Saturday we posted about the Julius Caesar Anti-War Hoax. It's been getting an unusual amount of hits today, and some comments, including one mentioning that Barbra Streisand quoted it at the Democratic Fundraiser Sunday night.

We checked Ms. Streisand's official website today and her remarks from that night appear verbatim. She said:

"BJS: You know, really good artists have a way of being relevant in their time… but great artists are relevant at anytime. So, in the words William Shakespeare,

"Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind…And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded with patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader, and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar."

BJS (contd.): Imagine that was written over 400 years ago… It's amazing how history without consciousness is destined to repeat itself. So…from the words of William Shakespeare to the words of Irving Berlin…"

Once again, here is the link to the text of Julius Caesar. We didn't find the passage in it, but maybe we overlooked it.

Urban Legends says the quote is false.

"Yet as popular as the quote is, it's not real. These words are not anything Julius Caesar ever wrote or said. No biographies of Caesar or histories of Rome contain these lines, and scholars who have made it their business to know everything about the man draw a blank on this quote. Likewise, Shakespeare did not stuff this soliloquy into the mouth of the title character in his play Julius Caesar, nor did any of the Bard's other characters utter it. No record of this quote has been found prior to its appearance on the Internet in late 2001. "

On the one hand, Ms. Streisand was there to provide entertainment, and if her repeating the quote caused those in the audience to cough up bigger bucks for the Democrats, who cares if the quote is real? On the other hand, if it's false, (and in the comments section to our original post plenty of people thought it obviously a fake) how could someone with her command of the arts not know it?

Update: Someone else who believed the quote is Gossip Columnist Liz Smith who says in today's Newsday: "No matter one's political affiliations, Streisand's commitment and the deft way she handled the complicated new lyrics was breathtaking. Why, she even recited a bit from William Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar," making the point that "400 years later, justice is wearing a shroud."

Update: Drudge reports this as an "exclusive" at 10:04 this morning. We posted it at 10:03 a.m. And "Jack" posted it at 8:15 a.m. in a comment to our original outing of the hoax this past Saturday. We thought we had Drudge beat, until we remembered the two hour time difference. Hope he doesn't get mad at the e-mail we sent him saying we got the Streisand quote first. We didn't. We'll settle for being the first to report the quote itself was a hoax.

Final Update: Barbra Streisand responds upon learning the quote is a hoax