Rome. A Street. | |
| |
Enter FLAVIUS, MARULLUS, and certain Commoners. | |
| Flav. Hence! home, you idle creatures, get you home: | |
| Is this a holiday? What! know you not, | 4 |
| Being mechanical, you ought not walk | |
| Upon a labouring day without the sign | |
| Of your profession? Speak, what trade art thou? | |
| First Com. Why, sir, a carpenter. | 8 |
| Mar. Where is thy leather apron, and thy rule? | |
| What dost thou with thy best apparel on? | |
| You, sir, what trade are you? | |
| Second Com. Truly, sir, in respect of a fine workman, I am but, as you would say, a cobbler. | 12 |
| Mar. But what trade art thou? Answer me directly. | |
| Sec. Com. A trade, sir, that, I hope, I may use with a safe conscience; which is, indeed, sir, a mender of bad soles. | |
| Mar. What trade, thou knave? thou naughty knave, what trade? | |
| Sec. Com. Nay, I beseech you, sir, be not out with me: yet, if you be out, sir, I can mend you. | 16 |
| Mar. What meanest thou by that? Mend me, thou saucy fellow! | |
| Sec. Com. Why, sir, cobble you. | |
| Flav. Thou art a cobbler, art thou? | |
| Sec. Com. 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. | 20 |
| Flav. But wherefore art not in thy shop today? | |
| Why dost thou lead these men about the streets? | |
| Sec. Com. Truly, sir, to wear out their shoes, to get myself into more work. But, indeed, sir, we make holiday to see Cæsar and to rejoice in his triumph. | |
| Mar. Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home? | 24 |
| 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, | 28 |
| 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 | 32 |
| 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 a universal shout, | 36 |
| 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? | 40 |
| 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! | 44 |
| Run to your houses, fall upon your knees, | |
| Pray to the gods to intermit the plague | |
| That needs must light on this ingratitude. | |
| Flav. Go, go, good countrymen, and, for this fault | 48 |
| 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. | 52 |
| See whe’r their basest metal be not mov’d; | |
| They vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness. | |
| Go you down that way towards the Capitol; | |
| This way will I. Disrobe the images | 56 |
| If you do find them deck’d with ceremonies. | |
| Mar. May we do so? | |
| You know it is the feast of Lupercal. | |
| Flav. It is no matter; let no images | 60 |
| Be hung with Cæsar’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 Cæsar’s wing | 64 |
| Will make him fly an ordinary pitch, | |
| Who else would soar above the view of men | |
| And keep us all in servile fearfulness. [Exeunt. | |
