Shakespeare often uses simple people for comic relief in his plays. Fools, jesters, merchants, etc. In Act I of Julius Caesar, several "commoners" are milling about in the streets, not working, celebrating Caesar's latest victory. An exchange of words takes place between these commoners and Flavus and Marullus, who call them "idle creatures" and chide them for not working. They parry back and forth and, believe it or not, the exchange would have been quite humorous in Shakespeare's time. For example, the cobbler puns: "I am a mender of bad soles" - foreshadowing, in a humorous way, that there are going to be some "bad souls" in the play that will need mending. Read carefully the words of the "second commoner" and look for hidden meaning in his words. Shakespeare uses humor to foreshadow the tragic events that are to follow in the play.
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