Antony: Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,
And Brutus is an honorable man.
line from The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene 2, script by William Shakespeare (1599)
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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Related quotes
The depth counts
The cut on Julius Caesar was the unkindest
Not that Brutus made the wound deepest
But that Brutus was his most trusted man.
Sorrow of our parting is the cruelest
Not that our relation is the lengthiest
But that you had become my dearest.
04.08.2000, Paralakhemundi
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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C) Julius Caesar
Enter CASCA and CICERO
CASCA: Tomorrow in the senate we shall have to work. Caesar will be sitting.
CICERO: An orator does not go out of fashion, I shall deliver a speech.
CASCA: To be a conspirator has become fashionable.
CICERO: Our roles are not so definite, we use to ignore them.
CASCA: You yourself mention ignorance! Were not you Princeps Senatus?
CICERO: Though he put the crown by thrice, the dictator wants to be top of Rome.
CASCA: He is really top of Rome. Senators are useless.
CICERO: Antony is his shadow and wants put himself in his place. However I am looking all
around.
CASCA: I am one of your accomplices and wonder whether you are seeing anything interesting.
CICERO: I don't like Marullus. Let's get the tribun of the people killed.
CASCA: Do you want to kill a son, too? We already must kill a father.
CICERO: Maybe I don't like killing fathers.
II,1
Enter MARCUS BRUTUS and PORTIA
BRUTUS: As sentinel greets the dawn, so I greet your return. You are late.
PORTIA: Sure, I was very busy at the market-place. Sometimes woman carries a heavy load.
BRUTUS: We must save Rome. People must honour its laws.
PORTIA: I always honoured those laws.
BRUTUS: For this reason I got married with you and did not want another in your place.
PORTIA: My place is close to our native Lares.
BRUTUS: Tradition is on our side. Our homework is the usual one.
PORTIA: No homework but this: one can not re-wind the spindle of time.
poem by Paolo Giuseppe Mazzarello
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Political Assassination Publically Justified
“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears”
such emotionally charged rhetoric written in iambic
pentameter; reminds of times without hearing aids
when microphone television did not aid cause politic.
Yes Antony here plays mocking Brutus, saying that
maybe his speech was too 'cerebral' for the crowd.
Let us not beat around the bush in politics agendaed
politic proclaim “So are they all, all honourable men”.
A portion of the speech 'But Brutus was an honourable
man' is referenced in an opening scene of the West Wing;
which reminds of honourable times without hearing aids
when microphone television did not edit amplify a plot.
“O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me; ”
recall words 'Enemies Foreign and Domestic'
remind in war on terror of threatening all abodes.
Brutus too had previously delivered politic speech,
in which Brutus proud claimed that the murder had;
been done in name of public freedom clever speech,
evil lives while good is oft interred with slain bones.
The opening quotation of this poem is the famous first line of the often-quoted speech by Mark Antony, in the play Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare. The first three words fit into the rule of three technique.
The second quotation also alludes to the theme of a speaker and the power of a good speech to convince an audience of a specific political point of view. Note the turn of the word honourable to mean dishonourable in Mark Anthony’s speech and beware those who speak of us as Honourable Friends.
poem by Terence George Craddock
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Both Brutus and Hamlet are highly intellectual by nature and reflective by habit. Both may even be called, in a popular sense, philosophic; Brutus may be called so in a stricter sense.
quote by Andrew Coyle Bradley
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Antony: For Brutus is an honourable man; so are they all, all honourable men.
line from The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene 2, script by William Shakespeare (1599)
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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Sam Hookey
I ran away from home with the circus,
Having fallen in love with Mademoiselle Estralada,
The lion tamer.
One time, having starved the lions
For more than a day,
I entered the cage and began to beat Brutus
And Leo and Gypsy.
Whereupon Brutus sprang upon me,
And killed me.
On entering these regions
I met a shadow who cursed me,
And said it served me right....
It was Robespierre!
poem by Edgar Lee Masters
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Et tuo...Brutus
et tuo Brutus, my life has been with you
i always stand for you, when ever your in the dark
the dried tears that fall in your cheek, i do remember
that you need me though you did not ask for it. I know
that i've been too honest of what is deep inside of me. thats
because. you are with me every time i am awake,
many time in the past, the joy that we use to do, rekindle in my
soul, a moment where you're one with me. yes! its true that those
are just a passing sense in our eyes. but remember that we always
cease the wind though those thought are just a simple dream of pain the past to mesmerize
loving you is what my heart live, a splendor of the essence of who you are to me. i do love you, even in a time you became Brutus in the solitude of needs that my heart whisper. i too have lapses to take, yet it became the stimulus to make changes in life to take this simple Caesar to stand amidst this chaotic world. let me die in your bosom heart, for you i lay down my life to live... i love you Brutus in my heart.
i love you, a love that no other man i ever shared. today in my repose, would only meant to know you that beyond this moment, is a time to remember that you live in me forever....Brutus
...
poem by Antonio Liao
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Brutus
At him, you are heaving your stick
But shouting ‘ahas’ and ‘ohos’ with throes
I thought “this man is a hoax”
But you’re as honorable as Brutus
I found the other end of that long baton, alas
Right in between your two legs
poem by Sathya Narayana
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Brutus: That lowliness is young ambition's ladder,
Whereto the climber upward turns his face.
But when he once attains the upmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend.
line from The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, Act II, Scene 1, script by William Shakespeare (1599)
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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Destruction by ambition.
If your senses are hungry,
You seek food, sex and comfort.
If your ego is hungry,
You seek name and position.
The drive of ambition,
Rather than the drive of senses
Put one to destruction
As did to Brutus and Mac Beth.
24.12.2003
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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You also, Brutus.
quote by Julius Caesar
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves if we are underlings.
quote by William Shakespeare
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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Chorus of Youths and Virgins
Semichorus.
Oh Tyrant Love! hast thou possest
The prudent, learn'd, and virtuous breast?
Wisdom and wit in vain reclaim,
And Arts but soften us to feel thy flame.
Love, soft intruder, enters here,
But ent'ring learns to be sincere.
Marcus with blushes owns he loves,
And Brutus tenderly reproves.
Why, Virtue, dost thou blame desire,
Which Nature has imprest?
Why, Nature, dost thou soonest fire
The mild and gen'rous breast?
Chorus.
Love's purer flames the Gods approve;
The Gods and Brutus bent to love:
Brutus for absent Portia sighs,
And sterner Cassius melts at Junia's eyes.
What is loose love? a transient gust,
Spent in a sudden storm of lust,
A vapour fed from wild desire,
A wand'ring, self-consuming fire,
But Hymen's kinder flames unite;
And burn for ever one;
Chaste as cold Cynthia's virgin light,
Productive as the Sun.
Semichorus.
Oh source of ev'ry social tie,
United wish, and mutual joy!
What various joys on one attend,
As son, as father, brother husband, friend?
Whether his hoary sire he spies,
While thousand grateful thoughts arise;
Or meets his spouse's fonder eye;
Or views his smiling progeny;
What tender passions take their turns,
What home-felt raptures move?
His heart now melts, now leaps, now burns,
With rev'rence, hope, and love.
Chorus.
Hence guilty joys, distastes, surmises,
Hence false tears, deceits, disguises,
Dangers, doubts, delays, surprises;
Fires that scorch, yet dare not shine
Purest love's unwasting treasure,
Constant faith, fair hope, long leisure,
Days of ease, and nights of pleasure;
Sacred Hymen! these are thine.
poem by Alexander Pope
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With brutus in st. jo
Of all the opry-houses then obtaining in the West
The one which Milton Tootle owned was, by all odds, the best;
Milt, being rich, was much too proud to run the thing alone,
So he hired an "acting manager," a gruff old man named Krone--
A stern, commanding man with piercing eyes and flowing beard,
And his voice assumed a thunderous tone when Jack and I appeared;
He said that Julius Caesar had been billed a week or so,
And would have to have some armies by the time he reached St. Jo!
O happy days, when Tragedy still winged an upward flight,
When actors wore tin helmets and cambric robes at night!
O happy days, when sounded in the public's rapturous ears
The creak of pasteboard armor and the clash of wooden spears!
O happy times for Jack and me and that one other supe
That then and there did constitute the noblest Roman's troop!
With togas, battle axes, shields, we made a dazzling show,
When we were Roman soldiers with Brutus in St. Jo!
We wheeled and filed and double-quicked wherever Brutus led,
The folks applauding what we did as much as what he said;
'T was work, indeed; yet Jack and I were willing to allow
'T was easier following Brutus than following father's plough;
And at each burst of cheering, our valor would increase--
We tramped a thousand miles that night, at fifty cents apiece!
For love of Art--not lust for gold--consumed us years ago,
When we were Roman soldiers with Brutus in St. Jo!
To-day, while walking in the Square, Jack Langrish says to me:
"My friend, the drama nowadays ain't what it used to be!
These farces and these comedies--how feebly they compare
With that mantle of the tragic art which Forrest used to wear!
My soul is warped with bitterness to think that you and I--
Co-heirs to immortality in seasons long gone by--
Now draw a paltry stipend from a Boston comic show,
We, who were Roman soldiers with Brutus in St. Jo!"
And so we talked and so we mused upon the whims of Fate
That had degraded Tragedy from its old, supreme estate;
And duly, at the Morton bar, we stigmatized the age
As sinfully subversive of the interests of the Stage!
For Jack and I were actors in the halcyon, palmy days
Long, long before the Hoyt school of farce became the craze;
Yet, as I now recall it, it was twenty years ago
That we were Roman soldiers with Brutus in St. Jo!
We were by birth descended from a race of farmer kings
Who had done eternal battle with grasshoppers and things;
But the Kansas farms grew tedious--we pined for that delight
We read of in the Clipper in the barber's shop by night!
We would be actors--Jack and I--and so we stole away
From our native spot, Wathena, one dull September day,
And started for Missouri--ah, little did we know
We were going to train as soldiers with Brutus in St. Jo!
Our army numbered three in all--Marc Antony's was four;
Our army hankered after fame, but Marc's was after gore!
And when we reached Philippi, at the outset we were met
With an inartistic gusto I can never quite forget.
For Antony's overwhelming force of thumpers seemed to be
Resolved to do "them Kansas jays"--and that meant Jack and me!
My lips were sealed but that it seems quite proper you should know
That Rome was nowhere in it at Philippi in St. Jo!
I've known the slow-consuming grief and ostentatious pain
Accruing from McKean Buchanan's melancholy Dane;
Away out West I've witnessed Bandmann's peerless hardihood,
With Arthur Cambridge have I wrought where walking was not good;
In every phase of horror have I bravely borne my part,
And even on my uppers have I proudly stood for Art!
And, after all my suffering, it were not hard to show
That I got my allopathic dose with Brutus at St. Jo!
That army fell upon me in a most bewildering rage
And scattered me and mine upon that histrionic stage;
My toga rent, my helmet gone and smashed to smithereens,
They picked me up and hove me through whole centuries of scenes!
I sailed through Christian eras and mediæval gloom
And fell from Arden forest into Juliet's painted tomb!
Oh, yes, I travelled far and fast that night, and I can show
The scars of honest wounds I got with Brutus in St. Jo!
Ah me, old Davenport is gone, of fickle fame forgot,
And Barrett sleeps forever in a much neglected spot;
Fred Warde, the papers tell me, in far woolly western lands
Still flaunts the banner of high Tragic Art at one-night stands;
And Jack and I, in Charley Hoyt's Bostonian dramas wreak
Our vengeance on creation at some eensty dolls per week.
By which you see that public taste has fallen mighty low
Since we fought as Roman soldiers with Brutus in St. Jo!
poem by Eugene Field
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Fate is deadlier
He was stabbed in the back
While fighting his foes in front.
His end came from his friend.
One’s downfall from one’s Brutus.
07.06.2001
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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Cassius: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
line from The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene 2, script by William Shakespeare (1599)
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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Brutus: I did send to you
For certain sums of gold, which you denied me,
For I can raise no money by vile means.
line from The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, Act IV, Scene 3, script by William Shakespeare (1599)
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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How Do You Measure Up?
If you measure yourself by ambition,
There will always be someone more ambitious than you.
If you measure yourself by money,
There is always someone wealthier than you.
If you measure yourself by power,
There is always someone more powerful than you.
If you measure yourself with material things,
There is always someone with more stuff than you.
If you measure yourself by where you are in life,
There is always someone farther down the path than you.
If you measure yourself by appearance,
There is always someone that appears than you.
If you measure yourself by God,
Then we are all the same.
We are all wonderfully and beautifully made.
God is love.
And love has no end.
So in God's heart,
You will always measure up!
poem by Ryan Lee Morris
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Brutus: There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
line from The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, Act IV, Scene 3, script by William Shakespeare (1599)
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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No plus without minus
Every one has in store
Energies of the positive and the negative,
And pour on you either of which
To be a friend or a foe of you
And reserve the other energy.
Every friend in the end is a Brutus.
20.08.2002
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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