The Tragedy of Julius Caesar
William Shakespeare
SCENE I. Rome. A street.
Enter FLAVIUS and MARULLUS
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 Citizen
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 Citizen
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.
First Citizen
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?
Third Citizen
Nay, I beseech you, sir, be not out with me; yet, if you be out, sir, I can mend you.
MARULLUS
What mean'st thou by that? mend me, thou saucy fellow!
Third Citizen
Why, sir, cobble you.
MARULLUS
Thou art a cobbler, art thou?
Third Citizen
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.
FLAVIUS
But wherefore art not in thy shop today?
Why dost thou lead these men about the streets?
Third Citizen
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.
Poor people, punish them for being poor!
And for the general wrongs, protect yourselves.