It is February 15, 44 B.C.E.

Act One Two tribunes, Flavius and

Marullus, encounter a
group of tradesmen
Scene 1 celebrating Caesar’s victory
over Pompey’s forces. The
tribunes shame the
Rome. A street. workers by reminding
them of how they used to
Enter Flavius, Marullus, and certain Commoners. rejoice at Pompey’s
triumphs.

FLAVIUS: Hence, home you idle creatures, get you home! RELATED READING
Is this a holiday? What, know you not, Historical Background
Being mechanical, you ought not walk to Julius Caesar -
Upon a laboring day without the sign historical essay by Issac
Of your profession? Speak, what trade art thou? Asimov (page 115)
CARPENTER: Why, sir, a carpenter.
MARULLUS: Where is thy leather apron and thy rule? 3. mechanical – of the
What dost thou with thy best apparel on? working class
You sir, what trade are you? 11. cobbler – wordplay; a
COBBLER: Truly sir, in respect of a fine workman, I am 10 mender of shoes or a bungler
but, as you would say, a cobbler.
MARULLUS: But what trade art thou? Answer me directly. The puns and detail in this
COBBLER: A trade, sir, that I hope I may use with a safe scene with the mechanicals
conscience, which is, indeed sir, a mender of bad soles. would have appealed directly
MARULLUS: What trade, thou knave? Thou naughty knave, to the groundings in
what trade? Shakespeare’s play. The
COBBLER: Nay I beseech you sir, be not out with me. Yet, details about daily life come
if you be out, sir, I can mend you. from Elizabethan England and
MARULLUS: What meanest thou by that? Mend me, thou not from Rome.
saucy fellow! 2
0 18. be out – wordplay; angry
COBBLER: Why sir, cobble you. or in need of a shoe repair
FLAVIUS: Thou art a cobbler, art thou? 23. awl – shoemaker’s tool
COBBLER: Truly sir, all that I live by, is with the awl. I
meddle with no tradesman’s matters, nor women’s
matters, but withal 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 handiwork.

awl
25. withal – wordplay; “with
awl”
1 27. neat’s leather - cowhide
FLAVIUS: But wherefore art not in thy shop today?
Why dost thou lead these men about the streets?

30

COBBLER: Truly, sir, to wear our their shoes, to get myself

into more work. But indeed, sir, we make holiday, to see
Caesar and to rejoice in his triumph.

MARULLUS: Wherefore rejoice?

What conquest brings he come?
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 livelong 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 Tiber trembled underneath her banks,
To hear the replication of your sounds
Made in her concave shores?
And do you now out 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.

FLAVIUS: Go, go, good countrymen, and, for this fault,

Assemble all the poor men of your sort,

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 Draw them to Tiber banks, and weep your tears
Into the channel, till the lowest stream
Do kiss the most exalted shores of all.

60

Exeunt all the Commoners.

See whether 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.

33. triumph – A general, returning home after a victorious campaign, would often be granted a formal
procession (triumph) through the streets of Rome. During a triumph, the spoils of victory and the captives
taken would be paraded in front of the Roman citizens. The tribune, Marulus, argues that Caesar’s victory
over Pompey should not be celebrated with a triumph because no foreign power had been vanquished.
36. tributaries – captives
40. Pompey – a mighty general and leader of Rome. The forces of Pompey the Great were defeated by
Caesar in 48 B.C.E. Pompey fled to Egypt but was caught and subsequently beheaded by an Egyptian faction
in an attempt to please Caesar.
48. Tiber – a river that runs through Rome.
49. replication – echo; reverberation

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50. concave shores – over-hanging banks
52. cull – pick, pluck

57. intermit – delay

63. kiss… exalted – reach the highest

64. basest metal – worthless nature

67. Disrobe the images – For special occasions, statues would be decorated with scarves and ribbons
(ceremonies). For this particular occasion, history tells us that flatterers adorned Caesar’s statues with
diadems (crowns) signifying their desire for him to be thought of as a king.

MARULLUS: May we do so?

You know it is the Feast of Lupercal.

70

FLAVIUS: It is no matter. Let no images

Be hung with Caesar’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 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.

Exeunt.

70. Feast of Lupercal – a spring fertility festival celebrated on February 15. It would be considered a
sacrilege to rip down decorations put up to celebrate the Pan-like god Lupercus.

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73. vulgar – Today this term has negative connotations, but such was not the case in Shakespeare’s or
Caesar’s day. In Latin, the word vulgus means simply “common people.”

76. pitch – height

77. else – otherwise

77 - 78. Flavius expresses what is to be a recurrent theme in the play: Romans, proud of their republican
traditions, fear that Caesar will soar so high that he will become all-powerful, like a god, and that Romans
will consequently lose their cherished freedom.