Sic.

Sir, how comes it, that

Have holp to make this rescue?

Men.

you

Hear me speak:

As I do know the consul's worthiness,

So can I name his faults:

I

Sic.

Consul!-what consul?

He a consul!

Men. The consul Coriolanus.

Bru.

Cit. No, no, no, no, no.

Men. If, by the tribunes' leave, and yours, good

people,

may be heard, I'd crave a word or two;

The which shall turn you to no further harm 30,
Than so much loss of time.

Sic.

Speak briefly then; For we are peremptory, to despatch

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 to-night.

Men.
Now the good gods forbid,
That our renowned Rome, whose gratitude
Towards her deserved 31 children is enroll'd
In Jove's own book, like an unnatural dam
Should now eat up her own!

Sic. He's a disease, that must be cut away. Men. 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, 30 The which shall turn you to no further harm.' This singular expression occurs again in The Tempest

my heart bleeds

To think o'the teen that I have turn'd you to.'

31 Deserved for deserving; as delighted for delighting in Othello, and other similar changes of termination in words of like ending.

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 suffer it,

A brand to the end o'the world.

Sic.

This is clean kam 32.

Bru. Merely 33 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;
Lest 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 sack great Rome with Romans.

Bru.

Sic. What do ye talk?

If it were so,—

Have we not had a taste of his obedience?
Our Ediles 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,

32 Kam is crooked. 'Clean contrarie, quite kamme, à contrepoil,' says Cotgrave: and the same worthy lexicographer explains á revers, cross, cleane kamme.' Stanyhurst in his Virgil, and the translator of Guzman d Alfarache, have it kim kam :— Scinditur studia in contraria vulgus.

The wavering commons in kym kam sectes are haled.' The word is to be found in Welsh and Erse: camurus, in Latin, and κаμλoç, in Greek, have the same meaning, and the whole are doubtless derived from one common parent.

33 i. e.

absolutely.

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
Will prove too bloody; and the end of it
Unknown to the beginning.

Be

Sic.

Noble Menenius,

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 desire your company. [To the Senators.]

He must come,

Or what is worst will follow.

1 Sen.

Pray you, let's to him. [Exeunt.

SCENE II. 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' heels1; 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.

1 Breaking a criminal on the wheel was a punishment unknown to the Romans; and, except in the single instance of Metius Suffetius, according to Livy, dismemberment by being torn to death by wild horses never took place in Rome. Shakspeare attributes to them the cruel punishments of a later age.

1 Pat.

Enter VOLUMNIA.

You do the nobler.

Cor. 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 3 stood up
To speak of peace, or war. I talk of you;
[To VOLUMNIA.
Why did
you wish me milder? Would you have me
False to my nature? Rather say, I play
The man I am.

Vol.

O, sir, sir, sir,

I would have had you put your power well
Before you had worn it out.

Cor.

Let go.

on,

Vol. You might have been enough the man you are, With striving less to be so: Lesser had been

4

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,

something too rough;

You must return, and mend it.

1 Sen.

There's no remedy;

Unless, by not so doing, our good city
Cleave in the midst, and perish.

2 I muse, that is, I wonder.

3 Ordinance is here used for rank.

4 The old copy reads 'things of your disposition.' The emendation is Theobald's.

Vol.

Pray be counsell'd:

I have a heart as little apt as yours,
But yet a brain, that leads my use of

To better vantage.

Men.

anger,

Well said, noble woman: Before he should thus stoop to the herd 5, 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.

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 say,
Honour and policy, like unsever'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 seem The same 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; since that to both
It stands in like request?

5 Old copy, stoop to the heart.' Theobald made the correction. Herd being anciently heard, the error easily crept in. Coriolanus thus describes the people in another passage:'You shames of Rome, you herd of

6 6 Except in cases of extreme necessity, when your resolute and noble spirit, however commendable at other times, ought to yield to the occasion.'