<acts>
  <act>
    <SCENE>
      <TITLE>SCENE I.  Rome. A street.</TITLE>
      <STAGEDIR>Enter FLAVIUS, MARULLUS, and certain Commoners</STAGEDIR>
      <SPEECH>
        <SPEAKER>FLAVIUS</SPEAKER>
        <LINE>Hence! home, you idle creatures get you home:</LINE>
        <LINE>Is this a holiday? what! know you not,</LINE>
        <LINE>Being mechanical, you ought not walk</LINE>
        <LINE>Upon a labouring day without the sign</LINE>
        <LINE>Of your profession? Speak, what trade art thou?</LINE>
      </SPEECH>
      <SPEECH>
        <SPEAKER>First Commoner</SPEAKER>
        <LINE>Why, sir, a carpenter.</LINE>
      </SPEECH>
      <SPEECH>
        <SPEAKER>MARULLUS</SPEAKER>
        <LINE>Where is thy leather apron and thy rule?</LINE>
        <LINE>What dost thou with thy best apparel on?</LINE>
        <LINE>You, sir, what trade are you?</LINE>
      </SPEECH>
      <SPEECH>
        <SPEAKER>Second Commoner</SPEAKER>
        <LINE>Truly, sir, in respect of a fine workman, I am but,</LINE>
        <LINE>as you would say, a cobbler.</LINE>
      </SPEECH>
      <SPEECH>
        <SPEAKER>MARULLUS</SPEAKER>
        <LINE>But what trade art thou? answer me directly.</LINE>
      </SPEECH>
      <SPEECH>
        <SPEAKER>Second Commoner</SPEAKER>
        <LINE>A trade, sir, that, I hope, I may use with a safe</LINE>
        <LINE>conscience; which is, indeed, sir, a mender of bad soles.</LINE>
      </SPEECH>
      <SPEECH>
        <SPEAKER>MARULLUS</SPEAKER>
        <LINE>What trade, thou knave? thou naughty knave, what trade?</LINE>
      </SPEECH>
      <SPEECH>
        <SPEAKER>Second Commoner</SPEAKER>
        <LINE>Nay, I beseech you, sir, be not out with me: yet,</LINE>
        <LINE>if you be out, sir, I can mend you.</LINE>
      </SPEECH>
      <SPEECH>
        <SPEAKER>MARULLUS</SPEAKER>
        <LINE>What meanest thou by that? mend me, thou saucy fellow!</LINE>
      </SPEECH>
      <SPEECH>
        <SPEAKER>Second Commoner</SPEAKER>
        <LINE>Why, sir, cobble you.</LINE>
      </SPEECH>
      <SPEECH>
        <SPEAKER>FLAVIUS</SPEAKER>
        <LINE>Thou art a cobbler, art thou?</LINE>
      </SPEECH>
      <SPEECH>
        <SPEAKER>Second Commoner</SPEAKER>
        <LINE>Truly, sir, all that I live by is with the awl: I</LINE>
        <LINE>meddle with no tradesman's matters, nor women's</LINE>
        <LINE>matters, but with awl. I am, indeed, sir, a surgeon</LINE>
        <LINE>to old shoes; when they are in great danger, I</LINE>
        <LINE>recover them. As proper men as ever trod upon</LINE>
        <LINE>neat's leather have gone upon my handiwork.</LINE>
      </SPEECH>
      <SPEECH>
        <SPEAKER>FLAVIUS</SPEAKER>
        <LINE>But wherefore art not in thy shop today?</LINE>
        <LINE>Why dost thou lead these men about the streets?</LINE>
      </SPEECH>
      <SPEECH>
        <SPEAKER>Second Commoner</SPEAKER>
        <LINE>Truly, sir, to wear out their shoes, to get myself</LINE>
        <LINE>into more work. But, indeed, sir, we make holiday,</LINE>
        <LINE>to see Caesar and to rejoice in his triumph.</LINE>
      </SPEECH>
      <SPEECH>
        <SPEAKER>MARULLUS</SPEAKER>
        <LINE>Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?</LINE>
        <LINE>What tributaries follow him to Rome,</LINE>
        <LINE>To grace in captive bonds his chariot-wheels?</LINE>
        <LINE>You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!</LINE>
        <LINE>O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,</LINE>
        <LINE>Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft</LINE>
        <LINE>Have you climb'd up to walls and battlements,</LINE>
        <LINE>To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops,</LINE>
        <LINE>Your infants in your arms, and there have sat</LINE>
        <LINE>The livelong day, with patient expectation,</LINE>
        <LINE>To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome:</LINE>
        <LINE>And when you saw his chariot but appear,</LINE>
        <LINE>Have you not made an universal shout,</LINE>
        <LINE>That Tiber trembled underneath her banks,</LINE>
        <LINE>To hear the replication of your sounds</LINE>
        <LINE>Made in her concave shores?</LINE>
        <LINE>And do you now put on your best attire?</LINE>
        <LINE>And do you now cull out a holiday?</LINE>
        <LINE>And do you now strew flowers in his way</LINE>
        <LINE>That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood? Be gone!</LINE>
        <LINE>Run to your houses, fall upon your knees,</LINE>
        <LINE>Pray to the gods to intermit the plague</LINE>
        <LINE>That needs must light on this ingratitude.</LINE>
      </SPEECH>
      <SPEECH>
        <SPEAKER>FLAVIUS</SPEAKER>
        <LINE>Go, go, good countrymen, and, for this fault,</LINE>
        <LINE>Assemble all the poor men of your sort;</LINE>
        <LINE>Draw them to Tiber banks, and weep your tears</LINE>
        <LINE>Into the channel, till the lowest stream</LINE>
        <LINE>Do kiss the most exalted shores of all.</LINE>
        <STAGEDIR>Exeunt all the Commoners</STAGEDIR>
        <LINE>See whether their basest metal be not moved;</LINE>
        <LINE>They vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness.</LINE>
        <LINE>Go you down that way towards the Capitol;</LINE>
        <LINE>This way will I disrobe the images,</LINE>
        <LINE>If you do find them deck'd with ceremonies.</LINE>
      </SPEECH>
      <SPEECH>
        <SPEAKER>MARULLUS</SPEAKER>
        <LINE>May we do so?</LINE>
        <LINE>You know it is the feast of Lupercal.</LINE>
      </SPEECH>
      <SPEECH>
        <SPEAKER>FLAVIUS</SPEAKER>
        <LINE>It is no matter; let no images</LINE>
        <LINE>Be hung with Caesar's trophies. I'll about,</LINE>
        <LINE>And drive away the vulgar from the streets:</LINE>
        <LINE>So do you too, where you perceive them thick.</LINE>
        <LINE>These growing feathers pluck'd from Caesar's wing</LINE>
        <LINE>Will make him fly an ordinary pitch,</LINE>
        <LINE>Who else would soar above the view of men</LINE>
        <LINE>And keep us all in servile fearfulness.</LINE>
      </SPEECH>
      <STAGEDIR>Exeunt</STAGEDIR>
    </SCENE>
  </act>
</acts>