Commoners. note
Flav.
Hence! home, you idle creatures, get you home:
Is this a holiday? what! know you not,
Being mechanical, you ought not walk
Upon a labouring day without the sign
Of your profession? Speak, what trade art thou?
First Com. note
Why, sir, a carpenter.
Mar.
Where is thy leather apron and thy rule?
What dost thou with thy best apparel on?
You, sir, what trade are you?
Sec. Com. note
Truly, sir, in respect of a fine workman, I
am but, as you note would say, a cobbler.
Mar.
But what trade art thou? answer me directly.
-- 320 --
Sec. Com. note
A trade, sir, that, I hope, I may use with a
safe conscience; which is indeed, sir, a mender of bad soles note.
Mar. note
What trade, thou knave? thou naughty knave, what trade?
Sec. Com. note
Nay, I beseech you, sir, be not out with
me: yet, if you be note out, sir, I can mend you.
Mar. note
What mean'st thou note by that? mend me, thou
saucy fellow!
Sec. Com.
Why, sir, cobble you.
Flav.
Thou art a cobbler, art thou?
Sec. Com.
Truly, sir, all that I live by is with note the awl: I
meddle with no tradesman's note matters, nor women's note matters,
but with awl. I note am indeed, sir, a surgeon to old shoes; when
they are in great danger, I re-cover note them. As proper men as
ever trod upon neats-leather have gone upon my handiwork.
Flav.
But wherefore art not in thy shop to-day?
Why dost thou lead these men about the streets? note
Sec. Com.
Truly, sir, to wear out their shoes, to get myself
into more work. But indeed, sir, we make holiday, to
see Cæsar and to rejoice in his triumph.
Mar.
Wherefore rejoice? What conquest note brings he home? note
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
-- 321 --
Have note you climb'd up to walls and battlements,
To towers and windows, note yea, to chimney-tops,
Your infants in your arms, and there have sat
The live-long day with patient expectation
To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome: note
And when you saw his chariot but appear,
Have you not made an universal shout,
That Tiber trembled underneath her note banks
To hear the replication of your sounds
Made in her note concave shores note?
And do you now put on your best attire?
And do you now cull out a note holiday?
And do you now strew flowers in his way
That comes note in triumph over Pompey's blood?
Be gone! note
Run to your houses, fall upon your knees,
Pray to the gods to intermit the plague
That needs must light on this ingratitude.
Flav.
Go, go, good countrymen, and, for this note fault,
Assemble all the poor men of your sort;
Draw them to Tiber banks note and weep your tears
Into the channel, till the lowest stream
Do kiss the most exalted shores of all.
[Exeunt note all the Commoners.
See, whether note their basest metal note be not moved;
They vanish note 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 note.
-- 322 --
Mar.
May we do so?
You know it is the feast of Lupercal note.
Flav.
It is note no matter; let no note images
Be hung with note Cæsar'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 pluck'd from Cæsar'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. note
note
William Aldis Wright [1863–1866], The works of William Shakespeare edited by William George Clark... and John Glover [and William Aldis Wright] (Macmillan and Co., London) [word count] [S10701].