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, 1640 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.