And this, my masters, brings me home,
Bush-born bard, to Ancient Rome.
And there’s little difference in the climate, or the men—save in the little matter of ironmongery—and no difference at all in the women.
We’ll pass over the accident that happened to Caesar. Such accidents had happened to great and little Caesars hundreds of times before, and have happened many times since, and will happen until the end of time, both in “sport” (in plays) and in earnest:
Cassius: ....How many ages hence
Shall this our lofty scene be acted over
In states unborn and accents yet unknown?
Brutus: How many times shall Caesar bleed in sport,
That now at Pompey’s basis lies along
No worthier than the dust!
Shakespeare hadn’t Australia and George Rignold in his mind’s eye when he wrote that.
Cassius: So oft as that shall be,
So often shall the knot of us be call’d
The men that gave their country liberty.
Well, be that as it will, I’m with Brutus too, irrespective of the merits of the case. Antony spoke at the funeral, with free and generous permission, and see what he made of it. And why shouldn’t I? and see what I’ll make of it.
Antony, after sending abject and uncalled-for surrender, and grovelling unasked in the dust to Brutus and his friends as no straight mate should do for another, dead or alive—and after taking the blood-stained hands of his alleged friend’s murderers—got permission to speak. To speak for his own ends or that paltry, selfish thing called “revenge,” be it for one’s self or one’s friend.
“Brutus, I want a word with you,” whispered Cassius. “Don’t let him speak! You don’t know how he might stir up the mob with what he says.”
But Brutus had already given his word: