Senators, Citizens, Guards, Attendants, &c.

SCENE, during a great part of the play, at Rome: afterwards at Sardis, and near Philippi.

ACT. I. SCENE I.

Rome.

A street.

Enter FLAVIUS, MARULLUS, and certain citizens.

FLAVIUS.

Hence! home, you idle creatures, get you home.
Is this a holiday? What! know you not,
Being mechanical, 1) you ought not walk
Upon a labouring day without the sign
Of your profession?

Speak, what trade art thou?

1) d. i. tot den handwerkersstand behoorend.

Why, Sir, a carpenter.

1 CITIZEN.

MARULLUS.

Where is thy leather apron and thy rule?
What dost thou with thy best apparel on?

You, Sir, what trade are you?

2 CITIZEN.

Truly, Sir, in respect of a fine workman, I am but, as you would say, a cobbler. 1)

MARULLUS.

But what trade art thou? Answer me directly.

2 CITIZEN.

A trade, Sir, that, I hope, I may use with a safe conscience; which is, indeed, Sir, a mender of bad soles. 2)

MARULLUS.

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

2 CITIZEN.

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

MARULLUS.

What mean'st then by that? Mend me, thou saucy fellow!

Why, Sir, cobble you.

2 CITIZEN.

FLAVIUS.

Thou art a cobbler, art thou?

2 CITIZEN.

Truly, Sir, all that I live by is with the awl: I meddle with no trade, man's matters nor woman's matters, but with all. 1) 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 neats-leather have gone upon my handiwork.

FLAVIUS.

But wherefore art not in thy shop to-day?

Why dost thou lead these men about the streets?

2 CITIZEN.

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.

MARULLUS.

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,

1) Ook hier is weer een woordspeling in de woorden awl en all. Het eenige, zegt de schoenlapper, waarmee ik te doen heb en waarvan ik leef, is the awl; ik drijf geen handel ik laat mij niet in noch met man's matters noch met woman's matters; maar wel laat ik mij in, nu zou er moeten volgen met de awl, maar nu volgt er: met all d. i. zoowel met man's matters als met woman's matters. En wat hierachter steekt, wordt duidelijk door een aardigheid in Coriolanus (IV. 5), waar op de vraag: How, sir, do you meddle with my master? geantwoord wordt: Ay, t is an honester service than to meddle with thy mistress.

:

Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft 1)
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 sat
The live-long day, with patient expectation,
To see great Pompey pass 2) 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 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? 3)
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:

Draw them to Tiber banks, and weep your tears

Into the channel, till the lowest stream

Do kiss the most exalted shores of all. [Exeunt all the citizens. See, whe'r their basest metal be not mov'd; 4)

1) Een bij onzen dichter niet ongewoon pleonasme.

2) d i. pass through.

3) Pompejus' blood is hier: Pompejus' zonen, die bij Munda geslagen wareu, en waarvan de oudste, Cnaeus, onthoofd was. Caesar's zegetocht is juist ter eere ook van die overwinning op Pompejus' zonen behaald. 4) metal, met base verbonden, kan, dunkt mij, hier slechts den eigenlijken zin van metaal hebben, zoodat their basest metal beteekent: hun uiterst onedel metaal. Maar hoe komt mov'd daarbij ? Ik gis, dat er eenvoudig melted moet staan, de ongewone vorm voor molten, en dat de zin dus is: zie, of door mijn bestraffing hun onedel metaal niet reeds gesmolten is. Als men mov'd behoudt, dan moet metal hier = mettle, spirit zijn.