Marullus and Flavius are off in the streets scolding commoners who are excited and happy for Caesar's return after triumph over Pompey.
Significance:
This part of the play, Julius Caesar is the beginning of the whole play, showing the different conflicts between people of Rome. Marullus and Flavius face inner conflict against Caesar as they do not support his actions of killing Pompey, their former ruler. The commoners are enjoying themselves, happily going to go greet Caesar and congratulate him for his triumph, however Marullus and Flavius find this wrong as they quickly have changed from supporting to Pompey, to the person who had defeated him. This scene of Act 1 hints that Rome is already starting to break down as the noble tribunes of Rome are shouting at commoners and calling them "you blocks, you stones! You worse then senseless things".
Partner/Roles:
Min Je Cho: Flavius
Enzio Westerhausen: Marullus
Enzio Westerhausen: Marullus
Script:
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,
Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft
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 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 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? 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 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 deck'd with ceremonies.
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,
And drive away the vulgar from the streets:
So do you too, where you perceive them thick.
These growing feathers pluck'd 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.
