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Brutus: Ride, ride, Messala, ride, and give these bills [directions
to officers]
Unto the legions on the other side:

Poor Cassius, routed and in danger of being surrounded, and thinking Brutus is in the same plight, or a prisoner or dead–and that Titinius is taken or killed–gets his bondman, whose life he once saved, to kill him in return for his freedom.

Stand not to answer: here, take thou the hilts;
And when my face is cover ‘d, as ’tis now,
Guide thou the sword.
Caesar, thou art revenged,
Even with the sword that kill’d thee.

Good-bye, Cassius, old chap!

Titinius and Messala, coming too late, find Cassius dead; and Titinius, being left alone while Messala takes the news to Brutus, kills himself with Cassius’s sword. Titinius, farewell!

Come Brutus and those that are left.

Brutus: Where, where, Messala, doth his body lie?

Messala: Lo, yonder, and Titinius mourning it.

Brutus: Titinius’ face is upward.

Cato: He is slain.

Grim mates in a grim day in a grim hour. Then the cry of Brutus:

O Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet!

But if he were, perhaps he only gathered old Cassius and Titinius to be sure of their company with him and Brutus amongst the gods a little later.

Brutus: Friends, I owe more tears
To this dead man than you shall see me pay.
I shall find time, Cassius, I shall find time.

And, after making arrangements for the removal of Cassius’s body, they go to try their fortunes in a second fight. Young Cato is killed and good Lucilius taken. Comes Brutus beaten, with Dardanius his last friend, and his three servants, Clitus, Strato, and Volumnius.

Brutus: Come, poor remains of friends, rest on this rock.

Strato, exhausted, goes to sleep, as man can sleep during a battle; and Brutus whispers the others, one after another, to kill him; but they are shocked and refuse: “I’ll rather kill myself,” “I do such a deed?” etc. He begs Volumnius, his old schoolmate, to hold his sword-hilt while he runs on it, for their love of old.

Volumnius: That’s not the office for a friend, my lord.

There are alarums, and they urge him to fly, for it’s no use stopping there.

Brutus: Farewell to you; and you; and you, Volumnius.
Strato, thou hast been all this while asleep;
Farewell to thee too, Strato! Countrymen,
My heart doth joy that yet in all my life
I found so man but he was true to me.

Ye gods! but it’s grand. I wish to our God that I could say as much–or that man or woman [n]ever found me untrue. Could Antony say as much, afterwards, in Egypt–or Octavius! with Antony then on his mind? Even Antony’s last man and servant failed him in the end, killing himself rather than kill his master. But Strato—

There are more alarums and voices calling to them to run. They urge Brutus again, and he tells them to go and he’ll follow. They all run except Strato, who hesitates.

Brutus: I prithee, Strato, stay thou by thy lord:
Thou art a fellow of a good respect;
Thy life hath had some snatch of honour in it
Hold then my sword, and turn away thy face,
While I do run upon it. Wilt thou, Strato?

Strato: Give me your hand first: fare you well, my lord.

Brutus: Farewell, good Strato. Caesar, now be still:
I kill’d not thee with half so good a will.

Brutus, good night!

I like Shakespeare’s servants. They seem to show that he sprang from servants or common people rather than from lords and masters, for he deals with them very gently. It must be understood that servants, bond and free, were born unto the same house and served it for generations; and so down to modern England, where the old nurse and the tottering old gardener often nursed and played with “Master Will,” when his father, the dead and gone old squire, was a young man.