| LIVES OF THE NOBLE | |
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| IULIUS | a time to his frendes, What will Cassius doe, thinke ye? I | |
| CÆSAR | like not his pale lookes. An other time when Caesars frendes | |
| | complained unto him of Antonius, and Dolabella, that they | |
| | pretended some mischiefe*
towardes him: he aunswered them | |
| | againe, As for those fatte men and smooth comed heades, | |
| | quoth he, I never reckon of them: but these pale visaged | |
| | and carian leane people, I feare them most, meaning Brutus | |
| | and Cassius. Certainly, destenie may easier be foreseene, | |
| Predictions, | then avoyded: considering the straunge and wonderfull | |
| and fore- | signes that were sayd to be seene before Caesars death. For, | |
| shewes of | touching the fires in the element, and spirites running up | |
| Caesars death. | and downe in the night, and also these solitarie birdes to be | |
| | seene at noone dayes sittinge in the great market place: are | |
| | not all these signes perhappes worth the noting, in such a | |
| | wonderfull chaunce as happened? But Strabo the Philosopher | |
| | wryteth, that divers men were seene going up and downe in | |
| | fire: and furthermore, that there was a slave of the souldiers, | |
| | that did cast a marvelous burning flame out of his hande, | |
| | insomuch as they that saw it, thought he had bene burnt, | |
| | but when the fire was out, it was found he had no hurt. | |
| | Caesar selfe also doing sacrifice unto the goddes, found that | |
| | one of the beastes which was sacrificed had no hart: and | |
| | that was a straunge thing in nature, how a beast could live | |
| | without a hart. Furthermore, there was a certaine Sooth- | |
| | sayer that had geven Caesar warning long time affore, to take | |
| Caesars day | heede of the day of the Ides of Marche, (which is the fifteenth | |
| of his death | of the moneth) for on that day he shoulde be in great daunger. | |
| prognosti- | That day being come, Caesar going unto the Senate house, | |
| cated by a | and speaking merily to the Soothsayer, tolde him, The Ides | |
| Soothsayer. | of Marche be come: So be they, softly aunswered the Sooth- | |
| | sayer, but yet are they not past. And the very day before, | |
| | Caesar supping with Marcus Lepidus, sealed certaine letters | |
| | as he was wont to do at the bord : so talke falling out | |
| | amongest them, reasoning what death was best: he prevent- | |
| | ing their opinions, cried out alowde, Death unlooked for. | |
| | Then going to bedde the same night as his manner was, and | |
| | lying with his wife Calpurnia, all the windowes and dores of | |
| | his chamber flying open, the noyse awooke him, and made | |
| | him affrayed when he saw such light: but more, when he | |
| | 64 | |