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 labouring day, without the sign
Of your profession? speak what trade art thou?

Car.
Why Sir, a carpenter.

Mur.
Where is thy leather apron, and thy rule?
What dost thou with thy best apparel on?
You Sir, what trade are you?

Cob.

Truly Sir, in respect of a fine workman I am but as you would say, a cobler.

Mur.

But what trade art thou? answer me directly.

Cob.

A trade, Sir, that I hope I may use with a safe conscience, which is indeed, Sir, a mender of bad soals.

Flav.

What trade, thou knave? thou naughty knave, what trade?

Cob.

Nay, I beseech you, Sir, be not out with me; yet if you be out, Sir, I can mend you.

Mur.

What mean'st thou by that? mend me, thou sawcy fellow?

Cob.

Why, Sir, cobble you.

Flav.

Thou art a cobler, art thou?

Cob.

Truly Sir, all that I live by, is the awl: I meddle with no tradesman's matters, nor woman's matters; but withall, I am indeed, Sir, a surgeon to old shoes; when they are in great danger, I re-cover them. As proper men as ever trod upon neats-leather have gone upon my handy-work.

Flav.
But wherefore art not in thy shop to-day?
Why dost thou lead these men about the streets?

Cob.

Truly Sir, to wear out their shooes, to get my self into more work. But indeed, Sir, we make holy-day to see Cæsar, and to rejoice in his triumph.

Mur.
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 sate
The live-long 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 Tyber trembled underneath his banks
To hear the replication of your sounds,
Made in his concave shores?
And do you now put on your best attire?

And do you now cull out an 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.

Flav.
Go, go, good countrymen, and for this fault
Assemble all the poor men of your sort,
Draw them to Tyber bank, and weep your tears
Into the channel, 'till the lowest stream
Do kiss the most exalted shores of all. [Exeunt Commoners.
See where their basest mettle be not mov'd,
They vanish'd tongue-ty'd in their guiltiness.
Go you down that way tow'rds the capitol,
This way will I; disrobe the images,
If you do find them deck'd with ceremonies.

Mur.
May we do so?
You know it is the feast of Lupercal.

Flav.
It is no matter, let no images
Be hung with 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 pluckt 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.

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