Friends, sailors, sockpuppets, lend me your ears!
I come to bury Capt Neal, 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 Capt Neal. The noble Maxipad
Hath told you Capt Neal was ambitious;
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Capt Neal answer'd it.
Here, under leave of Maxipad and the rest-
For Maxipad is an honorable man;
So are they all, all honorable men-
Come I to speak in Capt Neal's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me;
But Maxipad says he was ambitious,
And Maxipad is an honorable man.
He hath brought much great wisdom to ASA,
Whose rantings did the newsgroup postings fill.
Did this in Capt Neal seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Capt Neal hath laughed;
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Maxipad says he was ambitious,
And Maxipad is an honorable man.
You all did see that on the newsgroup here
He was thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?
Yet Maxipad says he was ambitious,
And sure he is an honorable man.
I speak not to disprove what Maxipad 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 judgement, thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
The cedar bucket is in the coffin there with Capt Neal,
And I must pause till it come back to me.