Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
Act 1 - Scene 1
Rome. A street.
Flavius : Hence! home, you idle creatures get you home:
[p]Is this a holiday?
what! know you not,
[p]Being mechanical, you ought not walk
[p]Upon a
labouring day without the sign
[p]Of your profession? Speak, what
trade art thou?
First Commoner : Why, sir, a carpenter.
Marullus : Where is thy leather apron and thy rule?
[p]What dost thou with thy
best apparel on?
[p]You, sir, what trade are you?
Second Commoner : Truly, sir, in respect of a fine workman, I am but,
[p]as you would
say, a cobbler.
Marullus : But what trade art thou? answer me directly.
Second Commoner : A trade, sir, that, I hope, I may use with a safe
[p]conscience; which
is, indeed, sir, a mender of bad soles.
Marullus : What trade, thou knave? thou naughty knave, what trade?
Second Commoner : Nay, I beseech you, sir, be not out with me: yet,
[p]if you be out,
sir, I can mend you.
Marullus : What meanest thou by that? mend me, thou saucy fellow!
Second Commoner : Why, sir, cobble you.
Flavius : Thou art a cobbler, art thou?
Second Commoner : Truly, sir, all that I live by is with the awl: I
[p]meddle with no
tradesman's matters, nor women's
[p]matters, but with awl. I am,
indeed, sir, a surgeon
[p]to old shoes; when they are in great danger,
I
[p]recover them. As proper men as ever trod upon
[p]neat's leather
have gone upon my handiwork.
Flavius : But wherefore art not in thy shop today?
[p]Why dost thou lead these
men about the streets?
Second Commoner : Truly, sir, to wear out their shoes, to get myself
[p]into more work.
But, indeed, sir, we make holiday,
[p]to see Caesar and to rejoice in
his triumph.
Marullus : Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?
[p]What tributaries
follow him to Rome,
[p]To grace in captive bonds his
chariot-wheels?
[p]You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless
things!
[p]O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,
[p]Knew you not
Pompey? Many a time and oft
[p]Have you climb'd up to walls and
battlements,
[p]To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops,
[p]Your
infants in your arms, and there have sat
[p]The livelong day, with
patient expectation,
[p]To see great Pompey pass the streets of
Rome:
[p]And when you saw his chariot but appear,
[p]Have you not made
an universal shout,
[p]That Tiber trembled underneath her banks,
[p]To
hear the replication of your sounds
[p]Made in her concave
shores?
[p]And do you now put on your best attire?
[p]And do you now
cull out a holiday?
[p]And do you now strew flowers in his way
[p]That
comes in triumph over Pompey's blood? Be gone!
[p]Run to your houses,
fall upon your knees,
[p]Pray to the gods to intermit the
plague
[p]That needs must light on this ingratitude.
Flavius : Go, go, good countrymen, and, for this fault,
[p]Assemble all the poor
men of your sort;
[p]Draw them to Tiber banks, and weep your
tears
[p]Into the channel, till the lowest stream
[p]Do kiss the most
exalted shores of all.
[p][Exeunt all the Commoners]
[p]See whether
their basest metal be not moved;
[p]They vanish tongue-tied in their
guiltiness.
[p]Go you down that way towards the Capitol;
[p]This way
will I disrobe the images,
[p]If you do find them deck'd with
ceremonies.
Marullus : May we do so?
[p]You know it is the feast of Lupercal.
Flavius : It is no matter; let no images
[p]Be hung with Caesar's trophies. I'll
about,
[p]And drive away the vulgar from the streets:
[p]So do you
too, where you perceive them thick.
[p]These growing feathers pluck'd
from Caesar's wing
[p]Will make him fly an ordinary pitch,
[p]Who else
would soar above the view of men
[p]And keep us all in servile
fearfulness.
Next: Act 1 - Scene 2
