This is clean kam.

Sic.

Bru. Merely awry: when he did love his

country,

It honour'd him.

Men.

The service of the foot

Being once gangrened, 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's heels. Proceed by pro-

cess;

Lest parties, as he is beloved, 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 ædiles smote? ourselves resisted? Come.
Men. Consider this: he has been bred i̇' the

wars

Since he 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 Sen.

Noble tribunes,

It is the humane way: the other course

Will prove too bloody; and the end of it

Unknown to the beginning.

304. clean kam, utterly crooked.

305. Merely, absolutely.
322. bolted, sifted.

310

320

Sic.

Noble Menenius,

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

Sic. Meet on the market-place.

you there :

Go not home.

We'll attend

Where, if you bring not Marcius, we'll proceed
In our first way.

Men.

I'll bring him to you.

[To the Senators] Let me desire your company:

he must come,

Or what is worst will follow.

330

First Sen.

Pray you, let's to him.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II. A room in Coriolanus's house.

Enter CORIOLANUS with Patricians.

Cor. Let them pull all about mine ears; pre

sent 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 sight; yet will I still
Be thus to them..

A Patrician.

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 stood up
To speak of peace or war.

5. beam of sight, range of the eye.

7. muse, wonder.

ΤΟ

Enter VOLUMNIA.

I talk of you:

Why did you wish me milder? would you have me
False to my nature? Rather say I play

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

Cor.

Let go.

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 ye were disposed
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.

First Sen.

Unless, by not so doing, our good city

There's no remedy;

Pray, be counsell'd:

Cleave in the midst, and perish.

Vol.

I have a heart as little apt as yours,
But yet a brain that leads my use of anger
To better vantage.

24. Ay, and burn too. The Folios give this speech to Volumnia; but modern editors, arguing that she is advising patience, take it from her. Yet her point of view is quite clear. She despises and hates

20

30

as

the plebeians as much Coriolanus can, but she would choose her own time to show her wrath. Cf. 11. 29 and 62. Cf. also Menenius in iii. 1. 262 for a similar attitude.

Men.

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

Cor.

What must I do?

Men. Return to the tribunes.

Cor.

Well, what then? what then?

Men. 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 the 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?

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,
But with such words that are but roted in

Your tongue, though but bastards and syllables
Of no allowance to your bosom's truth.
Now, this no more dishonours you at all

55. roted, learnt by heart, not spontaneous.

50

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 required
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 louts
How you can frown than spend a fawn upon 'em,
For the inheritance of their loves and safeguard
Of what that want might ruin.

Men.

Come, go with us; speak fair:

Noble lady!

you may salve so, Not what is dangerous present, but the loss

Of what is past.

Vol.

I prithee now, my son,

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 such business
Action is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant
More learned than the ears-waving thy head,
Which often, thus, correcting thy stout heart,
Now humble as the ripest mulberry

70

That will not hold the handling: or say to them, 80
Thou art their soldier, and being bred in broils
Hast not the soft way which, thou dost confess,
Were fit for thee to use as they to claim,

69. that want, the want of that inheritance.

75. bussing, kissing.

77. waving, repeatedly bowing.

78. Which often, thus, correcting, etc. If the text is right, 'humble' must be an imperative. 'Humble (your

head), correcting thy pride with submissive gestures, like these.' The passage barely yields sense; but of the many alterations proposed (such as Johnson's

with for which ') none can be called convincing. Prof. Littledale proposes instead of ' often,' 'offer' (as if for decapitation).