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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. |
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