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,