The Tragedy Of Coriolanus

1 Enter Menenius, Cominius, Sicinius, Brutus (the two Tribunes), with
2 others.
3 MENENIUS.
4 No, I’ll not go. You hear what he hath said
5 Which was sometime his general, who loved him
6 In a most dear particular. He called me father,
7 But what o’ that? Go you that banished him;
8 A mile before his tent, fall down, and knee
9 The way into his mercy. Nay, if he coyed
10 To hear Cominius speak, I’ll keep at home.
11 COMINIUS.
12 He would not seem to know me.
13 MENENIUS.
14 Do you hear?
15 COMINIUS.
16 Yet one time he did call me by my name.
17 I urged our old acquaintance, and the drops
18 That we have bled together. “Coriolanus”
19 He would not answer to, forbade all names.
20 He was a kind of nothing, titleless,
21 Till he had forged himself a name i’ th’ fire
22 Of burning Rome.
23 MENENIUS.
24 Why, so; you have made good work!
25 A pair of tribunes that have wracked Rome
26 To make coals cheap! A noble memory!
27 COMINIUS.
28 I minded him how royal ’twas to pardon
29 When it was less expected. He replied
30 It was a bare petition of a state
31 To one whom they had punished.
32 MENENIUS.
33 Very well.
34 Could he say less?
35 COMINIUS.
36 I offered to awaken his regard
37 For’s private friends. His answer to me was
38 He could not stay to pick them in a pile
39 Of noisome musty chaff. He said ’twas folly
40 For one poor grain or two to leave unburnt
41 And still to nose th’ offence.
42 MENENIUS.
43 For one poor grain or two!
44 I am one of those! His mother, wife, his child,
45 And this brave fellow too, we are the grains;
46 You are the musty chaff, and you are smelt
47 Above the moon. We must be burnt for you.
48 SICINIUS.
49 Nay, pray, be patient. If you refuse your aid
50 In this so-never-needed help, yet do not
51 Upbraid’s with our distress. But sure, if you
52 Would be your country’s pleader, your good tongue,
53 More than the instant army we can make,
54 Might stop our countryman.
55 MENENIUS.
56 No, I’ll not meddle.
57 SICINIUS.
58 Pray you, go to him.
59 MENENIUS.
60 What should I do?
61 BRUTUS.
62 Only make trial what your love can do
63 For Rome, towards Martius.
64 MENENIUS.
65 Well, and say that Martius
66 Return me, as Cominius is returned, unheard,
67 What then? But as a discontented friend,
68 Grief-shot with his unkindness? Say’t be so?
69 SICINIUS.
70 Yet your good will
71 Must have that thanks from Rome after the measure
72 As you intended well.
73 MENENIUS.
74 I’ll undertake’t.
75 I think he’ll hear me. Yet to bite his lip
76 And hum at good Cominius much unhearts me.
77 He was not taken well; he had not dined.
78 The veins unfilled, our blood is cold, and then
79 We pout upon the morning, are unapt
80 To give or to forgive; but when we have stuffed
81 These pipes and these conveyances of our blood
82 With wine and feeding, we have suppler souls
83 Than in our priestlike fasts. Therefore I’ll watch him
84 Till he be dieted to my request,
85 And then I’ll set upon him.
86 BRUTUS.
87 You know the very road into his kindness
88 And cannot lose your way.
89 MENENIUS.
90 Good faith, I’ll prove him,
91 Speed how it will. I shall ere long have knowledge
92 Of my success.
93 [_Exit._]
94 COMINIUS.
95 He’ll never hear him.
96 SICINIUS.
97 Not?
98 COMINIUS.
99 I tell you, he does sit in gold, his eye
100 Red as ’twould burn Rome; and his injury
101 The jailer to his pity. I kneeled before him;
102 ’Twas very faintly he said “Rise”; dismissed me
103 Thus with his speechless hand. What he would do
104 He sent in writing after me; what he
105 Would not, bound with an oath to yield to his
106 Conditions. So that all hope is vain
107 Unless his noble mother and his wife,
108 Who, as I hear, mean to solicit him
109 For mercy to his country. Therefore let’s hence
110 And with our fair entreaties haste them on.
111 [_Exeunt._]