text stringlengths 1 3.08k |
|---|
I thought to crush him in an equal force, |
True sword to sword, I'll potch at him some way, |
Or wrath or craft may get him. |
FIRST SOLDIER. He's the devil. |
AUFIDIUS. Bolder, though not so subtle. My valour's poison'd |
With only suff'ring stain by him; for him |
Shall fly out of itself. Nor sleep nor sanctuary, |
Being naked, sick, nor fane nor Capitol, |
The prayers of priests nor times of sacrifice, |
Embarquements all of fury, shall lift up |
Their rotten privilege and custom 'gainst |
My hate to Marcius. Where I find him, were it |
At home, upon my brother's guard, even there, |
Against the hospitable canon, would I |
Wash my fierce hand in's heart. Go you to th' city; |
Learn how 'tis held, and what they are that must |
Be hostages for Rome. |
FIRST SOLDIER. Will not you go? |
AUFIDIUS. I am attended at the cypress grove; I pray you- |
'Tis south the city mills- bring me word thither |
How the world goes, that to the pace of it |
I may spur on my journey. |
FIRST SOLDIER. I shall, sir. Exeunt |
<<THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION OF THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM |
SHAKESPEARE IS COPYRIGHT 1990-1993 BY WORLD LIBRARY, INC., AND IS |
PROVIDED BY PROJECT GUTENBERG ETEXT OF ILLINOIS BENEDICTINE COLLEGE |
WITH PERMISSION. ELECTRONIC AND MACHINE READABLE COPIES MAY BE |
DISTRIBUTED SO LONG AS SUCH COPIES (1) ARE FOR YOUR OR OTHERS |
PERSONAL USE ONLY, AND (2) ARE NOT DISTRIBUTED OR USED |
COMMERCIALLY. PROHIBITED COMMERCIAL DISTRIBUTION INCLUDES BY ANY |
SERVICE THAT CHARGES FOR DOWNLOAD TIME OR FOR MEMBERSHIP.>> |
ACT II. SCENE I. |
Rome. A public place |
Enter MENENIUS, with the two Tribunes of the people, SICINIUS and BRUTUS |
MENENIUS. The augurer tells me we shall have news tonight. |
BRUTUS. Good or bad? |
MENENIUS. Not according to the prayer of the people, for they love |
not Marcius. |
SICINIUS. Nature teaches beasts to know their friends. |
MENENIUS. Pray you, who does the wolf love? |
SICINIUS. The lamb. |
MENENIUS. Ay, to devour him, as the hungry plebeians would the |
noble Marcius. |
BRUTUS. He's a lamb indeed, that baes like a bear. |
MENENIUS. He's a bear indeed, that lives fike a lamb. You two are |
old men; tell me one thing that I shall ask you. |
BOTH TRIBUNES. Well, sir. |
MENENIUS. In what enormity is Marcius poor in that you two have not |
in abundance? |
BRUTUS. He's poor in no one fault, but stor'd with all. |
SICINIUS. Especially in pride. |
BRUTUS. And topping all others in boasting. |
MENENIUS. This is strange now. Do you two know how you are censured |
here in the city- I mean of us o' th' right-hand file? Do you? |
BOTH TRIBUNES. Why, how are we censur'd? |
MENENIUS. Because you talk of pride now- will you not be angry? |
BOTH TRIBUNES. Well, well, sir, well. |
MENENIUS. Why, 'tis no great matter; for a very little thief of |
occasion will rob you of a great deal of patience. Give your |
dispositions the reins, and be angry at your pleasures- at the |
least, if you take it as a pleasure to you in being so. You blame |
Marcius for being proud? |
BRUTUS. We do it not alone, sir. |
MENENIUS. I know you can do very little alone; for your helps are |
many, or else your actions would grow wondrous single: your |
abilities are too infant-like for doing much alone. You talk of |
pride. O that you could turn your eyes toward the napes of your |
necks, and make but an interior survey of your good selves! O |
that you could! |
BOTH TRIBUNES. What then, sir? |
MENENIUS. Why, then you should discover a brace of unmeriting, |
proud, violent, testy magistrates-alias fools- as any in Rome. |
SICINIUS. Menenius, you are known well enough too. |
MENENIUS. I am known to be a humorous patrician, and one that loves |
a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying Tiber in't; said to |
be something imperfect in favouring the first complaint, hasty |
and tinder-like upon too trivial motion; one that converses more |
with the buttock of the night than with the forehead of the |
morning. What I think I utter, and spend my malice in my breath. |
Meeting two such wealsmen as you are- I cannot call you |
Lycurguses- if the drink you give me touch my palate adversely, I |
make a crooked face at it. I cannot say your worships have |
deliver'd the matter well, when I find the ass in compound with |
the major part of your syllables; and though I must be content to |
bear with those that say you are reverend grave men, yet they lie |
deadly that tell you you have good faces. If you see this in the |
map of my microcosm, follows it that I am known well enough too? |
What harm can your bisson conspectuities glean out of this |
character, if I be known well enough too? |
BRUTUS. Come, sir, come, we know you well enough. |
MENENIUS. You know neither me, yourselves, nor any thing. You are |
ambitious for poor knaves' caps and legs; you wear out a good |
wholesome forenoon in hearing a cause between an orange-wife and |
a fosset-seller, and then rejourn the controversy of threepence |
to a second day of audience. When you are hearing a matter |
between party and party, if you chance to be pinch'd with the |
colic, you make faces like mummers, set up the bloody flag |
against all patience, and, in roaring for a chamber-pot, dismiss |
the controversy bleeding, the more entangled by your hearing. All |
the peace you make in their cause is calling both the parties |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.