Julius Caesar - Mark Antony's speech - BC 6 - Summary

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Friends, Romans, countrymen, give me your attention. I have come here to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do is remembered after their deaths, but the good is often buried with them. It might as well be the same with Caesar. The noble Brutus told you that Caesar was ambitious. If that’s true, it’s a serious fault, and Caesar has paid seriously for it. With the permission of Brutus and the others—for Brutus is an honourable man; they are all honourable men—I have come here to speak at Caesar’s funeral. He was my friend; he was faithful and just to me. But Brutus says he was ambitious, and Brutus is an honourable man. He brought many captives home to Rome whose ransoms brought wealth to the city. Is this the work of an ambitious man? When the poor cried, Caesar cried too. Ambition shouldn’t be so soft. Yet Brutus says he was ambitious, and Brutus is an honourable man. You all saw that on the Lupercal feast day I offered him a king’s crown three times, and he refused it three times. Was this ambition? Yet Brutus says he was ambitious. And, no question, Brutus is an honourable man. I am not here to disprove what Brutus has said, but to say what I know. You all loved him once, and not without reason. Then what reason holds you back from mourning him now? Men have become brutish beasts and lost their reason! Bear with me. My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, and I must pause until it returns to me. (he weeps)

Summary of the play: 

Jealous plotters encourage Caesar's friend Brutus to join their assassination plot against Caesar. To stop Caesar from gaining too much power, Brutus and the conspirators kill him on the Ides of March. Mark Antony drives the conspirators out of Rome and fights them in a battle. Brutus and his friend Cassius lose and kill themselves, leaving Antony to rule in Rome.

William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's greatest dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"