What does this quote means sir please don't be angry but if your soles are worn out i cand mend you?

Answer 1

This quotation in from the "No Fear Shakespeare" version of Julius Caesar Act 1 Scene 1 and is an excellent example of why No Fear Shakespeare is a waste of time and why it should be abolished from classrooms. The notion is that if we replace Shakespeare's lines with something very simplistic then people will understand them more easily. It doesn't work, as this question shows. In fact, the sentence makes no sense and does not capture Shakespeare's meaning at all.

The real line is "Nay, I beseech you sir, be not out with me; yet if you be out, sir, I can mend you." This cobbler likes to make puns and Marullus, the tribune who he is talking to is, like many straight men (I mean a comedian's sidekick here, not someone who is not gay; Shakespeare would love that ambiguity) is pretty thick.

Marullus keeps on asking what the cobbler's job is and the cobbler keeps on making jokes. "Be not out with me" does mean being out of temper or angry, but this cobbler makes a pun on "being out". When he says "be not out with me" he means out of temper, but when he says "if you be out" he means out of condition or broken and he is talking about Marullus's shoes.

His line "I can mend you" on the face means "I can mend your broken shoes", but he has just made a joke about being "a mender of bad soles" which is clearly a pun on "bad souls", so it also suggests that the cobbler can mend Marullus, who has a bad soul that needs mending. Marullus catches the insult and rages "Mend me, thou saucy fellow?"

See? It makes sense if you read Shakespeare's words.