Wherefore Rejoice?

Listen to:

Wherefore Rejoice? (1:37)

from Julius Caesar

by William Shakespeare

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Act 1, Scene 1
The Scene is a street in Rome, 44 B.C.
As the commoners gather to celebrate the triumphant return of Julius Caesar, Marullus, a tribune,  rebukes them.

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.