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FReepers, Rushfans, Nitneymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Joe Pa, 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 Joe Pa. The noble Trustees
Hath told you Joe Pa was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Joe Pa answer'd it.
Here, under leave of the Board and the rest -
For the Trustees are honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men -
Come I to speak in Joe Pa's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But the Board says he was ambitious;
And the Trustees are honourable man.
He hath brought many wins here to State College
Whose bowl-fees did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Joe Pa seem ambitious?
When that the team had lost, Joe Pa hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet the Board says he was ambitious;
And the Trustees are honourable man.
You all did see that on Sportscenter
He was thrice presented a pro contract,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet the Board says he was ambitious;
And, sure, they are honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what the Board 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 judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Joe Pa,
And I must pause till it come back to me.