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 laboring 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 mean'st 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.

          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,