Bertie's Paraphrases of Famous Scenes from Shakespeare: Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 2 (Mark Antony's Speech at Caesar's Funeral)

This scene takes place in the Forum, Rome's market and public meeting
place. The characters are Brutus, Cassius, Mark Antony, and several citizens of Rome. Julius Caesar has just been assassinated in the Capitol by a group of conspirators led by Brutus and Cassius. They killed him because they feared he was about to use his great popularity to make himself permanent dictator and end the Roman Republic.

[Enter Brutus and Cassius, and a crowd of citizens.]

CITIZENS [shouting] We will be satisfied! [= We want a satisfactory
explanation!]
: Let us be satisfied!

BRUTUS: Then follow me, friends, and give me your attention.
: Cassius, you go into the other street and that will divide the
crowd.
: Those that want to hear me speak, let them stay here; those that
want to follow Cassius, go with him, and public reasons for
Caesar's death shall be given.

CITIZEN 1: I will hear Brutus speak.

CITIZEN 2: I will hear Cassius, and we shall compare their reasons
when we hear them differently given.

[Exit Cassius, with some of the citizens. Brutus climbs into the pulpit.]

CITIZEN 3: The noble Brutus has ascended.
: Silence!

BRUTUS: Be patient till the end.
: Countrymen, Romans, and friends; hear me for the sake of my
cause, and be silent so that you may hear.
: Believe me for the sake of my honour, and have respect for my
honour so that you may believe.
: Judge me in your wisdom; and awaken your reason so that you
may judge better.
: If there is any in this assembly, any who was a dear friend of
Caesar, I say to him that Brutus' respect for Caesar was no less
than his.
: If that friend then demands to know why Brutus rose against
Caesar, this is my answer: not because I respected Caesar less,
but because I loved Rome more.
: Would you rather Caesar were living, and all die slaves, than
that Caesar were dead, and all live free men?
: Because Caesar respected me, I weep for him; because he was
fortunate, I rejoice at it; because he was valiant, I honour him;
but, because he was ambitious, I slew him.
: There are tears for his respect, joy for his fortune, honour for
his valour, and death for his ambition.
: Who here is so low that he would want to be a slave?
: If there is any, speak; for I have offended him.
: Who here is so uncouth that he would rather not be a Roman?
: If there is any, speak; for I have offended him.
: Who here is so vile that he will not love his country?
: If there is any, speak; for I have offended him.
: I pause for a reply.

CITIZENS: None, Brutus, none.

BRUTUS: Then I have offended none.
: I have done no more to Caesar than you would do to Brutus.
: The reasons for his death are recorded in the Capitol; his glory
is not diluted, in which he was worthy, nor are his offences
exaggerated, for which he suffered death.

[Enter Antony and others, with Caesar's body.]

: Here comes his body, mourned by Mark Antony, who, though he had
no hand in Caesar's death, shall receive the benefit of his
dying: a place in the commonwealth [= republic] - as which of
you shall not?
: I depart with this: that, as I slew my best friend for the good
of Rome, I have the same dagger for myself, when it shall please
my country to need my death.

CITIZENS: Live, Brutus! - live! - live!

CITIZEN 1: Take him home to his house in triumph!

CITIZEN 2: Give him a statue amongst his ancestors!

CITIZEN 3: Let him be Caesar!

CITIZEN 4: Caesar's better qualities shall be crowned in Brutus!

CITIZEN 1: We'll take him to his house with shouts and cheers.

BRUTUS: My countrymen,...

CITIZEN 2: Hush! - silence! - Brutus is speaking!

CITIZEN 1: Hush there!

BRUTUS: Good countrymen, let me depart alone, and, for my sake, you
stay here with Antony.
: Do honour to Caesar's corpse, and honour the speech about
Caesar's glories, which Mark Antony, with our permission, is
allowed to make.
: I beg you, let not a man depart, except I alone, till Antony
has spoken.

[Exit Brutus.]

CITIZEN 1 [To other citizens]: Wait, and let us hear Mark Antony.

CITIZEN 3: Let him go up into the public chair [= pulpit]; we'll hear
him.
: Noble Antony, go up.

ANTONY: For Brutus's sake, I am indebted to you.

CITIZEN 4: What does he say about Brutus?

CITIZEN 3: He says, for Brutus's sake, he finds himself indebted to us
all.

CITIZEN 4: It would be best that he speaks nothing harmful to Brutus
here.

CITIZEN 1: This Caesar was a tyrant.

CITIZEN 3: Yes, that's certain.
: We are blessed that Rome is rid of him.

CITIZEN 2: Silence!
: Let us hear what Antony can say.

ANTONY: You gentlemanly Romans,...

SOME CITIZENS: Hush there! - let us hear him.

ANTONY: 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 often buried
with their bones; let it be so with Caesar.
: The noble Brutus has told you Caesar was ambitious: if it was so,
it was a grievous fault, and Caesar has answered for it
grievously.
: Here, with permission of Brutus and the rest (for Brutus is an
honourable man, as are they all, all honourable men), I come to
speak at 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 has brought many captives home to Rome, whose ransoms filled
the public treasury; did this seem ambitious of Caesar?
: When the poor have cried, Caesar has wept: - ambition should be
made of sterner stuff.
: Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; and Brutus is an honourable
man.
: You all saw, that on the holiday of Lupercal I thrice presented
him a kingly crown, which he thrice refused: - was this
ambition?
: Yet Brutus says he was ambitious, and, surely, he is an
honourable man.
: I do not speak to disprove what Brutus spoke, but I am here to
speak what I know.
: You all respected him once, and not without cause.
: What cause prevents you then from mourning him?
: Oh judgment, you have 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 comes back to me.

CITIZEN 1: I think there is much reason in his sayings.

CITIZEN 2: If you consider the matter rightly, Caesar has suffered a
great wrong.

CITIZEN 3 : Has he, masters?
: I fear there will be a worse leader to come in his place.

CITIZEN 4: Did you note his words: he wouldn't take the crown; therefore,
it's certain, he was not ambitious.

CITIZEN 1: If it is found so, some will pay dearly for it.

CITIZEN 2: Poor soul! - his eyes are red as fire from weeping.

CITIZEN 3: There's not a nobler man in Rome than Antony.

CITIZEN 4: Mark [= pay attention to] him now; he's beginning to speak again.
[Note: Shakespeare was very fond of puns and plays-on-words, such as this pun on Mark Antony's name and the repeated play below on the word 'will'. Many critics have faulted him for this.]

ANTONY: Just yesterday the word of Caesar might have stood against the
world.
: Now he lies there, and there's no one so humble as to do him
reverence.
: Oh masters, if I were of a mind to stir your hearts and minds to
mutiny and rage, I would do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong,
who, you all know, are honourable men.
: I will not do them wrong: I choose rather to wrong the dead, to
wrong myself, and you, than to wrong such honourable men.
: But here's a document, carrying the seal of Caesar; I found it
in his study; it's his will.
: Just let the common people hear his testament (which, pardon me,
I do not intend to read out), and they would go and kiss dead
Caesar's wounds, and dip their handkerchiefs in his sacred blood,
yes, beg a hair of his for a memento, and, when dying, mention
it in their wills, leaving it, like a rich legacy, to their
offspring.

CITIZEN 4: We want to hear the will.
: Read it, Mark Antony.

CITIZENS: The will, the will! - we will hear Caesar's will!

ANTONY: Have patience, gentle friends; I must not read it; it is not
proper that you know how much Caesar loved you.
: You are not wood, you are not stones, but men; and being men,
hearing the will of Caesar, it will inflame you, it will make
you mad.
: It's good you do not know that you are his heirs, because if you
did, oh, what would come of it!

CITIZEN 4: Read the will; we'll hear it Antony!
: You shall read us the will, Caesar's will.

ANTONY : Will you be patient?
: Will you wait a while?
: I have over-reached myself by telling you of it.
: I fear I have wronged the honourable men, whose daggers have
stabbed Caesar; I do fear it.

CITIZEN 4: They were traitors.
: Honourable men!

CITIZENS: The will! - the testament!

CITIZEN 2: They were villains, murderers.
: The will! - read the will!

ANTONY: You will compel me then to read the will?
: Then make a ring around the corpse of Caesar, and let me show
you him who made the will.
: Shall I descend [from the pulpit]? - and will you give me
permission?

CITIZENS: Come down.

CITIZEN 2: Descend.

[Antony comes down from the pulpit.]

CITIZEN 3: You shall have permission.

CITIZEN 4: A ring.
: Stand around.

CITIZEN 1: Stand back from the hearse; stand back from the body.

CITIZEN 2: Make room for Antony; most noble Antony.

ANTONY: Yes, don't crowd so close to me; stand farther back.

CITIZENS: Stand back! - room! - push back!

ANTONY: If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.

[Holding up Caesar's blood-stained cloak]: You all know this cloak!
: I remember the first time Caesar ever put it on.
: It was on a summer evening, in his tent, the day he overcame
the Nervii.
[Note: the Nervii (pronounced 'nerv-ee-eye') were a tribe in Gaul, the part of Europe now called France. They were conquered by Caesar.]

: Look: in this place Cassius' dagger ran through.
: See what a rip the malicious Casca made.
: Through this hole, the well-beloved Brutus stabbed; and,
as he pulled his cursed steel away, note how the blood of
Caesar followed it, as if rushing outdoors to find out if
Brutus knocked so unkindly or not; for Brutus, as you know,
was Caesar's favourite.
: Judge - oh you gods! - how dearly Caesar respected him.
: This was the most unkindest cut of all; for when the noble Caesar
saw him stab, ingratitude, more strong than traitor's arms,
quite vanquished him: then his mighty heart burst.
: And with his cloak muffling up his face, right at the base of
Pompey's statue, which all the while ran with blood, great
Caesar fell.
: Oh what a fall that was, my countrymen!
: Then I, and you, and all of us fell down, while bloody treason
flourished over us.
: Oh! - now you weep; and I perceive you feel the blow of pity.
: These are gracious drops.
: Kind souls; what, do you weep when you merely see our Caesar's
garment wounded?
: Look here; here he is himself, marred, as you see, by traitors.

CITIZEN 1: Oh pitiful spectacle!

CITIZEN 2: Oh noble Caesar!

CITIZEN 3: Oh woeful day!

CITIZEN 4: Oh traitors! - villains!

CITIZEN 1: Oh most bloody sight!

CITIZEN 2: We will be revenged.
: Revenge! - go about; - seek; - burn; - fire; - kill; - slay!
: Don't let a traitor live!

ANTONY: Wait, countrymen.

CITIZEN 1: Hush there!
: Hear the noble Antony.

CITIZEN 2: We'll hear him, we'll follow him, we'll die with him.

ANTONY: Good friends, sweet friends, do not let me stir you up to such
a sudden flood of mutiny.
: They that have done this deed are honourable.
: What private grudges they have that made them do it - alas! -
I don't know; they are wise and honourable, and will, no doubt,
answer you with reasons.
: I do not come, friends, to steal away your hearts: I am no
orator, as Brutus is, but am as you all know me, a plain
blunt man who loved my friend; and they know that very well who
gave me public permission to speak of him.
: For I have neither wit nor words, nor authority, gesture, nor
delivery, nor the power of speech-making to stir men's blood.
: I only speak straight-forwardly; I tell you that which you
yourselves know, and show you Caesar's wounds - poor, poor
mute mouths - and have them speak for me.
: But if I were Brutus, and Brutus were Antony, then there
would be an Antony who would stir up your spirits, and put a
tongue in the mouth of every wound of Caesar's, who would
move the stones of Rome to rise and mutiny.

CITIZENS: We'll mutiny!

CITIZEN 1: We'll burn the house of Brutus!

CITIZEN 3: Away then!
: Come, seek the conspirators!

ANTONY: Hear me yet, countrymen; hear me yet speak.

CITIZENS: Hey, hush!
: Hear Antony; most noble Antony.

ANTONY: Why friends, you do not know what you go to do.
: Why has Caesar thus deserved your love?
: Alas, you do not know! - I must tell you then.
: You have forgotten the will I told you of.

CITIZENS: Very true; - the will: let's stay and hear the will.

ANTONY: Here is the will, and under Caesar's seal.
: To every Roman citizen he gives, to each and every man,
seventy-five pieces of silver.

CITIZEN 2: Most noble Caesar! - we'll revenge his death.

CITIZEN 3: Oh royal Caesar!

ANTONY: Hear me with patience.

CITIZENS: Hey, hush!

ANTONY: Also, he has left you all his walks,
newly-planted gardens, on this side of the Tiber.
: He has left them to you, and to your heirs forever; public
pleasures, to walk about in and recreate yourselves.
: Here was a Caesar! - when will another such come?

CITIZEN 1: Never, never!
: Come, away, away!
: We'll burn his body in the holy place, and with the torches
we'll set fire to the traitors' houses.
: Pick up the body.

CITIZEN 2: Go, fetch fire!

CITIZEN 3: Break up benches!

CITIZEN 4: Break up trestles, shutters, anything!

[Exit citizens, taking the body.]

ANTONY: Now let it work.
: Mischief, you are afoot; take what course you will!

[Enter a servant.]

: How now, fellow?

SERVANT: Sir, Octavius has already come to Rome.
[Note: Octavius was Caesar's adopted son. He was destined to become the first Emperor of Rome, changing his name to Augustus Caesar.]

ANTONY: Where is he?

SERVANT: He and Lepidus are at Caesar's house.

ANTONY: And I will go straight there to visit him.
: He has come on my wish; Dame Fortune is merry, and in this mood
will grant us anything.

SERVANT: I heard him say that Brutus and Cassius have ridden out,
like madmen, through the gates of Rome.
ANTONY: They likely had some warning about the people, how I had stirred
them.
: Take me to Octavius.

[Exit Both]

[End of scene]