Yet your good will

Must have that thanks from Rome after the measure

As you intended well.

MENENIUS

I’ll undertake’t.

I think he’ll hear me. Yet to bite his lip

And ’hmh’ at good Cominius much unhearts me.

He was not taken well, he had not dined.

The veins unfilled, our blood is cold, and then

We pout upon the morning, are unapt

To give or to forgive; but when we have stuffed

These pipes and these conveyances of our blood

With wine and feeding, we have suppler souls

Than in our priest-like fasts. Therefore I’ll watch him

Till he be dieted to my request,

And then I’ll set upon him.

BRUTUS

You know the very road into his kindness,

And cannot lose your way.

MENENIUS

Good faith, I’ll prove him.

Speed how it will, I shall ere long have knowledge

Of my success.

Exit

COMINIUS He’ll never hear him.

SICINIUS Not?

COMINIUS

I tell you, he does sit in gold, his eye

Red as ‘twould burn Rome, and his injury

The jailer to his pity. I kneeled before him;

’Twas very faintly he said ‘Rise’, dismissed me

Thus with his speechless hand. What he would do

He sent in writing after me, what he would not,

Bound with an oath to hold to his conditions.

So that all hope is vain unless his noble mother

And his wife, who as I hear mean to solicit him

For mercy to his country. Therefore let’s hence,

And with our fair entreaties haste them on.

Exeunt

5.2 Enter Menenius to the Watch or guard

FIRST WATCHMAN Stay. Whence are you?

SECOND WATCHMAN Stand, and go back.

MENENIUS You guard like men; ’tis well. But, by your leave, I am an officer Of state, and come to speak with Coriolanus.

FIRST WATCHMAN From whence?

MENENIUS

From Rome.

FIRST WATCHMAN You may not pass, you must return.

Our general will no more hear from thence.

SECOND WATCHMAN

You’ll see your Rome embraced with fire before

You’ll speak with Coriolanus.

MENENIUS Good my friends,

If you have heard your general talk of Rome

And of his friends there, it is lots to blanks

My name hath touched your ears. It is Menenius.

FIRST WATCHMAN

Be it so; go back. The virtue of your name

Is not here passable.

MENENIUS I tell thee, fellow,

Thy general is my lover. I have been

The book of his good acts, whence men have read

His fame unparalleled happily amplified;

For I have ever verified my friends,

Of whom he’s chief, with all the size that verity

Would without lapsing suffer. Nay, sometimes,

Like to a bowl upon a subtle ground,

I have tumbled past the throw, and in his praise

Have almost stamped the leasing. Therefore, fellow,

I must have leave to pass.

FIRST WATCHMAN Faith, sir, if you had told as many lies in his behalf as you have uttered words in your own, you should not pass here, no, though it were as virtuous to lie as to live chastely. Therefore go back.

MENENIUS Prithee, fellow, remember my name is Menenius, always factionary on the party of your general.

SECOND WATCHMAN Howsoever you have been his liar, as you say you have, I am one that, telling true under him, must say you cannot pass. Therefore go back.

MENENIUS Has he dined, canst thou tell? For I would not speak with him till after dinner.

FIRST WATCHMAN You are a Roman, are you?

MENENIUS I am as thy general is.

FIRST WATCHMAN Then you should hate Rome as he does. Can you, when you have pushed out your gates the very defender of them, and in a violent popular ignorance given your enemy your shield, think to front his revenges with the easy groans of old women, the virginal palms of your daughters, or with the palsied intercession of such a decayed dotant as you seem to be? Can you think to blow out the intended fire your city is ready to flame in with such weak breath as this? No, you are deceived, therefore back to Rome, and prepare for your execution. You are condemned, our general has sworn you out of reprieve and pardon.

MENENIUS Sirrah, if thy captain knew I were here, he would use me with estimation.

FIRST WATCHMAN Come, my captain knows you not.

MENENIUS I mean thy general.

FIRST WATCHMAN My general cares not for you. Back, I say, go, lest I let forth your half pint of blood. Back. That’s the utmost of your having. Back.

MENENIUS Nay, but fellow, fellow—

Enter Coriolanus with Aufidius

CORIOLANUS What’s the matter?

MENENIUS (to First Watchman) Now, you companion, I’ll say an errand for you. You shall know now that I am in estimation. You shall perceive that a jack guardant cannot office me from my son Coriolanus. Guess but by my entertainment with him if thou stand‘st not i’th’ state of hanging, or of some death more long in spectatorship and crueller in suffering. Behold now presently, and swoon for what’s to come upon thee. (To Coriolanus) The glorious gods sit in hourly synod about thy particular prosperity, and love thee no worse than thy old father Menenius does! (Weeping) O, my son, my son, thou art preparing fire for us. Look thee, here’s water to quench it. I was hardly moved to come to thee, but being assured none but myself could move thee, I have been blown out of our gates with sighs, and conjure thee to pardon Rome and thy petitionary countrymen. The good gods assuage thy wrath and turn the dregs of it upon this varlet here, this, who like a block hath denied my access to thee!

CORIOLANUS Away!

MENENIUS How? Away?

CORIOLANUS

Wife, mother, child, I know not. My affairs

Are servanted to others. Though I owe

My revenge properly, my remission lies

In Volscian breasts. That we have been familiar,

Ingrate forgetfulness shall poison rather

Than pity note how much. Therefore be gone.

Mine ears against your suits are stronger than

Your gates against my force. Yet, for I loved thee,

He gives him a letter

Take this along. I writ it for thy sake,

And would have sent it. Another word, Menenius,

I will not hear thee speak.—This man, Aufidius,

Was my beloved in Rome; yet thou behold’st.