7

JULIUS CESAR.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Rome. A Street.

Enter FLAVIUS, MARULLUS, and a rabble of Citizens. 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 laboring day, without the sign

Of your profession? Speak, what trade art thou?
1 Cit. 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?

2 Cit. Truly, sir, in respect of a fine workman, I am but, as you would say, a cobbler.

Mar. But what trade art thou? Answer me directly. 2 Cit. A trade, sir, that, I hope, I may use with a safe conscience; which is, indeed, sir, a mender of bad soles.

Mar. What trade, thou knave; thou naughty knave, what trade?

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

Mar. What mean'st thou by that? Mend me, thou saucy fellow?

2 Cit. Why, sir, cobble you.

Flav. Thou art a cobbler, art thou?

2 Cit. 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. 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 handy work.

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

2 Cit. 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 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 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 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.

Flav. Go, go, good countrymen, and, for this fault,

Assemble all the poor men of your sort;1

Draw them to Tyber banks, and weep your tears

1 Condition, rank.

Into the channel, till the lowest stream
Do kiss the most exalted shores of all.

[Exeunt Citizens.

See, whe'r' their basest metal 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.*
Mar. 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 plucked 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.

SCENE II. The same. A public Place.

Enter, in procession, with music, CESAR, ANTONY, for the course; CALPHURNIA, PORTIA, DECIUS, CICERO, BRUTUS, CASSIUS, and CASCA, a great crowd following, among them a Soothsayer.

1 Whether.

2 Honorary ornaments.

3 These trophies were scarfs.

4 This person was not Decius, but Decimus Brutus. The Poet (as Voltaire has done since) confounds the characters of Marcus and Decimus. Decimus Brutus was the most cherished by Cæsar of all his friends, while Marcus kept aloof. The error has its source in North's translation of Plutarch, or in Holland's Suetonius, 1606.

Cæs. Stand you directly in Antonius' way,'
When he doth run his course.-Antonius!
Ant. Cæsar, my lord!

Cæs. Forget not, in your speed, Antonius,
To touch Calphurnia; for our elders say,
The barren, touched in this holy chase,
Shake off their sterile curse.

Ant.

I shall remember;

When Cæsar says, Do this, it is performed.

Cæs. Set on; and leave no ceremony out. [Music. Sooth. Cæsar!

Cæs. Ha! who calls?

Casca. Bid every noise be still.-Peace yet again.

[Music ceases.

Cæs. Who is it in the press that calls on me?
I hear a tongue, shriller than all the music,
Cry, Cæsar. Speak; Cæsar is turned to hear.
Sooth. Beware the ides of March.

Cæs.

What man is that?

Bru. A soothsayer, bids you beware the ides of

March.

Cæs. Set him before me; let me see his face.
Cas. Fellow, come from the throng. Look upon

Cæsar.

Cæs. What say'st thou to me now? Speak once

again.

Sooth. Beware the ides of March.

Cæs. He is a dreamer; let us leave him ;-pass.
[Sennet. Exeunt all but BRU. and CAS.

Cas. Will you go see the order of the course?
Bru. Not I.

Cas. I pray you, do.

Bru. 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.

1 The old copy reads "Antonio's way;" in other places we have Octavio, Flavio. The players were more accustomed to Italian than Latin terminations. The allusion is to a custom at the Lupercalia. 2 See King Henry VIII. Act ii. Sc. 4.

Cas. 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.

Bru.

Cassius,

Be not deceived; if I have veiled my look,
I turn the trouble of my countenance
Merely upon myself. Vexed I am,

Of late, with passions of some difference,
Conceptions only proper to myself,

Which give some soil, perhaps, to my behaviors;
But let not therefore my good friends be grieved,
(Among which number, Cassius, be you one,)
Nor construe any further my neglect,

Than that poor Brutus, with himself at war,
Forgets the shows of love to other men.

Čas. Then, Brutus, I have much mistook your passion,1

By means whereof, this breast of mine hath buried
Thoughts of great value, worthy cogitations.
Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face?
Bru. No, Cassius; for the eye sees not itself,
But by reflection, by some other things.

Cas. 'Tis just ;

And it is very much lamented, Brutus,

That you have no such mirrors, as will turn
Your hidden worthiness into your eye,

That you might see your shadow. I have heard,
Where many of the best respect in Rome,
(Except immortal Cæsar,) speaking of Brutus,
And groaning underneath this age's yoke,
Have wished that noble Brutus had his eyes.
Bru. Into what dangers would you lead me,
That you would have me seek into myself
For that which is not in me?

Cassius,

Cas. Therefore, good Brutus, be prepared to hear; And, since you know you cannot see yourself

1 i. e. the nature of the feelings which you are now suffering.