Through the voice of a whiskey-clad Marc Antony, this version replaces ancient Roman gravitas with the wit and rhythm of Irish speech, blending humor and sincerity in the wake of a fallen leader. As Antony laments Caesar’s death, the speech becomes a rousing call, filled with biting irony and affection, as he mourns his friend and questions the motives of those who condemned him.

"At Caesar's Wake"

(with apologies to William Shakespeare)

Marc Antony [standing, holding a tumbler of whiskey]:

 

Friends, Romans, countrymen, c’mere ‘till I tell ya;

I’m just after coming to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them, so it does;

Sure, and their works of mercy are oft interred with their bones;

So let it be with Caesar. Yer man Brutus

Is after telling yiz Himself was a fierce chancer:

If it were so, sure it’s a mortal sin,

And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.

Here, under leave of yer man and the rest –

For Brutus is some man for one man;

So are they all, all grand lads –

Come I to speak at Caesar’s wake.

He was my friend, faithful and just to me, so he was:

But Brutus is after giving out he was a fierce chancer;

And yer man Brutus, sure he wouldn’t lie to ye.

He’s after bringing many captives home to Rome

Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:

Did this in Caesar seem ambitious at all at all?

When the poor are after crying, Caesar weeps too:

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:

Yet Brutus is after giving out he was a fierce chancer;

And sure he wouldn’t lie to ye.

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Yiz all did see that on the Lupercal

I’m three times after giving him a kingly crown,

Which he did three times refuse: was this ambition?

Yet yer man Brutus says he was a fierce chancer;

And, sure he wouldn’t lie to ye.

I speak not to disprove what yer man is after sayin’,

But here I am to speak what I do know.

Yiz all did love him once, not without cause:

What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?

Janey Mac! You’re after becoming eejits,

And men are after losing their reason. Lookit;

My heart is in the coffin there with Himself,

And I must pause till it come back to me, so I must.

[takes a sip of the gargle and begins to sing]:

Of all the money that e'er I had

I spent it in good company…

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