Question

If you were a Roman listening to Brutus and Mark Antony, whose speech would have swayed you more?

Answer 1

Answer:

Mark Antony's speech would sway me more.

Explanation:

Brutus and Mark Antony are characters in Shakespeare's play "Julius Caesar". Brutus, Cassius, and others have betrayed and killed Caesar, the emperor of Rome. During Caesar's funeral, Brutus gives a speech. He is a good and skilled speaker, but his speech lacks emotion. It shows, instead, quite an egotistic attitude, as if he felt superior to Caesar:

As Caesar

loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at

it; as he was valiant, I honor him; but as he was ambitious,

I slew him.

On the other hand, Mark Antony's speech is filled with emotion. He truly honors Caesar, his friend and emperor. Mark Antony's also a skilled speaker and wittily shows the crowd that Brutus and Cassius are not good men. Even though he calls them "honourable", he does so ironically. He is skillfully revealing what he truly thinks of those noble men, yet not so blatantly as to expose his loyalty to Caesar to the point of getting himself killed. His speech would have swayed me because of his cleverness and subtlety, as well as his emotion:

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honourable man.

[...]

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.