Shakespeare · Soliloquies & Solo Speeches
Production Notes
Marullus — a tribune, a protector of the Roman people — turns on those same people for celebrating Caesar’s triumph over Pompey. He builds from scorn to historical reproach: these same commoners once honored Pompey with their shouts; now they celebrate the man who defeated him. The speech opens the entire play, and immediately establishes the play’s central tension between popular feeling and political principle.
The speech is addressed to a live crowd — the other Players or the actual audience. Its power comes from accusation that escalates and never backs down. Marullus is not trying to persuade; he is shaming.
Script
MARULLUS
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 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 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.
Facilitator Notes
Warm-up: Practice direct address — speaking to a real person in the room as though making a genuine accusation. Then try the speech.
Debrief prompts:
- Marullus opens with “You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!” — an escalating insult. Why start this way? What does it do to the crowd he’s addressing?
- The speech asks a series of rhetorical questions built on shared memory: “Have you not…?” What is Marullus assuming about the people he’s speaking to?
- “Be gone!” is a single command in the middle of a long speech. How does a Player handle that moment?
- Marullus is on the wrong side of history in this play — he will be punished for opposing Caesar. Does a Player let that knowledge inform the delivery?