stand, and would have parley.

CASSIUS. Stand fast, Titinius: we must out and talk.

OCTAVIUS. Mark Antony, shall we give sign of battle?

ANTONY. No, Caesar, we will answer on their charge.
Make forth; the generals would have some words. 25

OCTAVIUS. Stir not until the signal.

BRUTUS. Words before blows: is it so, countrymen?

OCTAVIUS. Not that we love words better, as you do. 28

BRUTUS. Good words are better than bad strokes, Octavius.

ANTONY. In your bad strokes, Brutus, you give good words.
Witness the hole you made in Caesar's heart,
Crying, 'Long live! hail, Caesar!'

CASSIUS. Antony,
The posture of your blows are yet unknown;
But, for your words, they rob the Hybla bees,
And leave them honeyless.

ANTONY. Not stingless too. 35

BRUTUS. O, yes, and soundless too;
For you have stol'n their buzzing, Antony,
And very wisely threat before you sting.

[Note 21: Scene II Pope.--LUCILIUS, TITINIUS ... | Ff omit.]

[Note 33: /The posture of your blows:/ where your blows are to
fall.--/are./ The verb is attracted into the plural by the
nearest substantive. Cf. 'was,' IV, iii, 5. Abbott calls this
idiom 'confusion of proximity.']

[Note 34: Hybla, a hill in Sicily, was noted for its thyme and
its honey. So Vergil, _Eclogues_, I, 54-55: "the hedge whose
willow bloom is quaffed by Hybla's bees." Cf. _1 Henry IV_, I,
ii, 47: "As the honey of Hybla, my old lad of the castle."
Antony could not be so 'honey-tongued' unless he had quite
exhausted thyme-flavored Hybla.]

[Page 147]

ANTONY. Villains, you did not so, when your vile daggers
Hack'd one another in the sides of Caesar: 40
You show'd your teeth like apes, and fawn'd like hounds,
And bow'd like bondmen, kissing Caesar's feet;
Whilst damned Casca, like a cur, behind
Struck Caesar on the neck. O you flatterers!

CASSIUS. Flatterers! Now, Brutus, thank yourself: 45
This tongue had not offended so to-day,
If Cassius might have rul'd.

OCTAVIUS. Come, come, the cause: if arguing make us sweat,
The proof of it will turn to redder drops.
Look; 50
I draw a sword against conspirators;
When think you that the sword goes up again?
Never, till Caesar's three and thirty wounds
Be well aveng'd; or till another Caesar
Have added slaughter to the sword of