ANTONY'S EULOGY OF JULIUS CAESAR (SHAKESPEARE, JULIUS CAESAR ACT 3 SCENE 2)

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 honorable 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 judgment, 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.

WHEN I PLAYED THE DEVIL

It was a long time ago. Years, ages to me, that I stepped a stage for the last time.

I still remember a certain play: I played the Devil in one of Master Gil Vicente's Acts, "The Act of The Soul".

I was what you call an "amateur", I loved (and still I do) to perform, and to play the Devil was my speciality.

I even scandalised half-world (well, a lot of people, several dozens, to be exact) when asked about the character I thought to be the most important in the play (The Act of The Soul).

Thoughtlessly I answered : The Devil.

For some time there were some Christian's mothers souls that kept their daughters (or at least tried to) away from me. I thought they really believed I was the devil, never realizing that were my imprudent words (in Portugal'sixties the majority of the people had a real fear and respect to the Catholic Church) that had arisen such reactions.

I went acting for sometime, until I had to choose between my passion and the need to feed my family.

If this event ocurred today, for sure I would say the same thing, but this time, when those scandalised faces showed their displeasure, at last I would know what to answer back:

- Of course the Devil is the most important character in the play. For sure is not the soul, she is there only to be driven to heaven or hell. The Angel ? Don't make me laugh, he only has to play the soul's watch-dog. If someone is doing the heavy work in the play it is the Devil.

If there is something extremely difficult to do is to tempt someone. You have to spend a lot of time and to use the best of your class to convert a soul to your kingdom of hell, and work your way, into the soul defences, with that pain-in-the-ass of an angel, always nagging around.

And if you still don't believe me just ask any propaganda's guru.