Friends, Romans, countrymen...

Today is the Ides of March! I took Latin for 3 years during high school, and learned more than my share about ancient Rome. I don't remember if it was for Latin class, or for a speech or English class, that I memorized the below speech from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar by Caesar's friend Mark Antony. I like it. I love the subtle sarcasm conveyed. Brutus wants to justify what he did because he says Caesar was power-hungry. Antony, Caesar's friend, stood up for the good to be remembered about their leader, dishonoring Brutus in the public's eye and exposing Brutus' ambitions in a very clever way. Read the whole scene

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,
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.

Another note today: I don't know if the ancient Romans drank coffee or not, but if YOU want to, Starbucks is offering FREE COFFEE from 10am to noon today.
I can't stand the stuff. I just thought I'd throw that out there.