Julius Caesar Duet

Cicero Good evening Casca: brought you Caesar home? Why are you so breathless? and why stare you so?

Casca Are you not mov'd, when all the sway of earth Shakes like a thing unfirm? O Cicero, I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds Have riv'd the knotty oaks; 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. 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, Held up his hand which did flame and burn Like twenty torches join'd; and yet his hand, Not sensible of fire, remain'd unscorch'd. Besides (I ha'not since put up my sword) Against the Capitol I met a lion, Who glazed upon me,and went surly by, Without annoying me. And there were drawn Upon a heap a hundred ghastly women, Transformed with their fear, who swore they saw Men, all in fire, walk up and down the streets. 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, 'There are their reasons, they are natural' For I believe, they are portentous things Unto the climate that they point upon.

Cicero Indeed, it is a strange-disposed time: But men may construe things, after their fashion, Clean from the purpose of the things themselves. Comes Caesar to the Capitol tommorow?

Casca He doth; for he bid Antonius Send word to you he would be there tommorow.

Cicero Good night then, Casca: this disturbed sky Is not to walk in.

Casca Farewell, Cicero

[Exit Cicero]

This passage Act 1, scene 3 lines 1-40 and I am acting this passage with Freya. This passage takes place on a street in Rome between Cicero and Casca during a raging storm. Casca is very fearful of this storm and it’s implications. To him the storm is an omen of terrible things to come and that this storm is showing how angry the gods are. He has seen some frightful things during the storm and is at a lost of how to explain them. Cicero on the other hand is not all that worried about the tempest happening around them, and tries to calm Casca by explaining that when people experience things that they don’t understand they often interpret it to suit themselves and their beliefs. Often this has nothing to do with what is happening. Casca laughs off Cicero’s comments and heads home.