His utmost ire? which to the height enraged, Will either quite consume us, and reduce To nothing this essential (happier far, Than miserable, to have eternal being,) Or, if our substance be indeed divine, And cannot cease to be, we are at worst On this side nothing; and by proof we feel Our power sufficient to disturb his heaven, And with perpetual inroads to alarm, Though inaccessible, his fatal throne; Which, if not victory--is yet Revenge. Milton. CCXL. ANTONY'S ADDRESS TO THE ROMANS. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears: I come to bury Cæsar, 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 Cæsar, The noble Brutus Hath told you, Cæsar, was ambitious: If it were so, it was a grievous fault, And grievously hath Cæsar, answered it. Here, under leave of Brutus, and the rest, (For Brutus is an honorable man; So are they all, all honorable men), Come I to speak in Cæsar's funeral. He was my friend, faithful and just to me: But Brutus says he was ambitious, And Brutus is an honorable man. He hath brought many captives home to Rome, Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill: Did this in Cæsar, seem ambitious? When that the poor have cried, Cæsar, hath wept: Ambition should be made of sterner stuff: Yet Brutus says he was ambitious, And Brutus is an honorable 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 honorable 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 judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts, And men have lost their reason! Bear with me: My heart is in the coffin there with Cæsar, And I must pause till it come back to me.