Caesar

Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones
So let it be with Caesar

-William Shakespeare (said by Mark Antony in Julias Caesar)



This quote is significant because its the start of a long Caesar speech that I had to memorize and recite in front of a class of at least 30 other IB students. And that everyone couldn't stand to hear again after that.

I meant discuss its significance overall, not explain what you had to do for it.

For example, and this will be my take on it:

"Friends, Romans, Countrymen" is a famous opening and is often used for speeches. It's somewhat of a "cliche" nowadays. People often say "lend me your ears" as an idiom for "please listen to me." We don't really want their ears!




Here is the rest of the speech:
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 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 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.




I love the rhetorics. He keeps claiming "Brutus says" but then talks about how Brutus acts differently than he speaks. Actions speak better than words, after all, but Mark Antony can speak well. I don't have time to discuss more right now, so I must stop here.

I know what you meant, I just was too lazy to think of anything significant at the moment. But yeah, you're right, it has become very cliche.

Well, this is what I meant by starting a discussion =)

Sorry. I know some people like to discuss other things, but I tend to get into discussions when they happy, which makes me frustrated when something of significance isn't brought up.


Yeah, "lend me your ears" is something we hear, though not often because teenagers say "listen up" and whatnot.

Why did you put (for Brutus is an honorable man) in parenthesis?

I copied and pasted it... how should I know? Maybe the person who typed it up wanted to highlight the sarcasm.

WHAT? Copied and Pasted? You don't still have it memorized enough to type it all out?

Why would I still have it memorized two years later? I don't like it THAT much.

lol, I know, right? But I still have most if not all of it memorized...