View source for Et tu, Brute?

'''Et tu, Brute?''' may be translated as ‘You too, Brutus?’ or ‘Even you, Brutus?’ and is said by Caesar in [[Shakespeare]]’s ''Julius Caesar'' (Act III, scene 1, line 77) moments before his death at the hands of the conspirators. The rhetorical question is addressed to his friend Marcus Junius Brutus, one of the conspirators, and may be expanded as ‘You too, Brutus – are you one of those who have come to kill me?’ It is not clear from the text of Shakespeare’s play whether the question is an expression of surprise or sadness or indignation or a mixture of all three emotions.

'''Brute''' (which is pronounced as two [[syllable]]s, {{IPA|'bruː tɛ}}) is the [[vocative]] form of the [[Proper noun|proper name]] '''Brutus''': in old-fashioned grammars it would be translated as ‘O Brutus!’
  
There is little reason to believe that the scene in Shakespeare’s play reflects historical reality, that [[Julius Caesar]] actually said '''Et tu, Brute?''' as he fell dying. According to the most reliable extant account of the assassination, in the ''De vita Caesarum'' (‘On the Lives of the Caesars’) of Gaius [[Suetonius]] Tranquillus (c.70-c.140 CE), Caesar died without saying anything – though [[Suetonius]] does mention, without endorsing, a source which claimed that Caesar’s last words were the Greek phrase Καὶ  σύ, τέκνον;  (''Kai su, teknon?'' - ‘You too, child?’) and were addressed to Brutus.

Nowadays '''Et tu Brute?'''  may be said as a reproach to a friend whom one takes to be guilty of having betrayed one in some way – though the expression is often used jocularly or light-heartedly, and the ‘betrayal’ may relate to some trivial matter.

[[Category:Latin]][[Category:Latin words and phrases]][[Category:History]][[Category:Roman history]][[Category:Allusions, references and quotations‏‎]]