>>114950297Friends, Martianss, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Anon, 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 Anon. The noble Daffy
Hath told you Anon was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Anon answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Daffy and the rest–
For Daffy is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men–
Come I to speak in Anon’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Daffy says he was ambitious;
And Daffy is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Mars
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Anon seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Anon hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Daffy says he was ambitious;
And Daffy is an honourable 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 Daffy says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Daffy 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 Anon,
And I must pause till it come back to me.
