Read the extract from 'Julius Caesar' Act 3, Scene 2, given below and answer the questions that follow: 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 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.
What does Antony say he is there for? What does he say he is not there for? What do you think he is actually there for?
Topic: Act 3 Scene 2 — the funeral oration
Answer
Antony says he has come to bury Caesar — to perform the plain duty of a funeral. He says he has NOT come to praise him, and he defers openly to Brutus and the conspirators, calling them honourable men.
What he is actually there for is the opposite of both claims. He has come to praise Caesar and to turn the citizens against the murderers. Bound by Brutus’s conditions, he cannot attack them directly, so he works by indirection: he disowns praise and then delivers it, and he repeats "honourable" until the word curdles into sarcasm.
How to build this answer for 3 marks: give one mark’s worth to each part and quote briefly. (1) Purpose stated — "I come to bury Caesar". (2) Purpose denied — "not to praise him". (3) Real purpose — to rouse the mob, quoting his opening premise that "The evil that men do lives after them, / The good is oft interred with their bones", which primes the crowd to feel Caesar’s goodness is about to be buried unjustly. Examiners reward the recognition that the disclaimer is a rhetorical trick, not modesty.