I will be performing a duet performance with Dakshina. This passage are on Act 1 Scene 2 , lines 130 – 174. The whole point of these passage was Brutus and Cassius in private, where Cassius talks to Brutus about how he should take a step ahead and go against Caesar. Cassius wants to take over Brutus and put his mind into thinking of being a rebel so that Caesar has no chance of being the one to hold the crown.
This passage clearly shows how Cassius works his way into Brutus and plays with his emotions. Brutus starts off with showing the fact that he does not like Caesar and the way Romans have betrayed the great Pompey. But Cassius doesn't give up and he tries to make Brutus a rebellion against the Caesar.
"Like a Colossus, and we petty men Walk under his huge legs and peep about to find ourselves dishonourable graves." Cassius says these lines to convey that if Caesar is not stopped before he gets the crown, they (Cassius and Brutus) will be the one to regret it.
BRUTUS
Another general shout!
I do believe that these applauses are
For some new honours that are heap'd on Caesar.
CASSIUS
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To 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'd
The eternal devil to keep his state in Rome
As easily as a king.
BRUTUS
That you do love me, I am nothing jealous;
What you would work me to, I have some aim:
How I have thought of this and of these times,
I shall recount hereafter; for this present,
I would not, so with love I might entreat you,
Be any further moved. What you have said
I will consider; what you have to say
I will with patience hear, and find a time
Both meet to hear and answer such high things.
Till then, my noble friend, chew upon this:
Brutus had rather be a villager
Than to repute himself a son of Rome
Under these hard conditions as this time
Is like to lay upon us.
CASSIUS
I am glad that my weak words
Have struck but thus much show of fire from Brutus.