So it’s the Ides and I’m thinking about adding this to my Holiday collection.
The context you need is this-
Brutus was in fact an honourable man. He decided in favor of Democratic (well, kinda, completely corrupt and engaged in it’s own power grab, but Cincinnatus!) Institutions instead of Autocracy and Marc Antony a leech feeding on Shark scraps and blood. Cleopatra I don’t blame so much, she acted in her National Interests. Octavian? Sure, root for the winner after you know what happens.
Antony though is second only to Iago in villainy. Read it again.
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 allowed to make. I do entreat you, not a man depart save I alone, till Antony has spoken.
Ok, stop there a moment and ask yourself, how much fairer could Brutus be? Well, considering he’d just murdered his boss in cold blood which was a very MacBeth thing to do and this is pretty much giving the floor to Banquo’s Ghost.
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 has told you Caesar was ambitious, if it were so, it was a grievous fault and grievously hath Caesar answered 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 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 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?
Judgment! You are 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.
And at this point you do the Tom Hiddleston wail that demonstrates how deeply you mourn Chris Helmsworth (even fat Chris Helmsworth) and are a serious ACTOR!
There is crosstalk. There’s not a nobler man in Rome than Marc Antony and Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.
But yesterday the word of Caesar might have stood against the world, now he lies there and none do him reverence.
If I were disposed to stir your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage, I should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong who you all know are honourable men.
I will not do them wrong, I would rather choose to wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you than such honourable men.
But here’s a parchment with the seal of Caesar, I found it in his closet, ’tis his will.
Let but the commons hear this testament–
Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read–
And they would go and kiss dead Caesar’s wounds and dip cloths in his sacred blood, beg a hair of him for memory and dying mention it within their wills, bequeathing it as a rich legacy to their issue.
Oh, tease the trailer. That will plant the Groundlings.
Have patience, gentle friends, I must not read it. It is not meet you know how Caesar loved you. You are not wood, you are not stones, but men and, being men, hearing the will of Caesar will inflame you, it will make you mad. ‘Tis good you know not that you are his heirs. If you should, what would come of it?
Will you be patient? Will you stay awhile? I have o’ershot myself to tell you of it, I fear I wrong the honourable men whose daggers have stabbed Caesar.
You will compel me then to read the will? Then make a ring about the corpse of Caesar and let me show you him that made the will.
If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.
You all do know this mantle, I remember the first time ever Caesar put it on. ‘Twas on a summer’s evening, in his tent, that day he overcame the Nervii.
Look, in this place ran Cassius’ dagger through? See what a rent the envious Casca made? Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed and as he plucked his cursed steel away mark how the blood of Caesar followed it as if rushing out of doors, to be resolved if Brutus so unkindly knock’d, or no.
For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar’s angel. Judge how dearly Caesar loved him!
This was the unkindest cut of all for when the noble Caesar saw him stab ingratitude, more strong than traitors’ arms quite vanquish’d him. Then burst his mighty heart and, in his mantle muffling up his face, even at the base of Pompey’s statue which all the while ran blood, great Caesar fell.
What a fall was there, my countrymen! Then I, and you, and all of us fell down while bloody treason flourish’d over us.
Oh, now you weep. And I perceive you feel the dint of pity: these are gracious drops. Kind souls, what? Weep you when you but behold our Caesar’s vesture wounded? Look you here, here is himself, marred, as you see, with traitors.
Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up to such a sudden flood of mutiny.
They that have done this deed are honourable.
What private griefs they have… alas, I know not. They are wise and honourable and will, no doubt, with reasons answer you. I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts, I am no orator as Brutus is but, as you all know me, a plain blunt man that loved my friend. Those who allow me to speak of him here I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, nor action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech, to stir men’s blood. I only speak right on. I tell you that which you yourselves do know, show you sweet Caesar’s wounds, poor dumb mouths,and bid them speak for me.
But were I Brutus and Brutus Antony, there would be an Antony that would ruffle up your spirits and put a tongue in every wound of Caesar that would move The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny.
Y’all think Democratic victory inevitable? My prepper agenda is how I’m going to smuggle myself North before the U.S. starts paying for that border wall Canada is talking about. Zombies. I don’t kid about them either.
Yet hear me, countrymen; yet hear me speak.
Or lend me your ears, wait… used that.
Why, friends, you go to do you know not what! Wherein hath Caesar thus deserved your loves?
Alas, you know not. I must tell you then, you have forgot the will I told you of. Here is the will, and under Caesar’s seal. To every Roman citizen he gives…
And you have to pause here dear orator Brutus for dramatic effect.
To every several man, seventy-five drachmas.
And again I must pause and say that it’s more than they paid Judas (a drachma is a piece of silver so more than twice that not accounting for inflation) and vastly more than Bloomberg paid per vote despite the innumeracy of the Villager Voices and more akin to Andy Yang’s “Thousand Bucks a Month? Good Idea!”
So, a pretty substantial bribe actually.
Moreover, he has left all his walks, his private arbours and new-planted orchards on this side of the Tiber to you and your heirs forever as Public Parks.
Thank you Theodore Roosevelt.
Here was a Caesar! when comes such another?
Rolls eyes, whistles tunelessly. Go fetch fire! Pluck down benches! Pluck down forms, windows, anything!
Now let it work.
Mischief, thou art afoot. Take thou what course thou wilt!
If you are yourself not chewing the scenery at this point all I can say is your heart is made of stone and you probably like Real Housewives and The Masked Singer.
It’s earliest known celebration was in California where in 1988 at the San Francisco Exploratorium physicist Larry Shaw along with the staff and the public marched around one of its circular spaces eating fruit pies. In 2009. The US House of Representatives passed a non-binding resolution declaring 3.14 π (Pi) Day. And in 2010, a French computer scientist claimed to have calculated pi to almost 2.7 trillion digits. This year is no different. The