Act III Scene 2 of Julius Caesar is where Marc Antony gives his famous
speech (for those not down with Shakespeare, that is where we get
"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears...").
He is speaking over Caesar's freshly assassinated body...and in front of Brutus (one of the assassins and Caesar's trusted friend). In the speech, as in this song, the line "But Brutus is an honorable man" is repeated, but it is done so in a way to imply the exact opposite. Marc Antony has to mind his tongue in front of Brutus and the assassins, but he is not about to let his friend (Caesar) be murdered without speaking out. The way in which he does so is through a speech in which he never calls Brutus anything more than "an honorable man" and where he uses what the angry mob already knows to prove to them the truth of the spectacle they had just witnessed. In essence, the crowd and reader MAY believe that Marc Antony is being truthful in calling Brutus an honorable man, but by the end of the speech the crowd and the reader know exactly what to think of Brutus and his treachery.
If you care enough to hang out at a place called Song Meanings....and you like Saul Williams enough to check out the lyrics here, you almost owe it to yourself to read that scene from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. It will make this song that much better....and Shakespeare is no slouch himself.
Act III Scene 2 of Julius Caesar is where Marc Antony gives his famous speech (for those not down with Shakespeare, that is where we get "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears...").
He is speaking over Caesar's freshly assassinated body...and in front of Brutus (one of the assassins and Caesar's trusted friend). In the speech, as in this song, the line "But Brutus is an honorable man" is repeated, but it is done so in a way to imply the exact opposite. Marc Antony has to mind his tongue in front of Brutus and the assassins, but he is not about to let his friend (Caesar) be murdered without speaking out. The way in which he does so is through a speech in which he never calls Brutus anything more than "an honorable man" and where he uses what the angry mob already knows to prove to them the truth of the spectacle they had just witnessed. In essence, the crowd and reader MAY believe that Marc Antony is being truthful in calling Brutus an honorable man, but by the end of the speech the crowd and the reader know exactly what to think of Brutus and his treachery.
If you care enough to hang out at a place called Song Meanings....and you like Saul Williams enough to check out the lyrics here, you almost owe it to yourself to read that scene from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. It will make this song that much better....and Shakespeare is no slouch himself.
But Brutus is an honorable man.