Homework projects for Julius Caesar are due on Tuesday, June 5th. If you lost your list of projects, you can download it here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wUeGQ3nsqWLiAqkaj5SBzbCr9RD01hVq3c8lLI18Vgo/edit
Project #36 is to perform a selected speech from the play for the class. Below are five speeches that are acceptable for this project. For more information, see me in class! Good luck!
SPEECHES:
Speech #1
Act III, Scene 2, lines 75-109: (34 lines) pp. 834-835
Antony speaking
to the crowd at Caesar’s funeral.
75 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
80 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;
85 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.
90 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:
95 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?
100 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:
105 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.
Speech #2
Act III, Scene 1, lines 148-163: (16 lines) pp. 826
Antony speaking
to the newly dead body of his friend Caesar, and then (at line 151) to Brutus,
etc.
O mighty Caesar! dost thou lie so
low?
Are all thy conquests, glories,
triumphs, spoils,
150 Shrunk to this
little measure? Fare thee well.
I know not, gentlemen, what you
intend,
Who else must be let blood, who
else is rank:
If I myself, there is no hour so
fit
As Caesar's death hour, nor no
instrument
155 Of half that
worth as those your swords, made rich
With the most noble blood of all
this world.
I do beseech ye, if you bear me
hard,
Now, whilst your purpled hands do
reek and smoke,
Fulfill your pleasure. Live a
thousand years,
160 I shall not
find myself so apt to die:
No place will please me so, no mean
of death,
As here by Caesar, and by you cut
off,
The choice and master spirits of
this age.
Speech #3
Act III, Scene 1, lines 58-73: (16 lines) pp. 823
Ceasar speaking
to a crowd, turning down Metellus’ request to help his brother Cimber
I could be well moved, if I were as
you:
If I could pray to move, prayers
would move me:
60 But I am
constant as the northern star,
Of whose true-fix'd and resting
quality
There is no fellow in the
firmament.
The skies are painted with
unnumber'd sparks,
They are all fire and every one
doth shine,
65 But there's but
one in all doth hold his place:
So in the world; 'tis furnish'd
well with men,
And men are flesh and blood, and
apprehensive;
Yet in the number I do know but one
That unassailable holds on his
rank,
70 Unshaked of
motion: and that I am he,
Let me a little show it, even in
this;
That I was constant Cimber should
be banish'd,
And constant do remain to keep him
so.
Speech #4
Act II, Scene 1, lines 10-34: (25 lines) pp. 799
Brutus trying to
think of a good reason to kill Caesar
10 It must be by
his death: and for my part,
I know no personal cause to spurn
at him,
But for the general. He would be
crown'd:
How that might change his nature,
there's the question.
It is the bright day that brings
forth the adder;
15 And that craves
wary walking. Crown him? – that; –
And then, I grant, we put a sting
in him,
That at his will he may do danger
with.
The abuse of greatness is, when it
disjoins
Remorse from power: and, to speak
truth of Caesar,
20 I have not
known when his affections sway'd
More than his reason. But 'tis a
common proof,
That lowliness is young ambition's
ladder,
Whereto the climber upward turns
his face;
But when he once attains the upmost
round
25 He then unto
the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the
base degrees
By which he did ascend. So Caesar
may.
Then, lest he may, prevent. And,
since the quarrel
Will bear no color for the thing he
is,
30 Fashion it
thus; that what he is, augmented,
Would run to these and these
extremities:
And therefore think him as a
serpent's egg
Which, hatch'd, would, as his kind,
grow mischievous,
And kill him in the shell.
Speech #5
Act I, Scene 2, lines 135-161: (26 lines) pp. 783-785
Cassius to
Brutus, talking about Caesar:
135 Why, man, he
doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep
about
To find ourselves dishonorable
graves.
Men at some time are masters of
their fates:
140 The fault, dear
Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are
underlings.
Brutus and Caesar: what should be
in that 'Caesar'?
Why should that name be sounded
more than yours?
Write them together, yours is as
fair a name;
145 Sound them, it
doth become the mouth as well;
Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure
with 'em,
Brutus will start a spirit as soon
as Caesar.
Now, in the names of all the gods
at once,
Upon what meat doth this our Caesar
feed,
150 That he is
grown so great? Age, thou art shamed!
Rome, thou hast lost the breed of
noble bloods!
When went there by an age, since
the great flood,
But it was famed with more than
with one man?
When could they say till now, that
talk'd of Rome,
155 That her wide
walls encompass'd but one man?
Now is it Rome indeed and room
enough,
When there is in it but one only
man.
O, you and I have heard our fathers
say,
There was a Brutus once that would
have brook'd
160 The eternal
devil to keep his state in Rome
As easily as a king.
