On the night before his assassination, in act 2, scene 2 of Julius Caesar, Caesar's wife has terrible premonitory dreams of his imminent demise. When she describes these visions to her husband, she also mentions that strange, unearthly events, such as a lioness giving birth in the street and the dead emerging from their graves, that have been observed by the watch and begs her husband not to leave the house this day.

Next, his servant tells him that the soothsayer would not have him "stir forth" this day, after the examination of the entrails of the sacrificial animal revealed that it had no heart. Yet, Caesar is unmoved by these ill-tidings:

The gods do this in shame of cowardice:
Caesar should be a beast without a heart,
If he should stay at home today for fear.

When Calphurnia again expresses her extreme anxiety at his departure, Caesar relents, "for thy humor," agreeing with her suggestion to have Mark Antony explain his absence.

Presently, Decius Brutus, one of the conspirators, arrives to fetch Caesar to the Senate. When Decius grasps Caesar's reluctance to join him, he attempts to cajole the emperor into going, saying he (Decius) will be ridiculed for making excuses. Caesar describes to the general his wife's ominous dream:

She dreamt tonight she saw my statue,
Which, like a fountain with an hundred spouts,
Did run pure blood: and many lusty Romans
Came smiling, and did bathe their hands in it:
And these does she apply for warning, and portents,
And evils imminent....

Decius Brutus furnishes a positive interpretation of this dream, that the Roman people are actually reviving themselves with the blood of a great man. He shames Caesar, telling him that the members of the senate will think that he is simply afraid to meet with them. Caesar reverses himself, and decides to go forth:

How foolish do your fears seem now, Calpurnia!
I am ashamed I did yield to them.
Give me my robe, for I will go.

Caesar's unwillingness to listen to his wife's advice and his fear of being thought a coward cause him to leave his house on that fateful day.