Of your profession?—Speak, what trade art thou?

CARPENTER 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 but, 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, what 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?

COBBLER 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: 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?

COBBLER 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?

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 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.

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.

Exeunt all the commoners

See whe’er their basest mettle 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 decked with ceremonies.

MURELLUS 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 where you perceive them thick.

These 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

1.2 ⌈Loud music.⌉ Enter Caesar, Antony stripped for the course, Calpurnia, Portia, Decius, Cicero, Brutus, Cassius, Casca, a Soothsayer, ⌈a throng of citizens⌉; after them, Murellus and Flavius

CAESAR Calpurnia.

CASCA Peace, ho! Caesar speaks. ⌈Music ceases⌉

CAESAR Calpurnia.

CALPURMA Here, my lord.

CAESAR

Stand you directly in Antonio’s way

When he doth run his course.—Antonio.

ANTONY Caesar, my lord.

CAESAR

Forget not in your speed, Antonio,

To touch Calpurnia, for our elders say

The barren, touched in this holy chase,

Shake off their sterile curse.

ANTONY

I shall remember:

When Caesar says ‘Do this’, it is performed.

CAESAR

Set on, and leave no ceremony out.

⌈music⌉

SOOTHSAYER Caesar!

CAESAR Ha! Who calls?

CASCA

Bid every noise be still. Peace yet again.

⌈Music ceases⌉

CAESAR

Who is it in the press that calls on me?

I hear a tongue shriller than all the music

Cry ‘Caesar!’ Speak. Caesar is turned to hear.

SOOTHSAYER

Beware the ides of March.

CAESAR What man is that?

BRUTUS

A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March.

CAESAR

Set him before me; let me see his face.

CASSIUS

Fellow, come from the throng; look upon Caesar.

The Soothsayer comes forward

CAESAR

What sayst thou to me now? Speak once again.

SOOTHSAYER Beware the ides of March.

CAESAR

He is a dreamer. Let us leave him. Pass!

Sennet. Exeunt all but Brutus and Cassius

CASSIUS Will you go see the order of the course?

BRUTUS Not I.

CASSIUS I pray you, do.

BRUTUS

I am not gamesome; I do lack some part

Of that quick spirit that is in Antony.

Let me not hinder, Cassius, your desires.

I’ll leave you.

CASSIUS

Brutus, I do observe you now of late.

I have not from your eyes that gentleness

And show of love as I was wont to have.

You bear too stubborn and too strange a hand

Over your friend that loves you.

BRUTUS Cassius,

Be not deceived. If I have veiled my look,

I turn the trouble of my countenance

Merely upon myself. Vexed I am