| LIVES OF THE NOBLE | | |
| | | |
MARCUS | ‘or griefe with thee, which requireth secrecy and fidelity? | |
BRUTUS | ‘I confesse, that a womans wit commonly is too weake to | |
| ‘keepe a secret safely: but yet, Brutus, good educacion, | |
| ‘and the companie of vertuous men, have some power to | |
| ‘reforme the defect of nature. And for my selfe, I have | |
| ‘this benefit moreover: that I am the daughter of Cato, | |
| ‘and wife of Brutus. This notwithstanding, I did not trust | |
| ‘to any of these things before: untill that now I have found | |
| ‘by experience, that no paine nor griefe whatsoever can | |
| ‘overcome me.’ With those wordes she shewed him her | |
| wounde on her thigh, and tolde him what she had done to | |
| prove her selfe. Brutus was amazed to heare what she | |
| sayd unto him, and lifting up his handes to heaven, he | |
| besought the goddes to geve him the grace he might bring | |
| his enterprise to so good passe, that he might be founde | |
| a husband, worthie of so noble a wife as Porcia: so he then | |
| did comfort her the best he coulde. Now a day being | |
| appointed for the meeting of the Senate, at what time they | |
| hoped Caesar woulde not faile to come: the conspirators | |
| determined then to put their enterprise in execucion, bicause | |
| they might meete safelie at that time without suspicion, and | |
| the rather, for that all the noblest and chiefest men of the | |
| citie woulde be there. Who when they should see suche | |
| a great matter executed, would everie man then set to their | |
| handes, for the defence of their libertie. Furthermore, they | |
| thought also that the appointment of the place where the | |
| counsell shoulde be kept, was chosen of purpose by divine | |
| providence, and made all for them. For it was one of the | |
| porches about the Theater, in the which there was a certaine | |
| place full of seates for men to sit in, where also was set up | |
| the image of Pompey, which the citie had made and con- | |
| secrated in honor of him: when he did beawtifie that parte | |
| of the citie with the Theater he built, with divers porches | |
| about it. In this place was the assembly of the Senate | |
| appointed to be, just on the fifteenth day of the moneth of | |
| March, which the Romanes call, Idus Martias: so that it | |
| seemed some god of purpose had brought Caesar thither to | |
| be slaine, for revenge of Pompeys death. So when the day | |
| was come, Brutus went out of his house with a dagger by his | |
| 194 | |