pray the gods you may
go through with that you have taken in hand, but withal, despatch I
read you, for your enterprise is bewrayed. When he had said, he
presently departed from them, and left them both afraid that their
conspiracy would out.

Now in the meantime, there came one of Brutus' men post-haste unto
him, and told him his wife was a-dying. For Porcia being very careful
and pensive for that which was to come, and being too weak to away
with so great and inward grief of mind: she could hardly keep within,
but was frightened with every little noise and cry she heard, as those
that art taken and possessed with the fury of the Bacchants, asking
every man that came from the market-place, what Brutus did, and still
sent messenger after messenger, to know what news. At length Caesar's
coming being prolonged as you have heard, Porcia's weakness was not
able to hold out any longer, and thereupon she suddenly swooned, that
she had no leisure to go to her chamber, but was taken in the midst of
her house, where her speech and senses failed her. Howbeit she soon
came to her self again, and so was laid in her bed, and tended by her
women. When Brutus heard these news, it grieved him, as it is to be
presupposed: yet he left not off the care of his country and
commonwealth, neither went home to his house for any news he heard.

Now, it was reported that Caesar was coming in his litter: for he
determined not to stay in the Senate all that day (because he was
afraid of the unlucky signs of the sacrifices) but to adjourn matters
of importance unto the next session and council holden, feigning
himself not to be well at ease. When Caesar came out of his litter:
Popilius Laenas, that had talked before with Brutus and Cassius, and
had prayed the gods they might bring this enterprise to pass: went
unto Caesar, and kept him a long time with a talk. Caesar gave good ear
unto him. Wherefore the conspirators (if so they should be called) not
hearing what he said to Caesar, but conjecturing by that he had told
them a little before, that his talk was none other but the very
discovery of their conspiracy: they were afraid every man of them, and
one looking in another's face, it was easy to see that they all were
of a mind, that it was no tarrying for them till they were
apprehended, but rather that they should kill themselves with their
own hands. And when Cassius and certain others clapped their hands on
their swords under their gowns to