Julius Cæsar: Two Funeral Speeches

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On the Death of Julius Cæsar: Two Funeral Speeches The art of rhetoric is a very powerful tool, especially in the proper setting. It can stir people’s hearts to rage, or bring them together to stand against tyranny. In William Shakespeare’s play, The Tragedy of Julius Cæsar, Marcus Brutus is given the task to explain to the Romans why he and the other conspirators kill Cæsar, and is so confident that his cause is just that he allows Mark Antony, a dear friend of Cæsar, to speak afterward. Despite Brutus winning the crowd over at the end of his speech, Antony persuades the Romans against Brutus and starts a civil war. Shakespeare uses the two speeches to demonstrate how easily people are influenced and how subtle little differences can have …show more content…
Antony, on the other hand, begins his speech with similarly to Brutus, but ranks friends first, than the his county, and then others, but rather than demanding they listen to him, he offers a soft, “...lend me your ears;”(Shakespeare III.ii.75), politely asking for those gathered there to listen to him, and relating directly to his audience while holding the authority of iambic pentameter. Antony gives another comment, which makes him seem to be aligned with Brutus: “I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him.”(Shakespeare III.ii.76). However, this remark is apophasis, and immediately after he begins his transition by noticing that the crowd is only focusing on the flaws of Cæsar, and “The good is...interred in [his] bones;”(Shakespeare III.ii.78). Another factor behind the success of a speech is the emotional state of the speaker, which can affect how strong their will behind their words is. Brutus still has some doubt from earlier, when he admits that “the quarrel / Will bear no color for the thing [Cæsar] is,” (Shakespeare II.ii.29). Antony, on the other hand, presents himself to the crowd after Brutus’s speech, so he makes sure they know that “Here, under the leave of Brutus and the rest.../Come [he] to speak in Cæsar’s funeral,” (Shakespeare …show more content…
Brutus, known as the honorable man, gives his reason plainly, continuing in his tone of harsh of prose. It is “Not that [he] loved Cæsar less, but that [he] loved Rome more,”(Shakespeare III.ii.23-24). He presents himself as a patriot, putting Rome first before hinting at Cæsar’s crime of ambition with a rhetorical question to his audience: “Had you rather Cæsar were living and all die slaves, than that Cæsar were dead, to live all free men?”(Shakespeare III.ii.24-25). However, the point of ambition is disproved by Antony, who tells the crowd “When the poor have cried, Cæsar hath wept:”(Shakespeare III.ii.93) and that “Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:”(Shakespeare III.ii.94), for if Cæsar was truly ambitious he would show no sign of remorse. While Antony is mainly appealing to logos in this section of his speech, which was a very popular appeal in Roman times, Brutus did not use more than a small bit of logos, but rather continues his main appeal of ethos, trying to prove his credibility and morality as he explains, “As Cæsar loved me, I weep for him...as he was valiant, I honour him: but, as he was ambitious, I slew him,” (Shakespeare III.ii.25-28). Despite Brutus showing the crowd he still has a heart and that Cæsar would have become a tyrant, Antony gives a total of three examples of public events where Cæsar was humble, the greatest extent being the crown Cæsar refused three
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