Nay, I beseech you, sir,
be not out with me. Yet, if you be out, sir,
I can mend you.
. . .
What mean’st thou by that? “Mend”
me, thou saucy fellow?
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 cruèl men of Rome,
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,
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 do you now cull out a holiday?
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 plucked 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.
