Saturday, June 20, 2015

Shakespeare in Julius Caesar

Image result for shakespeareFriends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I have come to help in Caesar's burial, not to praise him.
The evil deeds that men do, live after their deaths. Their good acts are often forgotten.
Let it be so with Caesar.
The noble Brutus has told you that Caesar was ambitious. If that was true, it was a severe fault and Caesar has paid a heavy penalty for it. Here, by permission of Brutus and the others - for Brutus is an honourable man - as the others are also honourable men - have I come to speak at Caesar's funeral. He was my friend, faithful and true to me.   
But Brutus says he was ambitious, and we must remember that Brutus is an honourable manprisoners of war back to Rome and the money paid for their liberation went into the public treasury. Did this seem ambitious on Caesar's part? - Caesar has brought many 
When poor suffered, Caesar wept for them. Ambition should show a harder nature than that.
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious, and Brutus is an honourable man.
You all saw how on the festival of Lupercal I had offered him the Royal Crown which he refused thrice. Was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious, and certainly he is an honourable man. I am not trying to contradict what Brutus has said. I am only telling you what I know for myself.
You all loved him once, and not without good reason. What reason is there now that should prevent you from mourning him?
Oh, common intelligence has become the property of animals, for men have lost their reason! Be patient with me. My heart is full of grief for Caesar there in his coffin, and I  must wait wait till I am calm again.     
Concluding.....with....
If I were Brutus and he were Antony then he would be able to stir you spirits and make a fluent tongue of every wound of Caesar's that would make even the stones of the road in Rome rise up in rebellion.

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