SCENE I. Rome. A street. The Life and Death of Julius Caesar  Shakespeare homepage  |  Julius Caesar  | Act 1, Scene 1 

 Next scene  SCENE I. Rome. A street. 

 Enter FLAVIUS, MARULLUS, and certain Commoners  FLAVIUS  Hence! home, you idle creatures get you home: 

 Is this a holiday? what! know you not, 

 Being mechanical, you ought not walk 

 Upon a labouring day without the sign 

 Of your profession? Speak, what trade art thou? 

 First Commoner  Why, sir, a carpenter. 

 MARULLUS  Where is thy leather apron and thy rule? 

 What dost thou with thy best apparel on? 

 You, sir, what trade are you? 

 Second Commoner  Truly, sir, in respect of a fine workman, I am but, 

 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 

 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, 

 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 

 meddle with no tradesman's matters, nor women's 

 matters, but with awl. I am, indeed, sir, a surgeon 

 to old shoes; when they are in great danger, I 

 recover them. As proper men as ever trod upon 

 neat's leather have gone upon my handiwork. 

 FLAVIUS  But wherefore art not in thy shop today? 

 Why dost thou lead these men about the streets? 

 Second Commoner  Truly, sir, to wear out their shoes, to get myself 

 into more work. But, indeed, sir, we make holiday, 

 to see Caesar and to rejoice in his triumph. 

 MARULLUS  Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home? 

 What tributaries follow him to Rome, 

 To grace in captive bonds his chariot-wheels? 

 You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things! 

 O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome, 

 Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft 

 Have you climb'd up to walls and battlements, 

 To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops, 

 Your infants in your arms, and there have sat 

 The livelong day, with patient expectation, 

 To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome: 

 And when you saw his chariot but appear, 

 Have you not made an universal shout, 

 That Tiber trembled underneath her banks, 

 To hear the replication of your sounds 

 Made in her concave shores? 

 And do you now put on your best attire? 

 And do you now cull out a holiday? 

 And do you now strew flowers in his way 

 That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood? Be gone! 

 Run to your houses, fall upon your knees, 

 Pray to the gods to intermit the plague 

 That needs must light on this ingratitude. 

 FLAVIUS  Go, go, good countrymen, and, for this fault, 

 Assemble all the poor men of your sort; 

 Draw them to Tiber banks, and weep your tears 

 Into the channel, till the lowest stream 

 Do kiss the most exalted shores of all. 



 Exeunt all the Commoners  See whether their basest metal be not moved; 

 They vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness. 

 Go you down that way towards the Capitol; 

 This way will I  disrobe the images, 

 If you do find them deck'd with ceremonies. 

 MARULLUS  May we do so? 

 You know it is the feast of Lupercal. 

 FLAVIUS  It is no matter; let no images 

 Be hung with Caesar's trophies. I'll about, 

 And drive away the vulgar from the streets: 

 So do you too, where you perceive them thick. 

 These growing feathers pluck'd from Caesar's wing 

 Will make him fly an ordinary pitch, 

 Who else would soar above the view of men 

 And keep us all in servile fearfulness. 



 Exeunt  Shakespeare homepage  |  Julius Caesar  | Act 1, Scene 1 

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