Marc Antony and the dead Caesar. Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.

Marc Antony and the Dead Caesar.

The Tragedy of Julius Caesar is a 1599 resulting tragedy by William Shakespeare, which is based on the historical person Julius Caesar. Shakespeare was mainly based on Plutarch’s Greek and Roman heroes life (Bioi paralleloi) that were present in the translation by Sir Thomas North 1579.

AFTER the speech of Brutus in the Forum over the body of the murdered Cæsar, Antony (c.83 B.C.–30 B.C.) addressed the people from the same rostrum. The speech is too long to be copied entire, but the following illustrates the engraving:

“You all do know this mantle: I remember
The first time ever Cæsar put it on;
‘Twas on a summer’s evening, in his tent;
That day he overcame the Nervii:—
Look! in this place ran Cassius’ dagger through:
See what a rent the envious Casca made;
Through this, the well-beloved Brutus stabbed;
And, as he plucked his cursed steel away,
Mark how the blood of Caesar followed it;
As rushing out of doors, to be resolved
If Brutus so unkindly knocked or no.”

Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar.”

Source: Character sketches of romance, fiction and the drama by Rev. Ebenezer Cobham Brewer, 1892. A revised American edition of the readers handbook. Edited by Marion Harland.

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