that should move / The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny").Īfter that, Antony deals his final blow by revealing Caesar's will, in which "To every Roman citizen he gives, / To every several man, seventy-five drachmas" as well as land, to the crowd. He claims that if he were as eloquent as Brutus, he could give a voice to each of Caesar's wounds (". In response to the passion of the crowd, Antony denies that he is trying to agitate them ("I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts"), and he contrasts Brutus, "an orator", with himself, "a plain, blunt man", implying that Brutus has manipulated them through deceitful rhetoric. Instead of reading the will immediately, however, he focuses the crowd's attention on Caesar's body, pointing out his wounds and stressing the conspirators' betrayal of a man who trusted them, in particular the betrayal of Brutus ("Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him!"). The crowd, increasingly agitated, calls the conspirators "traitors" and demands that Antony read out the will. Antony tells the crowd to "have patience" and expresses his feeling that he will "wrong the honourable men / Whose daggers have stabb'd Caesar" if he is to read the will. As he does this, the crowd begins to turn against the conspirators.Īntony then teases the crowd with Caesar's will, which they beg him to read, but he refuses.
He denies that Caesar wanted to make himself king, for there were many who witnessed the latter's denying the crown three times.Īs Antony reflects on Caesar's death and the injustice that nobody will be blamed for it, he becomes overwhelmed with emotion and deliberately pauses ("My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, / And I must pause till it come back to me"). He begins by carefully rebutting the notion that his friend, Caesar, deserved to die because he was ambitious, instead claiming that his actions were for the good of the Roman people, whom he cared for deeply ("When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept: / Ambition should be made of sterner stuff"). Throughout his speech, Antony calls the conspirators "honourable men" – his implied sarcasm becoming increasingly obvious. Summary Īntony has been allowed by Brutus and the other conspirators to make a funeral oration for Caesar on condition that he will not blame them for Caesar's death however, while Antony's speech outwardly begins by justifying the actions of Brutus and the assassins, Antony uses rhetoric and genuine reminders to ultimately portray Caesar in such a positive light that the crowd is enraged against the conspirators. Occurring in Act III, scene II, it is one of the most famous lines in all of Shakespeare's works. " Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears" is the first line of a speech by Mark Antony in the play Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare. "Friends, Romans": Orson Welles' Broadway production of Caesar (1937), a modern-dress production that evoked comparison to contemporary Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany JSTOR ( January 2016) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message).Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.įind sources: "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears" – news Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. This article needs additional citations for verification.
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