Page 2154 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

What trade, thou knave? Thou naughty knave, what trade? [15]

COBBLER
Nay, I beseech you, sir, be not out with me. Yet if you be out, sir, I can mend
you.

MARULLUS
What mean’st thou by that? Mend me, thou saucy fellow?

COBBLER
Why, sir, cobble you.

FLAVIUS
Thou art a cobbler, art thou? [20]

COBBLER
Truly, sir, all that I live by is with the awl. I meddle with no tradesman’s

matters, nor women’s matters, but with all − 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 [25] upon my handiwork.

FLAVIUS
But wherefore art not in thy shop today?

Why dost thou lead these men about the streets?

COBBLER
Truly, sir, to wear out their shoes, to get myself into more work. But indeed,
sir, we make holiday to see [30] Caesar, 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! [35]
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,