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 judgement! 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.
