Cassius Works on Brutus

Scene summary

During the Lupercal, a festival in which runners race through Rome, Julius Caesar passes in procession and orders Calpurnia to stand in the path of Mark Antony, who is about to run, since, according to the ancients, a barren woman touched in the race is freed from her curse. A soothsayer calls out from the crowd and warns him against the Ides of March; Caesar calls him a dreamer and moves on. Brutus refuses to watch the games and stays behind with Cassius, to whom he explains that he is at war with himself and for that reason has grown cool toward his friends. Cassius says Brutus does not see his own worth and offers himself as a mirror: many men of weight, under the yoke of the age, wanted him to open his eyes.

Shouts from the crowd reach them from afar, and Brutus says he fears the people will make Caesar king. Cassius observes that if Brutus fears this, it is because he does not want Caesar as king, and Brutus confirms that he does not, though he loves Caesar and says he loves honor more than he fears death. Cassius recalls that he and Caesar were born equally free, that he saved Caesar when he was nearly drowned in the Tiber and saw him shake with fever in Spain, and he is scandalized that such a man should be treated as a god. He says the fault lies not in the stars but in those who bow, asks what Caesar's name has that Brutus's does not, and recalls the elder Brutus, who would never have tolerated a king. Brutus asks for time to think, but declares that he would rather be a villager than a Roman under the conditions the times promise.

Caesar returns irritated and tells Antony that he distrusts Cassius, a lean man who thinks too much and takes no pleasure in music: men like that are dangerous. He soon backs down and says he does not fear him, for he is always Caesar. Casca, pulled aside by the sleeve, tells how Antony offered Caesar a crown three times, that he refused it every time and the plebeians applauded each refusal; that Caesar fell with foam at his mouth; that Cicero spoke in Greek; and that Marullus and Flavius were silenced for removing the ornaments from the statues. Brutus leaves. Cassius, alone, admits that Caesar treats him badly and loves Brutus, and decides to throw letters through Brutus's windows, written in the hands of various citizens, speaking of the high opinion Rome has of him and insinuating Caesar's ambition.