Page 2155 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops,
Your infants in your arms, and there have sat [40]
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 [45]
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 [50]

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. [55]

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. [60]
Exeunt all the commoners.
See whe’er their basest mettle 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. [65]

MARULLUS
May we do so?

You know it is the feast of Lupercal.

FLAVIUS
It is no matter. Let no images
Be hung with Caesar’s trophies. I’ll about,