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ETTU (ay-TOO)
Latin
for: “And even you?”
Common
clues: “____, Brute?”; Famous last words; Ides of
March rebuke; Caesar's
accusation; Caesar's last question; Words to an infamous traitor
Crossword
puzzle frequency:
4 times a year
Frequency
in English language:
37938 / 86800
News:
Computers
that talk. Et tu, Watson?
Video:
Monty Python
– Life of Brian
"Et
tu, Brute?" were, according to legend, the last words of
Julius Caesar, Roman dictator, author and general. Translated to
English it reads "And (even) you Brutus?" (Brute is two
syllables long, and is an example of the vocative case).
Murder
of Caesar by Karl Theodore van Piloty
Julius
Caesar was stabbed in the back by an angry group of senators, led
by Marcus Junius Brutus, Caesar's great friend and senator.
Caesar initially resisted his attackers, but when he saw Brutus,
he spoke those words and resigned himself to his fate.
Caesar
almost certainly did not actually say these exact words. Ancient
sources report that he either died wordlessly, or said "And
(even) you, my son?" The Latin version was made famous by
Shakespeare who used them in his Julius Caesar.
People
often cite this quotation when they feel they have been betrayed.
This is normally done tongue-in-cheek, and the name Brute
replaced with something more appropriate (or humorous), e.g. "Et
tu, Slashdot?" "Et tu, Bigbird?" etc.
This
article is licensed under the GNU
Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia
article "Et tu Brute”.
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