et tu, Brute!

You, my so-called friend, are also betraying me. This expression is generally credited to Shakespeare, who used the exact Latin locution (literally, “and you, Brutus”) in Julius Caesar (3.1) in 1599. How- ever, Shakespeare actually was loosely quoting the real Julius Caesar, who reportedly said, “You too, my child?” when Marcus Brutus stabbed him in 44 B.C. Caesar made this dying remark in Greek (according to Suetonius’s account). Incidentally, “Brute” did not signify “brute” in the sense of animal; it simply is the proper Latin case for this name. A more recent version, with friends like that/you, who needs enemies, became current in America in the 1960s. It usually is a response to a far less dire betrayal—a tactless remark by a friend, for example.