Analysis of a Speech by Anthony in respect to Julies Caesar

Anthony's Julius Caesar Funeral Speech

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 interrèd 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 answered 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.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me,
But Brutus says he was ambitious,
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome, Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill;
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept: Ambition should be made of sterner stuff;
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,
And Brutus 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 Brutus says he was ambitious,
And sure he is an honourable 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 judgement, thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason! Bear with me, My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me. 

This speech is of special kind as it is meant to be spoken with grief and anger. The way in which it is portrayed makes one consider the background. It starts of with words that are muttered by a grieving man "I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him." and continues relatively monotonously when he speaks about how "the good is oft interrèd with their bones". 

However than comes a twist a play of words of a sort that makes one question Brutus's motives even though Anthony's doesn't directly speak of such he often speaks in a reoccurring pattern of "Brutus is an honourable man". At first one assumes Anthony is just trying to speak of his support to Brutus and give more meaning towards believing Brutus's speech on the justness of Caesars death. 

Yet one soon starts to soon notice that though is not the cause. '

And he pauses rhetorical questions to the public such as Brutus brought many captives to Rome... "Did this in Caesar seem ambitious"? Through the power of language and by putting the right emotion where the right emotion is due Anthony strives to connect to the public and is able to do so at such a level that he manages to convince the public of Brutus not bearing a completely white shirt, but one that is stained. 

One question I have been pondering about is if Ambition is an emotion? 

Shakespeare is famous for his use of ambition and makes emotion almost seem as if it was an emotion felt by the characters. There are many famous examples of that not limited to this play of his only, but also to other plays such as MacBeth, to some extend Romeo and Juliet whom were ambitious in getting their relationship to work and many more. 

The definition of ambition is "an earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction, as power, honor, fame, or wealth,and the willingness to strive for its attainment". (Dictionary.com)

In theory one would assume that ambition is a good thing as the Bible, which at the time of Shakespeare was a book of importance also strives to make it as such “Do not… fear / hurry / envy / be angry / be ambitious / be competitive / lust / be greedy / be ashamed / criticize yourself / feel inadequate / feel insecure. Trust in the Lord…” (Psalm 37) 

Yet in the context of this speech ambition is the pure reason of evil. It is what drove Brutus to commit such act as well as the word that causes the public to reconsider Brutus's innocence and speech and decide upon what has really happened. Whether Anthony was driven by ambition is a different matter, but at least in the context of this speech one would assume that it was not ambition but anger and distaste of Brutus as well as the feeling of underestimation that lead to such Power and caused eventually the rise of Anthony as the Emperor of Rome.