5 Things Actors Should Know About Antony's Funeral Oration
Drawn from what is actually said on camera, so you can decide whether to
spend the 2:33 watching it.
The speech opens by disclaiming its own purpose
"I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him" sets up a promise the whole speech then breaks. Antony has been granted permission to speak only on Brutus's terms, and the opening lines are him accepting those terms out loud before he starts working around them.
"Brutus is an honourable man" comes back four times, and each repetition follows a fact that makes it harder to believe. The line itself never changes. The actor's job is the shift in weight underneath it, from apparent deference to open irony.
Antony builds his case in concrete items: the captives whose ransoms filled Rome's coffers, Caesar weeping when the poor cried, and the crown refused three times at the Lupercal. Each is offered as plain fact, then handed back to the crowd as a question.
"Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?" and "was this ambition?" leave the conclusion to the listener. "I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, But here I am to speak what I do know" keeps the speaker technically inside the permission he was given.
After the control of the argument, the speech breaks: "O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts." Then "My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, And I must pause till it come back to me." The written pause is part of the text and needs playing, not skipping.
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 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, 1640 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 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.
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