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Julius Caesar: Act 1, Scene 1

           Enter FLAVIUS, MARULLUS, and
           certain Commoners over the stage.

      FLAVIUS
  1   Hence! home, you idle creatures get you home:
  2   Is this a holiday? what! know you not,
  3   Being mechanical, you ought not walk
  4   Upon a labouring day without the sign
  5   Of your profession? Speak, what trade art thou?

      First Commoner
  6   Why, sir, a carpenter.

      MARULLUS
  7   Where is thy leather apron and thy rule?
  8   What dost thou with thy best apparel on?
  9   You, sir, what trade are you?

      Second Commoner
 10   Truly, sir, in respect of a fine workman, I am but,
 11   as you would say, a cobbler.

      MARULLUS
 12   But what trade art thou? answer me directly.

      Second Commoner
 13   A trade, sir, that, I hope, I may use with a safe
 14   conscience; which is, indeed, sir, a mender of bad soles.

      MARULLUS
 15   What trade, thou knave? thou naughty knave, what trade?

      Second Commoner
 16   Nay, I beseech you, sir, be not out with me: yet,
 17   if you be out, sir, I can mend you.

      MARULLUS
 18   What meanest thou by that? mend me, thou saucy fellow!

      Second Commoner
 19   Why, sir, cobble you.

      FLAVIUS
 20   Thou art a cobbler, art thou?

      Second Commoner
 21   Truly, sir, all that I live by is with the awl: I
 22   meddle with no tradesman's matters, nor women's
 23   matters, but withawl I am, indeed, sir, a surgeon
 24   to old shoes; when they are in great danger, I
 25   recover them. As proper men as ever trod upon
 26   neat's leather have gone upon my handiwork.

      FLAVIUS
 27   But wherefore art not in thy shop today?
 28   Why dost thou lead these men about the streets?

      Second Commoner
 29   Truly, sir, to wear out their shoes, to get myself
 30   into more work. But, indeed, sir, we make holiday,
 31   to see Caesar and to rejoice in his triumph.

      MARULLUS
 32   Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?
 33   What tributaries follow him to Rome,
 34   To grace in captive bonds his chariot-wheels?
 35   You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!
 36   O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,
 37   Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft
 38   Have you climb'd up to walls and battlements,
 39   To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops,
 40   Your infants in your arms, and there have sat
 41   The livelong day, with patient expectation,
 42   To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome:
 43   And when you saw his chariot but appear,
 44   Have you not made an universal shout,
 45   That Tiber trembled underneath her banks,
 46   To hear the replication of your sounds
 47   Made in her concave shores?
 48   And do you now put on your best attire?
 49   And do you now cull out a holiday?
 50   And do you now strew flowers in his way
 51   That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood?
 52   Be gone!
 53   Run to your houses, fall upon your knees,
 54   Pray to the gods to intermit the plague
 55   That needs must light on this ingratitude.

      FLAVIUS
 56   Go, go, good countrymen, and, for this fault,
 57   Assemble all the poor men of your sort;
 58   Draw them to Tiber banks, and weep your tears
 59   Into the channel, till the lowest stream
 60   Do kiss the most exalted shores of all.

           Exeunt all the Commoners.

 61   See whether their basest metal be not moved;
 62   They vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness.
 63   Go you down that way towards the Capitol;
 64   This way will I. Disrobe the images,
 65   If you do find them deck'd with ceremonies.

      MARULLUS
 66   May we do so?
 67   You know it is the feast of Lupercal.

      FLAVIUS
 68   It is no matter; let no images
 69   Be hung with Caesar's trophies. I'll about,
 70   And drive away the vulgar from the streets:
 71   So do you too, where you perceive them thick.
 72   These growing feathers pluck'd from Caesar's wing
 73   Will make him fly an ordinary pitch,
 74   Who else would soar above the view of men
 75   And keep us all in servile fearfulness.

           Exeunt.