Here comes Antony. Welcome, Mark Antony!
[Re-enter Antony]Oh mighty Caesar! Have you been brought this low? Have all of your conquests, glories, triumphs, and spoils of war shrunk to just this? Farewell Caesar. [To Cassius and Brutus] Gentlemen, I don't know your intentions, I don't know who else you intend to kill, or who else you think has overgrown their boundaries. If I am one of them, there's no better time to kill me than the hour of Caesar's death, nor is there any murder weapon as worthy as your swords which have enriched themselves with Caesar's blood, the noblest in the world. I beg you, if you bear a grudge against me, kill me now while your bloodied hands still reek of hot blood. If I live a thousand years, I will never find a more fitting time to die. No place and means of death would please more than being killed here next to Caesar by you, the masters of this new age.
Oh Antony, don't beg us to kill you! Though we must appear bloody and cruel, judging from our bloody hands and the act they've just committed, for you only see our hands and the bleeding they have caused. But our hearts, which you do not see, are full of pity—pity for Caesar, but also for the wrongs which he has inflicted on all of Rome. Just as a large fire drives out a smaller one, so a larger pity prevails over a smaller. Thus it was our greater pity for Rome which drove us to kill Caesar. As for you, our swords are harmless against you, Mark Antony. Though our weapons are capable of inflicting much injury, our hearts, full of brotherly love, receive you with nothing but kindness, good thoughts, and respect.
I don't doubt your wisdom. Let each man give me his bloody hand. I'll shake yours first, Marcus Brutus. I'll take your hand next, Caius Cassius. Now yours, Decius Brutus, now yours, Metellus, yours, Cinna, and yours, my valiant Casca, and last but not least in love, yours, good Trebonius. Gentlemen, what should I say? My integrity is on shaky ground, for you must think me either a coward or a flatterer.
[To Caesar’s body] It’s true that I loved you, Caesar! If your spirit could see us now, it would be more grieved then by your death, to see your Antony making peace by shaking the bloody fingers of your foes in the presence of your body—most noble act! Caesar, rather than come together in friendship with your enemies, it would be more fitting if I had as many eyes as you have wounds, and from them streamed tears as fast the blood from your wounds. Pardon me, Julius! Here you were cornered like a deer, a brave stag, and here were you shot; and here stand the hunters, bearing the signs of their kill, their bloody hands crimson as if they had been dipped in the Lethe, the death river of Hades. The whole world was the forest for you, brave hart; and you were the heart of the whole world. Here you lie, like a magnificent stag, shot my many princes.
Pardon me for interrupting you, Caius Cassius. Even the enemies of Caesar would say this of him, so coming from me, his friend, it's only moderate praise.
I don't blame you for praising Caesar like this. But what kind of agreement are you looking to have with us? Do you want to be counted as one of our friends? Or should we go on and not depend on you?
I took your hands to be friends, but indeed I got distracted by looking down at Caesar. I am friends with you all, and I love you all—as long as you will give me reasons why you think Caesar was dangerous.
If we had no reasons for thinking so, this would be a savage spectacle indeed. Our reasons were so well-intentioned, Antony, that even if you were Caesar's son you'd be satisfied by them.
That's all I'm looking for. Additionally, I'd like to take his body to the marketplace, and as a friend, speak from the public platform, as part of his funeral service.
You can, Mark Antony.
Brutus, a word with you. [Aside to Brutus] You don't know what you're doing. Don't give your consent for Antony to speak at his funeral. Don't you know how much the people might be stirred up against us by what Antony might say?
[Aside to Cassius] With your permission, I'll stand on the platform first and explain why Caesar was put to death. Whatever Antony says, I'll tell them that he speaks with our permission, and that we want Caesar to have all the correct funeral rites and lawful ceremonies. It will do us more good than harm.
[Aside to Brutus] I don't know what the fallout of his speech will be. I don't like this.
Mark Antony, take Caesar's body. You are not to blame us in your funeral speech, but may speak however well you can of Caesar, and say that you do so by our permission. Otherwise, you will have no hand at all in his funeral. And you'll speak from the same platform to which I'm going now, after I'm done.
So be it. I want nothing more.
Prepare the body then, and follow us.
[Exit all but Antony][To Caesar’s body] Oh you bleeding piece of flesh, pardon me for being so meek and gentle with these butchers! You are the ruins of the noblest man who ever lived in the flow of time. Woe to the hand that shed this rich blood! Over your wounds—which, like silent mouths, open their ruby lips to beg my tongue to speak—I predict a curse will fall on the bodies of men. Furious and fierce civil war shall overwhelm all of Italy.
Everyone will be so used to blood and destruction, and dreadful things so common, that mothers will just smile when they see their babies cut in pieces by the hands of war, all pity blocked by the familiarity of evil deeds. And Caesar's ghost, raging for revenge, with the goddess of strife at his side having come directly from hell, shall, throughout these regions and in a monarch's voice cry "Havoc!", and unleash the hounds of war, so that Caesar's murder shall cause a stink over the earth from all the rotting bodies groaning for burial.
[Enter Octavius' Servant]You serve Octavius Caesar, don't you?
I do, Mark Antony.
Julius Caesar wrote to him asking him to come to Rome.
He received his letters and is coming, and he asked me to tell you in person—
[Seeing the body]You have a big heart; go somewhere else and weep. Emotion is contagious, I see, since now my eyes, seeing yours tearing up, are starting to water as well. Is your master coming?
He's camping tonight twenty-one miles from Rome.
Ride back quickly and tell him what's happened. Rome is in mourning, a dangerous Rome, not yet a Rome safe enough for Octavius. Go and tell him this.—Yet wait a minute; don't go back until I've carried his corpse to the marketplace. There, I'm going to find out by my speech how the people feel about the result of these bloody men's work. This information you will pass on to Octavius. Give me your hand.