Either there is a civil strife in heaven,
Or else the world too saucy with the gods
Incenses them to send destruction.

[…]

… There is one within,
Besides the things that we have heard and seen,
Recounts most horrid sights seen by the watch.
A lioness hath whelped in the streets;
And graves have yawn’d, and yielded up their dead;
Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds,
In ranks and squadrons and right form of war,
Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol;
The noise of battle hurtled in the air,
Horses did neigh and dying men did groan,
And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets.

[…]

A common slave – you know him well by sight –
Held up his left hand, which did flame and burn
Like twenty torches join’d, and yet his hand
Not sensible of fire remain’d unscorch’d.
Besides – I ha’ not since put up my sword –
Against the Capitol I met a lion,
Who glaz’d upon me and went surly by
Without annoying me. […]
And yesterday the bird of night did sit
Even at noonday upon the marketplace,
Howling and shrieking. When these prodigies
Do so conjointly meet, let not men say
“These are their reasons; they are natural”:
For I believe they are portentous things

[William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar]