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MENENIUS. Be gone. |
Put not your worthy rage into your tongue; |
One time will owe another. |
CORIOLANUS. On fair ground |
I could beat forty of them. |
MENENIUS. I could myself |
Take up a brace o' th' best of them; yea, the two tribunes. |
COMINIUS. But now 'tis odds beyond arithmetic, |
And manhood is call'd foolery when it stands |
Against a falling fabric. Will you hence, |
Before the tag return? whose rage doth rend |
Like interrupted waters, and o'erbear |
What they are us'd to bear. |
MENENIUS. Pray you be gone. |
I'll try whether my old wit be in request |
With those that have but little; this must be patch'd |
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? |
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