You can imagine the fight; the heat and the dust, for it was spring in
a climate like ours. The bullocking, sweating, grunting, slaughter,
the crack and clash and rattle as of fire-irons in a fender. The bad
Latin language; the running away and chasing _en masse_ and by
individuals. The mutual pauses, the truces or spells--"smoke-ho's"
we'd call 'em--between masses and individuals. The battered-in, lost,
discarded or stolen helmets; the blood-stained, dinted, and loosened
armour with bits missing, and the bloody and grotesque bandages. The
confusion amongst the soldiers, as it is to-day--the ignorance of one
wing as to the fate of the other, of one party as to the fate of the
other, of one individual as to the fate of another:
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.
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