Page 2170 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

Have rived the knotty oaks, and I have seen
Th’ambitious ocean swell, and rage, and foam,
To be exalted with the threat’ning clouds;
But never till tonight, never till now,

Did I go through a tempest dropping fire. [10]
Either there is a civil strife in heaven,
Or else the world, too saucy with the gods,
Incenses them to send destruction.

CICERO

Why, saw you anything more wonderful?

CASCA

A common slave − you know him well by sight − [15]
Help up his left hand, which did flame and burn
Like twenty torches joined, and yet his hand,
Not sensible of fire, remained unscorched.

Besides − I ha’ not since put up my sword −
Against the Capitol I met a lion, [20]
Who glazed upon me, and went surly by,
Without annoying me. And there were drawn

Upon a heap a hundred ghastly women,
Transformèd with their fear, who swore they saw
Men, all in fire, walk up and down the streets. [25]
And yesterday the bird of night did sit,

Even at noonday, upon the market-place,
Hooting and shrieking. When these prodigies
Do so conjointly meet, let not men say
‘These are their reasons, they are natural’; [30]

For I believe they are portentous things
Unto the climate that they point upon.

CICERO
Indeed it is a strange-disposèd time.
But men may construe things after their fashion,
Clean from the purpose of the things themselves. [35]

Comes Caesar to the Capitol tomorrow?