Talk:Et tu, Brute?

message: To me there are contradictions between the lede and the Context section.  The lede emphatically states:
 The fame of the quotation is entirely due to its occurrence in William Shakespeare's play
While the Context section authoratively states:
 Shakespeare in turn was making use of a phrase already in common use in his time: it appears for example, in Richard Eedes's Latin play Caesar Interfectus of 1582 and The True Tragedie of Richarde Duke of Yorke &c of 1595
While the former implies Shakespeare is the ONLY reason this phrase is known, the latter shows Shakespeare was not its originator.  The former could be changed to:
 The MODERN fame of the quotation is entirely due to its occurrence in William Shakespeare's play
But this would just turn it into a weasel comment about a POV opinion on the origin of the knowledge of it that exists today.  So IMO it would be better to simply calm the statement down:
 The quotation famously occurs in in William Shakespeare's play ..
Then there is also contradiction within the Context on the authenticity of the quote.  Again there is an emphatic statement:
 There is no reliable evidence that Caesar ever spoke the words. Suetonius himself claims Caesar said nothing as he died
but then goes on:
 The phrase follows in the tradition of the Roman historian Suetonius, who reports that others have claimed Caesar's last words were the Greek phrase "καὶ σὺ, τέκνον;", transliterated as "Kai su, teknon?"
So the there ARE reports of Caesar's last words.  And what is meant here by "reliable evidence", if De Vita Caesarum is not that?  Suetonius himself noted various reports of the event.  And this is hardly surprising.  The final words of anyone, unless actually recorded on tape, are usually contentious, the more so the more famed the speaker, and definitively determining the words spoken in the final moments of a brutal mob assassination, even with modern-day action-replay, would be a challenge.  Lastly, the Context notes:
  Plutarch also reports that Caesar said nothing and merely pulled his toga over his head when he saw Brutus
For me such a gesture speaks as loudly and in absolute harmony with the quotation itself.  Imagining forensic precision in history is just Hollywood.   Even with video recordings, we cannot arrive at such a view of events in 1963.  Here I would have cited events in the last decade but that would be to invite a firestorm.  Which would seem to prove the point. LookingGlass (talk) 08:45, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contradiction 

message: "The fame of the quotation is entirely due to its occurrence in William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar ...."  This seems to me to imply that the quotation existed apart from Shakespeare, but not famous.  Should this sentence say "the existence of this quotation" instead? --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 00:29, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: So far as i know, the quotation was created by Shakespeare: however Shakespeare is known to have reused and reworked much prior content in his plays. The point is that the quote became famous because of its appearance in a well-known play by Shakespeare, no matter who first coined it. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 21:58, 29 July 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: That shows how much i know, the article makes it clear that the phrase was in use well before Shakespeare used it. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 10:37, 30 July 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  "fame of the quotation" 

message: I think there’s a confusion in the article between the two versions: The historic Caesar and Shakespeare's version.  The article discusses both, back and forth, and I think the problem would be solved simply by making sure it is clear to the reader which one is intended when it is discussed.  For example, in the section “Context” it says that Caesar “supposedly spoke those words” — without indicating which words are intended.  It is perhaps reasonable to assume that by “those words” the sentence is referring to the title of the article, “Et tu, Brute?”  If that assumption were accepted then it would be the Shakespeare character that’s meant, and, in that case, the word “supposedly” is wrong — because we know for certain exactly what the Shakespeare character said.  However reading that paragraph I got the sense that the article actually intended to discuss the historic context, and perhaps the editor that added the content may have thought that “Et tu, Brute?” is historic.  () I made a minor edit to the sentence to try to deal with this, but it got reverted, and I think it’s worth considering.  Ciceronianclausula (talk) 00:51, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Since there’s no discussion here, at least so far, I will go ahead and put the edit back that was reverted.  Of course it can still be discussed.  The edit will add the words “historic” to indicate that the reference is to the actual Caesar and not the fictional Caesar, and then the edit removes the error that “Et tu, Brute” is what the historic Caesar supposedly said.  (“Et tu, Brute” is certainly what the fictional Caesar said.)  The ancient sources all indicate that Caesar responded at the moment of his assassination, but the sources vary: one indicates he spoke in Greek, another indicates his response was a simply a groan, and another reports that he responded by covering his head.  That is the historic “context”.  The title of the section is “Context”, and the section discusses both historic and fictional contexts.  However, I think dividing the section into two — Historic context and Fictional context — should be considered.  Ciceronianclausula (talk) 14:08, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  The historic Caesar vs Shakespeare's version 

message: Probably Original research. Not OR for me but for previous history authors and philosophers. But The historical context was among the most pivotal in the history of civilization and the phrase itself as the most pivotal question in the philosophy of western civilization. Context being Caesar's attempt to unite East and West with which the assassins disagreed. Et tu meaning "also you?" Brute (the most moral man in Rome. Representing the honor of Rome) disagree? The philosophical context being with what, exactly, the assassins, even the most honorable among them, disagreed. In their minds, and in the minds of many later western philosophers, "The West" (Rome) represented civilization, and progress, and "The East" represented savagery or at best stagnation. A savage world raised from savagery by Rome. A unification with which an honorable man might honestly disagree. History appears to demonstrate such disagreement to have been justified. After the west fell the east stagnated. Later writers, particularly of the enlightenment and later, saw Rome as hubris and the east as humility. Rome fell because of its hubris, and the east stagnated because of its humility. While the hubris of ambition raised Roman civilization, and the civil cohesion of humility supported the east, the unification of both hubris, and humility, is the core of enlightened civilization. That is the hubris of progress and the humility of recognizing that even the most honorable men may be wrong. Even you Brute. 98.164.67.198 (talk) 14:06, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Meaning in historical and philosophical context 

message: The article states without citation:
"Et tu, Brute? (pronounced [ɛt ˈtuː ˈbruːtɛ]) is a Latin phrase meaning "even you, Brutus?""
But normally, "Et"http://latindictionary.wikidot.com/conjunction:et is translated as "and" not "even" for a translation of "And you, Brutus?"https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/et%20tu%20Brute.
Merriam Webster, cited above, gives a translation of "And you, Brutus", but dictionary.com offers "Even you, Brutus."
In english the phrase "even you" for a plaintive accusation sounds more natural than "and you", but I can't find any contexts where "et" is translated as "even" except when referring to this specific phrase.
Is there a basis for translating this as "even you" rather than "and you?" If not, should it be "and you?"
N0thingbetter (talk) 01:27, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: In my view, both translations are similar enough as to be interchangeable. I wonder if 'Even you?' is sometimes preferred is because it has very few, if any, possible alternative meanings, unlike 'And you?' that can have slightly different meanings if not taken fully in context. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 01:38, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Translation 

message: I don't think "et tu, Brute" qualifies as "macaronic", and that qualification lacks citation. It's just Latin. It might be bad Latin, Latin rather than Greek, or it might be unattested, or etc. But there is no element of word play, no actual mixing of Latin and English. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/macaronic?s=t 98.7.201.234 (talk) 19:15, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: As you say there's nothing inherently macaronic about Et Tu, Brute, but I think the idea is that that term could arguably be used to describe its (unexplained) use in Shakespeare's otherwise English-language play. (It's an interesting question ... why did Shakespeare use the phrase in Latin? Was it perhaps a commonplace catch-phrase in Elizabethan England? Or was he trying to capture the Greekness of the 'kai su' by analogy?) Doops |  talk 09:02, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  macaronic?