William Shakespeare - William Shakespeare - Complete Works

Embarquements all of fury, shall lift up

Their rotten privilege and custom 'gainst

My hate to Marcius. Where I find him, were it

At home, upon my brother's guard, even there,

Against the hospitable canon, would I

Wash my fierce hand in's heart. Go you to th' city;

Learn how 'tis held, and what they are that must

Be hostages for Rome.

FIRST SOLDIER. Will not you go?

AUFIDIUS. I am attended at the cypress grove; I pray you-

'Tis south the city mills- bring me word thither

How the world goes, that to the pace of it

I may spur on my journey.

FIRST SOLDIER. I shall, sir. Exeunt

Enter MENENIUS, with the two Tribunes of the people, SICINIUS and BRUTUS

MENENIUS. The augurer tells me we shall have news tonight.

BRUTUS. Good or bad?

MENENIUS. Not according to the prayer of the people, for they love

not Marcius.

SICINIUS. Nature teaches beasts to know their friends.

MENENIUS. Pray you, who does the wolf love?

SICINIUS. The lamb.

MENENIUS. Ay, to devour him, as the hungry plebeians would the

noble Marcius.

BRUTUS. He's a lamb indeed, that baes like a bear.

MENENIUS. He's a bear indeed, that lives fike a lamb. You two are

old men; tell me one thing that I shall ask you.

BOTH TRIBUNES. Well, sir.

MENENIUS. In what enormity is Marcius poor in that you two have not

in abundance?

BRUTUS. He's poor in no one fault, but stor'd with all.

SICINIUS. Especially in pride.

BRUTUS. And topping all others in boasting.

MENENIUS. This is strange now. Do you two know how you are censured

here in the city- I mean of us o' th' right-hand file? Do you?

BOTH TRIBUNES. Why, how are we censur'd?

MENENIUS. Because you talk of pride now- will you not be angry?

BOTH TRIBUNES. Well, well, sir, well.

MENENIUS. Why, 'tis no great matter; for a very little thief of

occasion will rob you of a great deal of patience. Give your

dispositions the reins, and be angry at your pleasures- at the

least, if you take it as a pleasure to you in being so. You blame

Marcius for being proud?

BRUTUS. We do it not alone, sir.

MENENIUS. I know you can do very little alone; for your helps are

many, or else your actions would grow wondrous single: your

abilities are too infant-like for doing much alone. You talk of

pride. O that you could turn your eyes toward the napes of your

necks, and make but an interior survey of your good selves! O

that you could!

BOTH TRIBUNES. What then, sir?

MENENIUS. Why, then you should discover a brace of unmeriting,

proud, violent, testy magistrates-alias fools- as any in Rome.

SICINIUS. Menenius, you are known well enough too.

MENENIUS. I am known to be a humorous patrician, and one that loves

a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying Tiber in't; said to

be something imperfect in favouring the first complaint, hasty

and tinder-like upon too trivial motion; one that converses more

with the buttock of the night than with the forehead of the

morning. What I think I utter, and spend my malice in my breath.

Meeting two such wealsmen as you are- I cannot call you

Lycurguses- if the drink you give me touch my palate adversely, I

make a crooked face at it. I cannot say your worships have

deliver'd the matter well, when I find the ass in compound with

the major part of your syllables; and though I must be content to

bear with those that say you are reverend grave men, yet they lie

deadly that tell you you have good faces. If you see this in the

map of my microcosm, follows it that I am known well enough too?

What harm can your bisson conspectuities glean out of this

character, if I be known well enough too?

BRUTUS. Come, sir, come, we know you well enough.

MENENIUS. You know neither me, yourselves, nor any thing. You are

ambitious for poor knaves' caps and legs; you wear out a good

wholesome forenoon in hearing a cause between an orange-wife and

a fosset-seller, and then rejourn the controversy of threepence

to a second day of audience. When you are hearing a matter

between party and party, if you chance to be pinch'd with the

colic, you make faces like mummers, set up the bloody flag

against all patience, and, in roaring for a chamber-pot, dismiss

the controversy bleeding, the more entangled by your hearing. All

the peace you make in their cause is calling both the parties

knaves. You are a pair of strange ones.

BRUTUS. Come, come, you are well understood to be a perfecter giber

for the table than a necessary bencher in the Capitol.

MENENIUS. Our very priests must become mockers, if they shall

encounter such ridiculous subjects as you are. When you speak

best unto the purpose, it is not worth the wagging of your

beards; and your beards deserve not so honourable a grave as to

stuff a botcher's cushion or to be entomb'd in an ass's

pack-saddle. Yet you must be saying Marcius is proud; who, in a

cheap estimation, is worth all your predecessors since Deucalion;

though peradventure some of the best of 'em were hereditary

hangmen. God-den to your worships. More of your conversation

would infect my brain, being the herdsmen of the beastly

plebeians. I will be bold to take my leave of you.

[BRUTUS and SICINIUS go aside]

Enter VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA, and VALERIA

How now, my as fair as noble ladies- and the moon, were she

earthly, no nobler- whither do you follow your eyes so fast?

VOLUMNIA. Honourable Menenius, my boy Marcius approaches; for the

love of Juno, let's go.

MENENIUS. Ha! Marcius coming home?

VOLUMNIA. Ay, worthy Menenius, and with most prosperous

approbation.

MENENIUS. Take my cap, Jupiter, and I thank thee. Hoo!

Marcius coming home!

VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA. Nay, 'tis true.

VOLUMNIA. Look, here's a letter from him; the state hath another,

his wife another; and I think there's one at home for you.

MENENIUS. I will make my very house reel to-night. A letter for me?

VIRGILIA. Yes, certain, there's a letter for you; I saw't.

MENENIUS. A letter for me! It gives me an estate of seven years'

health; in which time I will make a lip at the physician. The

most sovereign prescription in Galen is but empiricutic and, to

this preservative, of no better report than a horse-drench. Is he

not wounded? He was wont to come home wounded.

VIRGILIA. O, no, no, no.

VOLUMNIA. O, he is wounded, I thank the gods for't.

MENENIUS. So do I too, if it be not too much. Brings a victory in

his pocket? The wounds become him.

VOLUMNIA. On's brows, Menenius, he comes the third time home with

the oaken garland.

MENENIUS. Has he disciplin'd Aufidius soundly?

VOLUMNIA. Titus Lartius writes they fought together, but Aufidius

got off.

MENENIUS. And 'twas time for him too, I'll warrant him that; an he

had stay'd by him, I would not have been so fidius'd for all the

chests in Corioli and the gold that's in them. Is the Senate

possess'd of this?

VOLUMNIA. Good ladies, let's go. Yes, yes, yes: the Senate has

letters from the general, wherein he gives my son the whole name

of the war; he hath in this action outdone his former deeds

doubly.

VALERIA. In troth, there's wondrous things spoke of him.

MENENIUS. Wondrous! Ay, I warrant you, and not without his true

purchasing.

VIRGILIA. The gods grant them true!

VOLUMNIA. True! pow, waw.

MENENIUS. True! I'll be sworn they are true. Where is he wounded?