Internet Shakespeare Editions

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: John D. Cox
Peer Reviewed

Julius Caesar (Modern)

The Tragedy of Julius Caesar
1[1.1]
Enter Flavius, Murellus, and certain commoners over the stage.
Flavius
5Hence! Home, you idle creatures! Get you home!
Is this a holiday? What, know you not,
Being mechanical, you ought not walk
Upon a laboring day, without the sign
Of your profession? Speak, what trade art thou?
10Carpenter
Why, sir, a carpenter.
Murellus
Where is thy leather apron and thy rule?
What dost thou with thy best apparel on?
You, sir, what trade are you?
Cobbler
Truly, sir, in respect of a fine workman, I am 15but as you would say, a cobbler.
Murellus
But what trade art thou? Answer me directly.
Cobbler
A trade, sir, that I hope I may use, with a safe conscience, which is indeed sir, a mender of bad soles.
Flavius
What trade, thou knave? Thou naughty knave, 20what trade?
Cobbler
Nay, I beseech you, sir, be not out with me. Yet if you be out, sir, I can mend you.
Murellus
What mean'st thou by that? Mend me, thou saucy fellow?
25Cobbler
Why, sir, cobble you.
Flavius
Thou art a cobbler, art thou?
Cobbler
Truly sir, all that I live by is with the awl. I meddle with no tradesman's matters, nor women's matters; but withal I am indeed, sir, a surgeon to old shoes: 30when 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?
35Cobbler
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.
Murellus
Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?
40What 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?
45Have you climbed 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?
50And 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?
55And 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?
Begone!
60Run 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;
65Draw 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 whe'er their basest mettle be not moved:
70They 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 decked with ceremonies.
Murellus
May we do so?
75You 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.
80These growing feathers, plucked 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