Read Act 1 scene 3 lines 1-40.
Thunder and lightning. Enter Casca and Cicero.
CICERO
Good even, Casca. Brought you Caesar home? Why are you breathless? And why stare you so?CASCA
Are not you moved, when all the sway of earth shakes like a thing unfirm? O Cicero, I have seen tempests when the scolding winds Have rived the knotty oaks, and 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 left hand, which did flame and burn like twenty torches joined; and yet his hand, not sensible of fire, remained unscorched. 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 marketplace, hooting and shrieking. When these prodigies do so conjointly meet, let not men say “These 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 tomorrow?CASCA
He doth, for he did bid Antonius send word to you he would be there tomorrow.CICERO
Good night then, Casca. This disturbed sky is not to walk in.CASCA
Farewell, Cicero.
Cicero exits.
The scene opens with Casca and Cicero speaking against the backdrop of a raging thunder storm. What we get here is a chance to see how each reacts to the storm. By the differences in their reactions, Shakespeare shows us that various philosophies are vying for acceptance in Rome, that the singlemindedness of Rome is gone, that it has been penetrated by Greekness, at least among the patricians (we are not yet sure about the plebs). Thus, the question of the good life is up for grabs; there is no authoritative answer within the political community.