Friends, Romans, Countrymen... (Ides of March, Part V)

[Athos]

To round out Caesar week, I present my final vignette commemorating the life of Caesar, Caesar's eulogy, as presented by Marc Anthony:

"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is oft interred with their bones:

So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus

Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:

If it were so, it was a grievous fault;

And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest,--

For Brutus is an honourable man;

So are they all, all honorable men,--

Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.

He was my friend, faithful and just to me:

But Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honourable man.

He hath brought many captives home to Rome,

Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:

Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?

When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honourable man.

You all did see that on the Lupercal

I thrice presented him a kingly crown,

Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;

And, sure, he is an honourable man.

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,

But here I am to speak what I do know.

You all did love him once,--not without cause:

What cause withholds you, then, to mourn for him?--

O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts,

And men have lost their reason!--Bear with me;

My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,

And I must pause till it come back to me."

-Julius Caesar, Act III; Scene 2

http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/Athos/Vi...ar/caesar5a.jpg

The whole deaf gallery (Get it? Deaf, because they lent Anthony their ears... :lol: Sorry bad joke :roll: ):

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=173360

Hail Caesar!

Stephanus