“ET TU, BRUTE?”

“ET TU, BRUTE?”

“ET TU, BRUTE?” “ET TU, BRUTE?” cries Julius Caesar as Brutus and company apply their knives (Julius Caesar, Act 3, scene 1, 77). Shakespeare probably borrowed these famous last words from tradition. But, surprisingly, they do not occur in print in this form until about four years before Julius Caesar was first published, in The Tue Tragedy of Richard Duke of York (published 1595). This play is believed to be a “bad” (unreliable) quarto of Shakespeare’s own Henry the Sixth, Part 3 (1590-91).