Julius Caesar
Act I, Scene I
Rome. A street.
Two tribunes of the people, Flavius and Marullus, find a crowd of working men loitering in the streets in their best clothes. The men have shut up their shops to cheer Caesar’s triumphal procession back into Rome. The tribunes interrogate them — a carpenter answers plainly, a cobbler trades puns — and Marullus then unleashes a long furious speech reminding the commoners that not long ago they had cheered Pompey, the rival Caesar has just defeated and killed. Shamed, the crowd disperses. Flavius sends Marullus one way, takes the other himself, and resolves to strip the ceremonial garlands from the public statues that have been decked in Caesar’s honour, before Caesar’s power can grow further unchecked.
The scene is a model of compressed exposition. Caesar never appears, yet he is the entire subject: an absent figure already large enough to organise public ritual around himself, around whom the city is splitting into adoring crowds and watchful republicans. The play opens not with the conspirators but with the people — fickle, easily moved, recently for Pompey and now for Caesar — because crowd-fickleness and rhetorical control of the public will be the play’s real engine, the thing the assassination is supposed to fix and the thing it ultimately fails against. Flavius’s closing image of pulling feathers from Caesar’s wing to keep him at an “ordinary pitch” states the play’s republican thesis with falconer’s precision: the danger is not Caesar himself but Caesar allowed to soar.
Enter FLAVIUS, MARULLUS, and certain Commoners.
FLAVIUS
Hence! home, you idle creatures get you home:
Is this a holiday?
Is this a holiday?
Get out of here! Go home, you lazy good-for-nothings, get on home. Is today a holiday?
what! know you not,
Being mechanical, you ought not walk
Upon a labouring day without the sign
Of your profession?
Being mechanical, you ought not walk
Upon a labouring day without the sign
Of your profession?
What — don’t you know that, being manual labourers, you’re not supposed to be out walking around on a working day without the badge of your trade?
Speak, what trade art thou?
Speak up — what’s your trade?
First Commoner
Why, sir, a carpenter.
Why, sir, a carpenter.
MARULLUS
Where is thy leather apron and thy rule?
Then where is your leather apron and your measuring stick?
What dost thou with thy best apparel on?
What are you doing in your Sunday best?
You, sir, what trade are you?
You, sir — what’s your trade?
Second Commoner
Truly, sir, in respect of a fine workman, I am but, as you would say, a cobbler.
Truly, sir, compared with a really skilled tradesman, I’m only, as you might put it, a cobbler — which can mean either a shoe-mender or a clumsy bungler, take your pick.
MARULLUS
But what trade art thou?
But what is your trade, exactly?
answer me directly.
Answer me straight.
Second Commoner
A trade, sir, that, I hope, I may use with a safe conscience; which is, indeed, sir, a mender of bad soles.
A trade, sir, that I hope I can practise with a clear conscience — which is, indeed, sir, a mender of bad soles. (Or bad souls, if you like: the joke runs both ways.)
MARULLUS
What trade, thou knave?
What trade, you scoundrel?
thou naughty knave, what trade?
You wicked rascal — what trade?
Second Commoner
Nay, I beseech you, sir, be not out with me: yet, if you be out, sir, I can mend you.
No, please, sir, don’t be cross with me — though if you are out (out of temper, or out at the heels), sir, I can mend you.
MARULLUS
What meanest thou by that?
What do you mean by that?
mend me, thou saucy fellow!
Mend me, you cheeky fellow?
Second Commoner
Why, sir, cobble you.
Why, sir — cobble you. Patch you up.
FLAVIUS
Thou art a cobbler, art thou?
You’re a cobbler, are you?
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.
Truly, sir, all that I make my living by is the awl — the shoemaker’s tool. I don’t meddle in any tradesman’s business, nor in any woman’s, except with my awl. (Or with all of them, if you hear the pun.)
I am, indeed, sir, a surgeon to old shoes; when they are in great danger, I recover them.
I am, indeed, sir, a surgeon to old shoes — when they’re in mortal danger, I recover them.
As proper men as ever trod upon neat’s leather have gone upon my handiwork.
As fine men as ever walked in cowhide shoes have walked on my workmanship.
FLAVIUS
But wherefore art not in thy shop today?
But why aren’t you in your shop today?
Why dost thou lead these men about the streets?
Why are you leading these men about the streets?
Second Commoner
Truly, sir, to wear out their shoes, to get myself into more work.
Truly, sir, to wear out their shoes, so as to drum up more work for myself.
But, indeed, sir, we make holiday, to see Caesar and to rejoice in his triumph.
But really, sir, we’re taking the day off to see Caesar and to celebrate his triumph.
MARULLUS
Wherefore rejoice?
Rejoice over what?
What conquest brings he home?
What tributaries follow him to Rome,
To grace in captive bonds his chariot-wheels?
What tributaries follow him to Rome,
To grace in captive bonds his chariot-wheels?
What conquest is he bringing home? What captive princes from defeated nations are following him to Rome, to walk in chains beside his chariot wheels and add to his glory?
You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!
You blockheads, you lumps of stone, you worse than mindless things!
O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,
Knew you not Pompey?
Knew you not Pompey?
O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome — did you not know 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:
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:
Many a time, again and again, you climbed up onto walls and battlements, onto towers and windows, even onto chimney-tops, with your babies in your arms, and you sat there all day long, waiting patiently, just to see great Pompey pass through 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?
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 when his chariot just came into view, didn’t you let out one universal roar so loud that the river Tiber shook beneath her banks to hear the echo of your shouts come back from her hollow shores?
And do you now put on your best attire?
And now you put on your best clothes?
And do you now cull out a holiday?
And now you pick out a day to make a holiday of?
And do you now strew flowers in his way
That comes in triumph over Pompey’s blood?
That comes in triumph over Pompey’s blood?
And now you scatter flowers in the path of the man who comes in triumph over Pompey’s spilled blood — over his sons, his cause, his memory?
Be gone!
Get out of here!
Run to your houses, fall upon your knees,
Pray to the gods to intermit the plague
That needs must light on this ingratitude.
Pray to the gods to intermit the plague
That needs must light on this ingratitude.
Run home, fall to your knees, and pray to the gods to hold off the punishment that’s bound to fall on ingratitude like this.
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.
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.
Go on, good countrymen, and to atone for this fault, gather every poor man of your station; lead them to the banks of the Tiber and weep your tears into the river-bed until the lowest current rises to kiss the highest shores.
Exeunt all the Commoners.
FLAVIUS
See whether their basest metal be not moved;
They vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness.
They vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness.
See if even their lowest natures aren’t shamed into feeling something — they slink off without a word, struck dumb by guilt.
Go you down that way towards the Capitol;
This way will I: disrobe the images,
If you do find them deck’d with ceremonies.
This way will I: disrobe the images,
If you do find them deck’d with ceremonies.
You go that way, towards the Capitol; I’ll go this way. Strip the public statues bare, if you find them dressed up with garlands and trophies.
MARULLUS
May we do so?
Are we allowed to do that?
You know it is the feast of Lupercal.
You know it’s the feast of Lupercal.
FLAVIUS
It is no matter; let no images
Be hung with Caesar’s trophies.
Be hung with Caesar’s trophies.
It doesn’t matter — let no statue be hung with Caesar’s trophies.
I’ll about,
And drive away the vulgar from the streets:
And drive away the vulgar from the streets:
I’ll go round and drive the common people off the streets.
So do you too, where you perceive them thick.
You do the same, wherever you find them clustered.
These growing feathers pluck’d 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.
Will make him fly an ordinary pitch,
Who else would soar above the view of men
And keep us all in servile fearfulness.
These new-grown feathers, plucked from Caesar’s wing, will keep him flying at an ordinary height — otherwise he’d soar out of sight altogether and hold us all in slavish fear.
Exeunt. — End of Act I, Scene I.