love to other men.

CASSIUS

Then, Brutus, I have much mistook your passion;By means whereof this breast of mine hath buriedThoughts of great value, worthy cogitations.Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face?

BRUTUS

No, Cassius; for the eye sees not itself,But by reflection, by some other things.

CASSIUS

‘Tis just:And it is very much lamented, Brutus,That you have no such mirrors as will turnYour hidden worthiness into your eye,That you might see your shadow. I have heard,Where many of the best respect in Rome,Except immortal Caesar, speaking of BrutusAnd groaning underneath this age’s yoke,Have wish’d that noble Brutus had his eyes.

BRUTUS

Into what dangers would you lead me, Cassius,That you would have me seek into myselfFor that which is not in me?

CASSIUS

Therefore, good Brutus, be prepared to hear:And since you know you cannot see yourselfSo well as by reflection, I, your glass,Will modestly discover to yourselfThat of yourself which you yet know not of.And be not jealous on me, gentle Brutus:Were I a common laugher, or did useTo stale with ordinary oaths my loveTo every new protester; if you knowThat I do fawn on men and hug them hardAnd after scandal them, or if you knowThat I profess myself in banquetingTo all the rout, then hold me dangerous.

Flourish, and shout

BRUTUS

What means this shouting? I do fear, the peopleChoose Caesar for their king.

CASSIUS

Ay, do you fear it?Then must I think you would not have it so.

BRUTUS

I would not, Cassius; yet I love him well.But wherefore do you hold me here so long?What is it that you would impart to me?If it be aught toward the general good,Set honour in one eye and death i’ the other,And I will look on both indifferently,For let the gods so speed me as I loveThe name of honour more than I fear death.

CASSIUS

I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus,As well as I do know your outward favour.Well, honour is the subject of my story.I cannot tell what you and other menThink of this life; but, for my single self,I had as lief not be as live to beIn awe of such a thing as I myself.I was born free as Caesar; so were you:We both have fed as well, and we can bothEndure the winter’s cold as well as he:For once, upon a raw and gusty day,The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores,Caesar said to me ‘Darest thou, Cassius, nowLeap in with me into this angry flood,And swim to yonder point?’ Upon the word,Accoutred as I was, I plunged inAnd bade him follow; so indeed he did.The torrent roar’d, and we did buffet itWith lusty sinews, throwing it asideAnd stemming it with hearts of controversy;But ere we could arrive the point proposed,Caesar cried ‘Help me, Cassius, or I sink!’I, as Aeneas, our great ancestor,Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulderThe old Anchises bear, so from the waves of TiberDid I the tired Caesar. And this manIs now become a god, and Cassius isA wretched creature and must bend his body,If Caesar carelessly but nod on him.He had a fever when he was in Spain,And when the fit was on him, I did markHow he did shake: ‘tis true, this god did shake;His coward lips did from their colour fly,And that same eye whose bend doth awe the worldDid lose his lustre: I did hear him groan:Ay, and that tongue of his that bade the RomansMark him and write his speeches in their books,Alas, it cried ‘Give me some drink, Titinius,’As a sick girl. Ye gods, it doth amaze meA man of such a feeble temper shouldSo get the start of the majestic worldAnd bear the palm alone.

Shout. Flourish

BRUTUS

Another general shout!I do believe that these applauses areFor some new honours that are heap’d on Caesar.

CASSIUS

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow worldLike a Colossus, and we petty menWalk under his huge legs and peep aboutTo find ourselves dishonourable graves.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.Brutus and Caesar: what should be in that ‘Caesar’?Why should that name be sounded more than yours?Write them together, yours is as fair a name;Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well;Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure with ‘em,Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Caesar.Now, in the names of all the gods at once,Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed,That he is grown so great? Age, thou art shamed!Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!When went there by an age, since the great flood,But it was famed with more than with one man?When could they say till now, that talk’d of Rome,That her wide walls encompass’d but one man?Now is it Rome indeed and room enough,When there is in it but one only man.O, you and I have heard our fathers say,There was a Brutus once that would have brook’dThe eternal devil to keep his state in RomeAs easily as a king.

BRUTUS

That you do love me, I am nothing jealous;What you would work me to, I have some aim: