Julius Caesarthe whole play in modern English, scene by scene
Rome's most powerful man is murdered by his closest friends in the name of the republic — and the funeral speech that follows turns the city against them. The play everyone quotes without knowing it. Every scene below shows Shakespeare's original text and a plain modern English translation side by side — free, printable, no account, no paywall.
Act 1
- Scene 1In the streets of Rome, the tribunes Flavius and Marullus break up a crowd of workmen who have taken the day off to cheer Julius Caesar's triumphal return.
- Scene 2During the feast of Lupercal, a soothsayer warns Caesar to beware the ides of March and Caesar dismisses him.
- Scene 3On the storm-torn night before the ides of March, Casca describes a series of omens to Cicero — a hand burning without pain, a lion loose by the Capitol, an owl shrieking at noon.
Act 2
- Scene 1Alone in his orchard before dawn, Brutus talks himself into killing Caesar, arguing that Caesar has done nothing wrong yet but would be dangerous if crowned.
- Scene 2On the morning of the ides of March, thunder shakes Caesar's house and Calphurnia, who has dreamt three times of his murder, begs him not to leave; the priests find a sacrificed animal with no heart.
- Scene 3Artemidorus, a teacher who has learned of the plot, stands in a street near the Capitol reading over a warning letter that names every conspirator — Brutus, Cassius, Casca, Cinna, Trebonius, Metellus Cimber, Decius Brutus and Caius Ligarius.
- Scene 4Outside Brutus's house on the morning of the assassination, Portia is frantic with the secret her husband has told her.
Act 3
- Scene 1On the steps of the Capitol Caesar brushes off the Soothsayer, refuses Artemidorus's warning letter, and rejects Metellus Cimber's plea to recall his banished brother, comparing his own resolve to the fixed northern star.
- Scene 2In the Forum, Brutus explains the assassination to the crowd in cool, balanced prose — he loved Caesar, but loved Rome more — and wins them over completely.
- Scene 3Cinna the poet, uneasy after dreaming he dined with Caesar, is stopped in the street by the rioting crowd.
Act 4
- Scene 1Antony, Octavius and Lepidus sit over a list, marking off which Romans are to be executed — Lepidus agrees to his own brother's death, Antony to his nephew Publius's.
- Scene 2At the camp near Sardis, Brutus meets Cassius's messenger Pindarus and learns from Lucilius that Cassius received him politely but coldly.
- Scene 3Inside the tent, Brutus and Cassius have their great quarrel: Cassius resents being overruled about a bribe-taking officer, Brutus accuses him of selling offices and of refusing him money for his troops, and Cassius finally offers his own dagger and bare chest.
Act 5
- Scene 1On the plains of Philippi, Octavius and Antony are surprised to find the enemy has come down to meet them, and quarrel briefly over who takes which wing.
- Scene 2A brief battlefield scene in the middle of the fighting at Philippi.
- Scene 3Cassius, driven back by Antony and unable to see clearly, sends Titinius to identify a body of troops and has Pindarus watch from a hill.
- Scene 4In the thick of the second battle, young Cato shouts his own name as a challenge to the enemy and is killed.
- Scene 5With the battle lost, Brutus asks Clitus, then Dardanius, then Volumnius to help him die, and each refuses.
Famous lines
- “You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things! / O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome, / Knew you not Pompey?” — Act 1, Scene 1
- “These growing feathers pluck’d from Caesar’s wing / Will make him fly an ordinary pitch, / Who else would soar above the view of men, / And keep us all in servile fearfulness.” — Act 1, Scene 1
- “Beware the Ides of March.” — Act 1, Scene 2
- “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings.” — Act 1, Scene 2
- “But men may construe things after their fashion, / Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.” — Act 1, Scene 3
- “Poor man! I know he would not be a wolf, / But that he sees the Romans are but sheep: / He were no lion, were not Romans hinds.” — Act 1, Scene 3
- “It must be by his death: and for my part, / I know no personal cause to spurn at him, / But for the general.” — Act 2, Scene 1
- “But ’tis a common proof, / That lowliness is young ambition’s ladder, / Whereto the climber-upward turns his face; / But when he once attains the upmost round, / He then unto the ladder turns his back” — Act 2, Scene 1
- “Cowards die many times before their deaths; / The valiant never taste of death but once.” — Act 2, Scene 2
- “When beggars die, there are no comets seen; / The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.” — Act 2, Scene 2
A free No Fear Shakespeare alternative
If you came here looking for a No Fear Shakespeare–style Julius Caesar, this is the same idea without the wall: SparkNotes now puts most of each play behind a subscription, while every scene here is free — the original text and a plain modern English translation side by side, phone-friendly, printable, and downloadable as a full-play PDF. We're not affiliated with SparkNotes; our translations are written in-house from the public-domain text, and you can paste any line from any edition to translate it.
Want to read Shakespeare unassisted? The Shakespearean English course teaches the grammar and vocabulary behind these lines — or paste anything into the Shakespearean English translator.