Luc. I will, sir.Exit.
Bru. The exhalations whizzing in the air44
Give so much light that I may read by them.
Opens the letter, and reads.
'Brutus, thou sleep'st: awake, and see thyself.
Shall Rome, &c. Speak, strike, redress!
Brutus, thou sleep'st: awake!'48
Such instigations have been often dropp'd
Where I have took them up.
'Shall Rome, &c.' Thus must I piece it out:
Shall Rome stand under one man's awe? What, Rome?52
My ancestors did from the streets of Rome
The Tarquin drive, when he was call'd a king.
'Speak, strike, redress!' Am I entreated
To speak, and strike? O Rome, I make thee promise:56
If the redress will follow, thou receivest
Thy full petition at the hand of Brutus!
Enter Lucius.
Luc. Sir, March is wasted fourteen days.59
Bru. 'Tis good. Go to the gate: somebody knocks.
[Exit Lucius.]
Since Cassius first did whet me against Cæsar,
I have not slept.
Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is64
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream:
The genius and the mortal instruments
44 exhalations: meteors
58 Thy full petition: full measure of what thou askest
59 fourteen; cf. n.
61, 62 Cf. n.
64 motion: instigation, inception
65 phantasma: vision, phantasmagoria
66 genius: the guardian spirit, within man
mortal instruments: human faculties
