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By many an ounce,) he dropp'd it for his country: And, what is left, to lose it by his country,

Were to us all, that do't, and fuffer it,

A brand to the end o' the world.

Sic.

This is clean kam.

Bru. Merely awry: When he did love his country,

It honour'd him.

Men.

The service of the foot

Being once gangren'd is not then respected

For what before it was?

Bru.

We'll hear no more:Pursue him to his house, and pluck him thence; Left his infection, being of catching nature,

Spread further.

Men.

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 his heels. Proceed by process;

Lest parties (as he is belov'd) break out,

And fack great Rome with Romans.

Bru.

Sic. What do ye talk?

If it were so,

Have we not had a taste of his obedience?

Our ædiles smote? ourselves resisted?-Come:

Men. Consider this;-He has been bred i' the wars

Since he could draw a sword, and is ill school'd
In boulted 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.

1 Sen.

Noble tribunes,

It is the humane way: the other course

Act 111.

CORIOLANUS.

69

Will prove too bloody; and the end of it

Unknown to the beginning.

Sic.

Noble Menenius,

Be you then as the people's officer :-
Masters, lay down your weapons.

Bru.

Go not home.

Sic. Meet on the market-place:-We'll attend you

there:

Where, if you bring not Marcius, we'll proceed

In our first way.

Men.

I'll bring him to you :

Let me defire your company. [to the Senators.] He must

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A Room in Coriolanus's House.
Enter CORIOLANUS, and Patricians.

Cor. 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 fight, yet will I still
Be thus to them.

Enter VOLUMNIA.

Pat.

You do the nobler.

Cor. I muse, my mother

F3

Does

Does not approve me further, who was wont
To call them woollen vassals, things created
To buy and fell with groats; to show bare heads
In congregations, to yawn, be still, and wonder,
When one but of my ordinance stood up

To fpeak of peace, or war. I talk of you;

[TO VOLUMNIA.

Why did you with me milder? Would you have me

False to my nature? Rather say, I play

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I would have had you put your power well on,

Before you had worn it out.

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Vol. 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 you were dispos'd

Ere they lack'd power to cross you.

Cor.

Vol. Ay, and burn too.

Let them hang.

Enter MENENIUS, and Senators.

Men. Come, come, you have been too rough, fome.

thing too rough;

You must return, and mend it.

1 Sen.

Unless, by not so doing, our good city

Cleave in the midst, and perish.

Vol.

There's no remedy;

Pray, be counsel'd:

I have a heart as little apt as yours,

But yet a brain, that leads my use of anger,

To better vantage.

Men. !

Act 111.

Men.

CORIOLANUS.

Well faid, noble woman:
Before he should thus stoop to the herd, but that
The violent fit o' the time craves it as physick
For the whole state, I would put mine armour on,
Which I can scarcely bear.

Cor. What must I do?

Men.

Cor.

Return to the tribunes.

What then? what then?
Men.

71

Well,

Repent what you have spoke.

Cor, For them?-I cannot do it to the gods;
Must I then do't to them?
Vol.

You are too absolute;
Though therein you can never be too noble,
But when extremities speak. I have heard you fay,
Honour and policy, like unfever'd friends,

I' the war do grow together: Grant that, and tell me,
In peace, what each of them by th' other lose,

That they combine not there.

Cor.

Men.

Tush, tush!

A good demand.

Vol. If it be honour, in your wars, to feem
The fame 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; fince that to both

It stands in like request?

Cor.

Why force you this?

Vol. Because that now it lies you on to speak

To the people; not by your own instruction,
Nor by the matter which your heart prompts you to,

But with fuch words that are but roted in

Your tongue, though but bastards, and fyllables

Of no allowance, to your bosom's truth.

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Now, this no more dishonours you at all,
Than to take in a town with gentle words,
Which else would put you to your fortune, and
The hazard of much blood.-

I would dissemble with my nature, where
My fortunes, and my friends, at stake, requir'd,
I should do so in honour: I am in this,
Your wife, your son, these senators, the nobles;
And you will rather show our general lowts
How you can frown, than spend a fawn upon them,
For the inheritance of their loves, and safeguard

Of what that want might ruin.

Men.

Noble lady!

Come, go with us; speak fair: you may falve so,
Not what is dangerous present, but the lofs

Of what is past.

Vol.

I pr'ythee now, my fon,

Go to them, with this bonnet in thy hand;

And thus far having stretch'd it, (here be with them,)
Thy knee bussing the stones, (for in fuch business
Action is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant
More learned than the ears,) waving thy head,
Which often, thus, correcting thy ftout heart,
Now humble, as the ripest mulberry,
That will not hold the handling: Or, say to them,
Thou art their soldier, and being bred in broils,
Haft not the soft way, which, thou dost confefs,
Were fit for thee to use, as they to claim,

In asking their good loves; but thou wilt frame
Thyself, forfooth, hereafter theirs, so far

As thou hast power, and person.

Men.

This but done,

Even as she speaks, why, all their hearts were yours:

For

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