:: Hikmah @ Ekhwan.Com ::

Here is the what happened, as depicted by Shakesphere:

As Caesar lies in a pool of blood in the Roman Senate, Brutus tells a crowd of plebians what has just happened, and why Caesar’s unrelenting ambition for power lead to his assassination. The crowd cheers Brutus on, wishing him to be the new Caesar. Brutus exits stage, and offsider Antony delivers this famous eulogy:

Friends, Romans, Countrymen, I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do live after them. The good is oft interred with the bones,
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus,
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious…

Julius wasn’t really such a bad..and so on, but from starting off endorsing Brutus’s action, he reminds the crowd that bloke, that his death was regrettable, and after reading aloud Julius Caesar’s will, that expressed how fond he really was of his citizens, the crowd instead becomes enraged at the conspirators. A riot ensues.

I love the words of Antony, so wonderful is his speech that leaves the beholders and the listeners speechless. I thought I should quote it here.

Mark Antony:
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 interréd 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 answered 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 judgement! 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.