Excerpt from Julius Caesar: A Verse Translation

from Act 3, Scene 2

 

Mark Antony delivers a eulogy for Julius Caesar

 

MARK ANTONY

Distinguished Romans—

PLEBEIANS

                                      Quiet, please! Let’s listen.

MARK 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 often buried with their bones.

So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus

Has said to you that Caesar was ambitious.

If it is so, then it’s a grievous crime,

And grievously has Caesar paid for it.

Here, by consent of Brutus and the rest,—

For Brutus is an honorable man,

As are they all, all honorable men—

I’ve come to speak at Caesar’s funeral.

He was my friend, faithful and just to me,

But Brutus says that Caesar was ambitious,

And Brutus is an honorable man.

He has brought many captives home to Rome,

Whose ransoms filled the public treasury.

Is this why he says Caesar was ambitious?

And when the poor have cried, Caesar has wept;

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.

Yet Brutus says that Caesar was ambitious,

And Brutus is an honorable man.

You saw me at the feast of Lupercal

Present to him three times a kingly crown,

And three times he refused. Was this ambition?

Yet Brutus says that Caesar was ambitious,

And surely he’s an honorable man.

I’m not here to dispute what Brutus said,

But I am here to tell you what I know.

I know you loved him once—not without cause.

What cause prevents you now from mourning him?—

O judgment, you have fled toward brutish beasts,

And men have lost their reason! [weeps]—Bear with me.

My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,

And I must pause till it comes back to me.

FIRST PLEBEIAN

There seems to be some sense in what he’s saying.

SECOND PLEBEIAN

If you consider carefully this matter,

Caesar’s been greatly wronged.

THIRD PLEBEIAN

                                                     He has indeed.

I fear that something worse will take his place.

FOURTH PLEBEIAN

Did you hear that? He would not take the crown.

That means it’s certain he was not ambitious.

FIRST PLEBEIAN

If we can prove it, someone must pay dearly.

SECOND PLEBEIAN

Poor soul! His eyes are red as fire from weeping.

THIRD PLEBEIAN

There’s not a nobler man in Rome than Antony.

FOURTH PLEBEIAN

Now listen. He’s about to speak again.

MARK ANTONY

Just yesterday the word of Caesar might

Have stood up to the world. Now he lies there,

The lowest now too high to show respect.

O masters, if I were inclined to stir

Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,

It might wrong Brutus and wrong Cassius,

Who, you all know, are honorable men.

I do not wish to wrong them and would choose

To wrong the dead, to wrong myself, and you,

Before I’d wrong such honorable men.

But here’s a document with Caesar’s seal—

I found it in his study—it’s his will.

If citizens could hear his testament—

Forgive me, but I don’t intend to read it—

Then they would go and kiss dead Caesar’s wounds,

And dip their kerchiefs in his sacred blood,

Yes, sneak a strand of hair for memory,

And, dying, mention it within their wills,

Bequeathing it as a rich legacy

Unto their offspring.

FOURTH PLEBEIAN

We want to hear it. Read it, Antony.

You must read us the will—Caesar’s will!