Julius Caesar: Act 3

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All
Live, Brutus! live, live!

First Citizen
Bring him with triumph home unto his house.

Second Citizen
Give him a statue with his ancestors.

Third Citizen
Let him be Caesar.

Fourth Citizen
Caesar's better parts
Shall be crown'd in Brutus.

First Citizen
We'll bring him to his house
With shouts and clamours.

BRUTUS
My countrymen,--

Second Citizen
Peace, silence! Brutus speaks.

First Citizen
Peace, ho!

BRUTUS
Good countrymen, let me depart alone,
And, for my sake, stay here with Antony:
Do grace to Caesar's corpse, and grace his speech
Tending to Caesar's glories; which Mark Antony,
By our permission, is allow'd to make.
I do entreat you, not a man depart,
Save I alone, till Antony have spoke.

Exit

First Citizen
Stay, ho! and let us hear Mark Antony.

Third Citizen
Let him go up into the public chair;
We'll hear him. Noble Antony, go up.

ANTONY
For Brutus' sake, I am beholding to you.

Goes into the pulpit

Fourth Citizen
What does he say of Brutus?

Third Citizen
He says, for Brutus' sake,
He finds himself beholding to us all.

Fourth Citizen
'Twere best he speak no harm of Brutus here.

First Citizen
This Caesar was a tyrant.

Third Citizen
Nay, that's certain:
We are blest that Rome is rid of him.

Second Citizen
Peace! let us hear what Antony can say.

ANTONY
You gentle Romans,--

Citizens
Peace, ho! 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 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 honourable 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.

First Citizen
Methinks there is much reason in his sayings.

Second Citizen
If thou consider rightly of the matter,
Caesar has had great wrong.

Third Citizen
Has he, masters?
I fear there will a worse come in his place.

Fourth Citizen
Mark'd ye his words? He would not take the crown;
Therefore 'tis certain he was not ambitious.

First Citizen
If it be found so, some will dear abide it.

Second Citizen
Poor soul! his eyes are red as fire with weeping.

Third Citizen
There's not a nobler man in Rome than Antony.

Fourth Citizen
Now mark him, he begins again to speak.

 

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