CASSIUS.How now,what's the matter?POET.For shame,you generals!What do you mean?Love,and be friends,as two such men should be;For I have seen more years,I'm sure,than ye.CASSIUS.Ha,ha!How vilely doth this cynic rhyme!BRUTUS.Get you hence,sirrah;saucy fellow,hence!CASSIUS.Bear with him,Brutus;'tis his fashion.BRUTUS.I'll know his humor when he knows his time.What should the wars do with these jigging fools?Companion,hence!CASSIUS.Away,away,be gone!Exit Poet.BRUTUS.Lucilius and Titinius,bid the commanders Prepare to lodge their companies tonight.CASSIUS.And come yourselves and bring Messala with you Immediately to us.Exeunt Lucilius and Titinius.BRUTUS.Lucius,a bowl of wine!Exit Lucius.CASSIUS.I did not think you could have been so angry.BRUTUS.O Cassius,I am sick of many griefs.CASSIUS.Of your philosophy you make no use,If you give place to accidental evils.BRUTUS.No man bears sorrow better.Portia is dead.CASSIUS.Ha?Portia?BRUTUS.She is dead.CASSIUS.How 'scaped killing when I cross'd you so?Oinsupportable and touching loss!Upon what sickness?BRUTUS.Impatient of my absence,And grief that young Octavius with Mark Antony Have made themselves so strong-for with her death That tidings came-with this she fell distract,And (her attendants absent)swallow'd fire.CASSIUS.And died so?BRUTUS.Even so.CASSIUS.O ye immortal gods!
Re-enter Lucius,with wine and taper.
BRUTUS.Speak no more of her.Give me a bowl of wine.In this I bury all unkindness,Cassius.Drinks.CASSIUS.My heart is thirsty for that noble pledge.Fill,Lucius,till the wine o'erswell the cup;I cannot drink too much of Brutus'love.Drinks.BRUTUS.Come in,Titinius!Exit Lucius.
Re-enter Titinius,with Messala.
Welcome,good Messala.Now sit we close about this taper here,And call in question our necessities.CASSIUS.Portia,art thou gone?BRUTUS.No more,I pray you.Messala,I have here received letters That young Octavius and Mark Antony Come down upon us with a mighty power,Bending their expedition toward Philippi.MESSALA.Myself have letters of the selfsame tenure.BRUTUS.With what addition?MESSALA.That by proion and bills of outlawry Octavius,Antony,and Lepidus Have put to death an hundred senators.BRUTUS.There in our letters do not well agree;Mine speak of seventy senators that died By their proions,Cicero being one.CASSIUS.Cicero one!MESSALA.Cicero is dead,And by that order of proion.Had you your letters from your wife,my lord?BRUTUS.No,Messala.MESSALA.Nor nothing in your letters writ of her?BRUTUS.Nothing,Messala.MESSALA.That,methinks,is strange.BRUTUS.Why ask you?Hear you aught of her in yours?MESSALA.No,my lord.BRUTUS.Now,as you are a Roman,tell me true.MESSALA.Then like a Roman bear the truth I tell:For certain she is dead,and by strange manner.BRUTUS.Why,farewell,Portia.We must die,Messala.With meditating that she must die once I have the patience to endure it now.MESSALA.Even so great men great losses should endure.CASSIUS.I have as much of this in art as you,But yet my nature could not bear it so.BRUTUS.Well,to our work alive.
