In the play Julius Caesar, analyze the speech made by Brutus and highlight Mark Antony's arguments to refute Brutus charge that Caesar was ambitious.

In Act III, scene i of Julius Caesar,
Antony delivers one of the great monologues in all of literature, using much verbal irony and
clever rhetorical devices to undercut Brutus' empty words:

readability="0">

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 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 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.

Here, Antony uses
verbal irony, namely sarcasm (saying
the opposite of what he means) to use Brutus' words against him.  If Brutus says Caesar was
"ambitious" and if Brutus is "honorable," then Antony can, by proving the former charge (Caesar
was "ambitious) is false, also prove the latter tag is false (Brutus is
"honorable").

Antony proves both of these using a
repetition of argument,
counter-argument,
sarcasm, and rhetorical questions.  He
repeatedly says "Brutus is an honourable man" in a sarcastic way to prove, obviously,
that he doesn't mean it.  We can conclude, therefore, that Brutus saying Caesar was "ambitious"
is likewise false, but not sarcastic.  So, sarcastic "lies" expose and trump actual lies.  In the
end, Antony pits Brutus's words against what he and the crowd know.  Antony thus
exposes the validity of proof over words and logos (facts) over
pathos (emotion).