Marc Antony's Speech

Context

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Before Marc Antony speaks to the people, Brutus gives a speech to the plebeians in order to defend his actions, and introduces Antony as one of the conspirators' allies. After Brutus leaves, Antony begins to present a speech to the people of Rome, in order to get them to rise against the conspirators.

Meaning and Significance

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Marc Antony's speech to the crowd is one of the most vital scenes of the entire play, because it is the birth of a new conflict. The audience had been focused on whether the conspirators were going to kill Caesar, and once the assassination was complete, Shakespeare needed to steer the play into a different direction. He heaved the fickle nature of the plebeians to an entirely new level, by making them gradually turn against Brutus, and doubt his renowned ‘honor’. We are also reintroduced to Antony, as he is revealed to be a worthy and formidable threat. Shakespeare employed the powerful words and emotions of Marc Antony to aim the people against the conspirators. Through the effectiveness of Antony's speech, the play with be focused on the aftermath of the conspiracy, and we are left to speculate the fate of our honorable Brutus, and question whether Caesar was genuinely the antagonist of the play.

Act 3 scene 2 (lines 74 - 105)

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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 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 honorable man;

So are they all, all honorable 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 honorable 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 honorable 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 honorable 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.