BRUTUS He consul?
ALL ⌈THE CITIZENS⌉ 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 our danger, and to keep him here
Our certain death. Therefore it is decreed
He dies tonight.
MENENIUS
Now the good gods forbid
That our renowned Rome, whose gratitude
Towards her deserved children is enrolled
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 dropped 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 cam.
BRUTUS
Merely awry. When he did love his country
It honoured him.
⌈SICINIUS⌉ S⌉
The service of the foot,
Being once gangrened, 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 unscanned swiftness, will too late
Tie leaden pounds to’s heels. Proceed by process,
Lest parties—as he is beloved—break out
And sack great Rome with Romans.
BRUTUS If it were so?
SICINIUS (to Menenius) 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-schooled
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.
(To the Citizens) Masters, lay down your weapons.
BRUTUS
Go not home.
SICINIUS
Meet on the market-place. (To Menenius) We’ll attend
you there,
Where if you bring not Martius, 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 ⌈tribunes and Citizens at one door, Patricians at another door⌉
3.2 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.
Enter Volumnia
A 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. (To 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 taxings of your dispositions if
You had not showed them how ye were disposed
Ere they lacked power to cross you.
CORIOLANUS
Let them hang.
VOLUMNIA Ay, and burn too.
Enter Menenius, with the Senators
MENENIUS (to Coriolanus)
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 (to Coriolanus)
Pray be counselled.
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,