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With cloth of any colour.

COMINIUS. Nay, come away.
Exeunt CORIOLANUS and COMINIUS, with others

PATRICIANS. This man has marr'd his fortune.
MENENIUS. His nature is too noble for the world:

He would not flatter Neptune for his trident,
Or Jove for's power to thunder. His heart's his mouth;

What his breast forges, that his tongue must vent;
And, being angry, does forget that ever

He heard the name of death. [A noise within]
Here's goodly work!

PATRICIANS. I would they were a-bed.
MENENIUS. I would they were in Tiber.

What the vengeance, could he not speak 'em fair?
Re-enter BRUTUS and SICINIUS, the rabble again

SICINIUS. Where is this viper
That would depopulate the city and

Be every man himself?
MENENIUS. You worthy Tribunes-

SICINIUS. He shall be thrown down the Tarpeian rock
With rigorous hands; he hath resisted law,

And therefore law shall scorn him further trial
Than the severity of the public power,

Which he so sets at nought.
FIRST CITIZEN. He shall well know

The noble tribunes are the people's mouths,
And we their hands.

PLEBEIANS. He shall, sure on't.
MENENIUS. Sir, sir-

SICINIUS. Peace!
MENENIUS. Do not cry havoc, where you should but hunt

With modest warrant.
SICINIUS. Sir, how comes't that you

Have holp to make this rescue?
MENENIUS. Hear me speak.

As I do know the consul's worthiness,
So can I name his faults.

SICINIUS. Consul! What consul?
MENENIUS. The consul Coriolanus.

BRUTUS. He consul!
PLEBEIANS. No, no, no, no, no.

MENENIUS. If, by the tribunes' leave, and yours, good people,
I may be heard, I would crave a word or two;

The which shall turn you to no further harm
Than so much loss of time.

SICINIUS. Speak briefly, then,
For we are peremptory to dispatch

This viperous traitor; to eject him hence
Were but one danger, and to keep him here

Our certain death; therefore it is decreed
He dies to-night.

MENENIUS. Now the good gods forbid
That our renowned Rome, whose gratitude

Towards her deserved children is enroll'd
In Jove's own book, like an unnatural dam

Should now eat up her own!
SICINIUS. He's a disease that must be cut away.

MENENIUS. O, he's a limb that has but a disease-
Mortal, to cut it off: to cure it, easy.

What has he done to Rome that's worthy death?
Killing our enemies, the blood he hath lost-

Which I dare vouch is more than that he hath
By many an ounce- he dropt it for his country;

And what is left, to lose it by his country
Were to us all that do't and suffer it

A brand to th' end o' th' world.
SICINIUS. This is clean kam.

BRUTUS. Merely awry. When he did love his country,
It honour'd him.

SICINIUS. The service of the foot,
Being once gangren'd, is not then respected

For what before it was.
BRUTUS. We'll hear no more.

Pursue him to his house and pluck him thence,
Lest his infection, being of catching nature,

Spread further.
MENENIUS. One word more, one word

This tiger-footed rage, when it shall find
The harm of unscann'd swiftness, will, too late,

Tie leaden pounds to's heels. Proceed by process,
Lest parties- as he is belov'd- break out,

And sack great Rome with Romans.
BRUTUS. If it were so-

SICINIUS. What do ye talk?
Have we not had a taste of his obedience-

Our aediles smote, ourselves resisted? Come!
MENENIUS. Consider this: he has been bred i' th' wars

Since 'a could draw a sword, and is ill school'd
In bolted language; meal and bran together

He throws without distinction. Give me leave,
I'll go to him and undertake to bring him

Where he shall answer by a lawful form,
In peace, to his utmost peril.

FIRST SENATOR. Noble Tribunes,
It is the humane way; the other course

Will prove too bloody, and the end of it
Unknown to the beginning.

SICINIUS. Noble Menenius,
Be you then as the people's officer.

Masters, lay down your weapons.
BRUTUS. Go not home.

SICINIUS. Meet on the market-place. We'll attend you there;
Where, if you bring not Marcius, we'll proceed

In our first way.
MENENIUS. I'll bring him to you.

[To the SENATORS] Let me desire your company; he must come,
Or what is worst will follow.

FIRST SENATOR. Pray you let's to him. Exeunt
SCENE II.

Rome. The house of CORIOLANUS
Enter CORIOLANUS with NOBLES

CORIOLANUS. Let them pull all about mine ears, present me
Death on the wheel or at wild horses' heels;

Or pile ten hills on the Tarpeian rock,
That the precipitation might down stretch

Below the beam of sight; yet will I still
Be thus to them.

FIRST PATRICIAN. You do the nobler.
CORIOLANUS. I muse my mother

Does not approve me further, who was wont
To call them woollen vassals, things created

To buy and sell with groats; to show bare heads
In congregations, to yawn, be still, and wonder,

When one but of my ordinance stood up
To speak of peace or war.

Enter VOLUMNIA
I talk of you:

Why did you wish me milder? Would you have me
False to my nature? Rather say I play

The man I am.
VOLUMNIA. O, sir, sir, sir,

I would have had you put your power well on
Before you had worn it out.

CORIOLANUS. Let go.
VOLUMNIA. You might have been enough the man you are

With striving less to be so; lesser had been
The thwartings of your dispositions, if

You had not show'd them how ye were dispos'd,
Ere they lack'd power to cross you.

CORIOLANUS. Let them hang.
VOLUMNIA. Ay, and burn too.

Enter MENENIUS with the SENATORS
MENENIUS. Come, come, you have been too rough, something too rough;

You must return and mend it.
FIRST SENATOR. There's no remedy,

Unless, by not so doing, our good city
Cleave in the midst and perish.

VOLUMNIA. Pray be counsell'd;
I have a heart as little apt as yours,

But yet a brain that leads my use of anger
To better vantage.

MENENIUS. Well said, noble woman!
Before he should thus stoop to th' herd, but that

The violent fit o' th' time craves it as physic
For the whole state, I would put mine armour on,

Which I can scarcely bear.
CORIOLANUS. What must I do?

MENENIUS. Return to th' tribunes.
CORIOLANUS. Well, what then, what then?

MENENIUS. Repent what you have spoke.
CORIOLANUS. For them! I cannot do it to the gods;

Must I then do't to them?
VOLUMNIA. You are too absolute;

Though therein you can never be too noble
But when extremities speak. I have heard you say

Honour and policy, like unsever'd friends,
I' th' war do grow together; grant that, and tell me

In peace what each of them by th' other lose
That they combine not there.

CORIOLANUS. Tush, tush!
MENENIUS. A good demand.

VOLUMNIA. If it be honour in your wars to seem
The same you are not, which for your best ends

You adopt your policy, how is it less or worse
That it shall hold companionship in peace

With honour as in war; since that to both
It stands in like request?

CORIOLANUS. Why force you this?
VOLUMNIA. Because that now it lies you on to speak

To th' people, not by your own instruction,
Nor by th' matter which your heart prompts you,

But with such words that are but roted in
Your tongue, though but bastards and syllables

Of no allowance to your bosom's truth.
Now, this no more dishonours you at all

Than to take in a town with gentle words,
Which else would put you to your fortune and

The hazard of much blood.
I would dissemble with my nature where

My fortunes and my friends at stake requir'd
I should do so in honour. I am in this

Your wife, your son, these senators, the nobles;
And you will rather show our general louts

How you can frown, than spend a fawn upon 'em
For the inheritance of their loves and safeguard

Of what that want might ruin.
MENENIUS. Noble lady!

Come, go with us, speak fair; you may salve so,
Not what is dangerous present, but the los

Of what is past.
VOLUMNIA. I prithee now, My son,



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