ys) and in earnest:

Cassius: ....How many ages hence
Shall this our lofty scene be acted over
In states unborn and accents yet unknown?

Brutus: How many times shall Caesar bleed in sport,
That now at Pompey's basis lies along
No worthier than the dust!

Shakespeare hadn't Australia and George Rignold in his mind's eye when
he wrote that.

Cassius: So oft as that shall be,
So often shall the knot of us be call'd
The men that gave their country liberty.

Well, be that as it will, I'm with Brutus too, irrespective of the
merits of the case. Antony spoke at the funeral, with free and generous
permission, and see what he made of it. And why shouldn't I? and see
what I'll make of it.

Antony, after sending abject and uncalled-for surrender, and grovelling
unasked in the dust to Brutus and his friends as no straight mate should
do for another, dead or alive--and after taking the blood-stained hands
of his alleged friend's murderers--got permission to speak. To speak for
his own ends or that paltry, selfish thing called "revenge," be it for
one's self or one's friend.

"Brutus, I want a word with you," whispered Cassius. "Don't let him
speak! You don't know how he might stir up the mob with what he says."

But Brutus had already given his word:

Antony: That's all I seek:
And am moreover suitor that I may
Produce his body to the market place,
And in the pulpit, as becomes a friend,
Speak in the order of his funeral.

Brutus: You shall, Mark Antony.

And now, strong in his right, as he thinks, and trusting to the honour
of Antony, he only stipulates that he (Brutus) shall go on to the
platform first and explain things; and that Antony shall speak all the
good he can of Caesar, but not abuse Brutus and his friends.

And Antony (mark you) agrees and promises and breaks his promise
immediately afterwards. Maybe he was only gaining time for his good
friend Octavius Caesar, but time gained by such foul means is time lost
through all eternity. Did Mark think of these things years afterwards in
Egypt when he was doubly ruined and doubly betrayed to his good friend
Octavius by that hot, jealous, selfish, shallow, shifty, strumpet,
Cleopatra, and Octavius was after his scalp with a certainty of getting
it? He did--and he spoke of it, too.

Brutus made his speech, a straightfor