04_9781118486788-ch01.qxd:9781118486788-ch01.qxd 8/8/12 5:53 PM Page 25 COLES NOTES TOTAL STUDY EDITION JULIUS CAESAR ACT I Scene 1 . 27 Scene 2 . 31 Scene 3 . 46 Cassius Fellow, come from the throng; look upon Caesar. Caesar What say ’st thou to me now? Speak once again. Soothsayer Beware the ides of March. Caesar He is a dreamer. Let us leave him. Pass. COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL 04_9781118486788-ch01.qxd:9781118486788-ch01.qxd 8/8/12 5:53 PM Page 26 04_9781118486788-ch01.qxd:9781118486788-ch01.qxd 8/8/12 5:53 PM Page 27 Coles Notes Total Study Edition Julius Caesar • Act I, Scene 1 27 Act I, A rowdy group of plebians or commoners have gathered in the streets of Scene 1 Rome to celebrate both the Feast of the Lupercal and Julius Caesar’s triumphant return to Rome after defeating the last of his enemies, the sons of Pompey. Two tribunes, Marullus and Flavius, chastise the crowd for adoring Caesar and for celebrating as if it were a holiday. The crowd guiltily disperses and Marullus and Flavius depart to vandalize Caesar’s statues. ACT I, SCENE 1. NOTES Rome, a street. [Enter FLAVIUS, MARULLUS, and certain commoners over the stage.] S.D. over the stage: the commoners cross the stage before halting. In most productions, they enter first, Flavius Hence! home, you idle creatures, get you with Flavius and Marullus following them. home! Is this a holiday? What, know you not, Being mechanical, you ought not to walk 3. Being mechanical: being artisans or workers. Upon a labouring day without the sign 4–5. sign / Of your profession: dress or symbol of your Of your profession? Speak, what trade art thou? 5 trade. Carpenter Why sir, a carpenter. Marullus Where is thy leather apron and thy rule? What dost thou with thy best apparel on? You, sir, what trade are you? Cobbler Truly sir, in respect of a fine workman, I 10 am but, as you would say, a cobbler. 11. cobbler: this means bungler as well as shoemaker and confuses Marullus. The cobbler puns through- Marullus But what trade art thou? Answer me out his speeches. directly. Cobbler A trade, sir, that I hope I may use with a safe conscience, which is indeed, sir, a mender of 15 bad soles. 16. soles: of shoes, with a pun on soul. Flavius What trade, thou knave? Thou naughty 17. naughty: insolent. A stronger term for the Eliza- bethans than for us today. knave, what trade? knave: base and crafty rogue. Cobbler Nay, I beseech you sir, be not out with me, 19. out: angry. yet if thou be out, sir, I can mend you. 20 20. out: have shoes out at the sole, or worn out. Marullus What mean’st thou by that? Mend me, thou saucy fellow? Cobbler Why, sir, cobble you. 23. cobble you: hit with stones 04_9781118486788-ch01.qxd:9781118486788-ch01.qxd 8/8/12 5:53 PM Page 28 28 Coles Notes Total Study Edition Julius Caesar • Act I, Scene 1 Flavius Thou art a cobbler, art thou? Cobbler Truly sir, all that I live by is with the awl. 25 25–28. The cobbler continues to have verbal fun at the expense of Flavius and Marullus. Here he says I meddle with no tradesman’s matters nor women’s that he is above “meddling” with trade, or ordi- matters, but withal—I am indeed, sir, a surgeon to nary work, just as he is above pursuing women. old shoes. When they are in great danger, I recover He gives himself the grandiose title of surgeon “withal,” i.e., a surgeon with an awl. In mending them. As proper men as ever trod upon neat’s leather or re-covering shoes he makes them “recover,” or have gone upon my handiwork. 30 heals them. Flavius But wherefore art not in thy shop to-day? 29. neat’s leather: oxhide. 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 holi- day to see Caesar and to rejoice in his triumph. 35 35. triumph: a triumphal procession through Rome. Caesar is returning from the defeat of Pompey’s Marullus Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings sons in Spain. he home? What tributaries follow him to Rome? 37. tributaries: conquered rulers bringing tributes of To grace in captive bonds his chariot wheels? money. You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things! O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome! 40 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, 43–49. Here Shakespeare combines the London of his audience (“towers, windows, chimney tops”) with Your infants in your arms, and there have sat the Rome of Pompey’s chariot and the river Tiber. The livelong day, with patient expectation, 45 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 50 50. replication: echo, reverberation. Made in her concave shores? 51. concave shores: overhanging banks And do you now put-on your best attire? And do you now cull out a holiday? 53. Cull out: choose to take. This is meant ironically, since the artisans could not choose their own hol- And do you now strew flowers in his way idays. That comes in triumph over Pompey’s blood? 55 55. Pompey’s blood: the blood of Pompey’s sons and Be gone! his armies. Run to your houses, fall upon your knees, Pray to the gods to intermit the plague 58. intermit: hold off. That needs must light on this ingratitude. Flavius Go, go, good countrymen, and for this fault 60 Assemble all the poor men of your sort; 04_9781118486788-ch01.qxd:9781118486788-ch01.qxd 8/8/12 5:53 PM Page 29 Coles Notes Total Study Edition Julius Caesar • Act I, Scene 1 29 Draw them to Tiber banks, and weep your tears Into the channel, till the lowest stream Do kiss the most exalted shores of all. 64. most exalted shores: highest banks. [Exeunt the commoners.] See, whe’r their basest mettle be not moved. 65 65. whe’r: frequent in Shakespeare for whether. They vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness. mettle: temperament, disposition. Go you down that way towards the Capitol; moved: affected, changed; i.e., to guilt at forgetting This way will I. Disrobe the images Pompey. If you do find them decked with ceremonies. 67. Capitol: the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill where the state business of Rome was transacted. Marullus May we do so? 70 You know it is the feast of Lupercal. 68. images: statues. 69. ceremonies: ornaments such as garlands or Flavius It is no matter. Let no images wreaths. Be hung with Caesar’s trophies. I’ll about And drive away the vulgar from the streets. 74. the vulgar: the common people. So do you too, where you perceive them thick. 75 These growing feathers, plucked from Caesar’s wing 76–79. The image is from falconry, with Caesar as the fal- con whose “wing” (power) will be weaker if his Will make him fly an ordinary pitch, “growing feathers” (popular support) are plucked, Who else would soar above the view of men causing him to fly at a lower “pitch” (height). And keep us all in servile fearfulness. [Exeunt.] COMMENTARY The play opens on a scene of raucous public celebra- religious festival, combined with Caesar’s ceremonial tion. Not only is it February 15, the Feast of the Luper- entrance into the city, gives Caesar an immediate god- cal, but it is also the day Julius Caesar triumphantly like aura and would possibly remind the viewer of returns from Spain after defeating the last of Rome’s Jesus’ triumphant entrance into Jerusalem before his external adversaries. The crowd of revellers is happy to betrayal and death on the cross. have a day away from their usual tasks and, because The merriment of the Roman people is short-lived, the day is considered a high festival, plenty of govern- however, as the scene is quickly broken up by the intru- ment-supplied food and drink is available for all. sion of two Roman Tribunes, Marullus and Flavius. The The Lupercalian holiday, an ancient rite of both pur- two men insult the crowd and admonish them for being gation and fertility, honoured the gods Lupercus and idle on a workday. They also question why the com- Faunus as well as the twin brothers Romulus and moners walk about “without the sign of your profes- Remus, the legendary founders of Rome. It seems sion.” This is a reference to an Elizabethan law that appropriate that Shakespeare chose this particular required workers to identify themselves by wearing their feast as the setting for the return of Julius Caesar to work clothes and carrying the tools of their trade. Rome. Historically, Caesar returned from Spain in Octo- Shakespeare often used Elizabethan references in his ber of 45 B.C., but by dramatically compressing the plays, regardless of the actual timeframe in which the events, Shakespeare draws a comparison between story was taking place, as a way of making his work Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, and Caesar, more accessible to his audience. Another example of the founder of a new Roman order.