The Complete Tragedies of William Shakespeare - All 12 Books in One Edition. William Shakespeare

Before the tag return? whose rage doth rend

       Like interrupted waters, and o’erbear

       What they are used 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, COMINIUS, and others.]

       FIRST PATRICIAN.

       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!

       SECOND PATRICIAN.

       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, with the rabble.]

       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.

       CITIZENS.

       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!

       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 one 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 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 the end o’ the world.

       SICINIUS.

       This is clean kam.

       BRUTUS.

       Merely awry: when he did love his country,

       It honour’d him.

       MENENIUS.

       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?

       Have we not had a taste of his obedience?

       Our aediles smote? ourselves resisted?—come,—

       MENENIUS.

       Consider this:—he has been bred i’ the 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