Nic. The same, sir. ADR. You had more beard when I last saw you; but your favour is well appeared by your tongue. What's the news in Rome? I have a note from the Volscian state, to find you out there: you have well saved me a day's journey. Nic. There hath been in Rome strange insurrections: the people against the senators, patricians, and nobles. ADR. Hath been! is it ended then? Our state thinks not so; they are in a most warlike preparation, and hope to come upon them in the heat of their division. Nic. The main blaze of it is past, but a small thing would make it flame again; for the nobles receive so to heart the banishment of that worthy Coriolanus, that they are in a ripe aptness to take all power from the people, and to pluck from them their tribunes for ever. This lies glowing, I can tell you, and is almost mature for the violent breaking out. ADR. Coriolanus banished? ADR. You will be welcome with this intelligence, Nicanor. NIC. The day serves well for them now. I have heard it said, the fittest time to corrupt a man's wife is when she's fallen out with her husband. Your noble Tullus Aufidius will appear well in these wars, his great opposer, Coriolanus, being now in no request of his country. ADR. He cannot choose. I am most fortunate, thus accidentally to encounter you: you have ended my business, and I will merrily accompany you home. NIC. I shall, between this and supper, tell you your favour is well appeared by your tongue.] This may import, your favour is well manifested, or rendered apparent; but Johnson would read,-affeared, and Steevens and Mr. Collier's most strange things from Rome, all tending to the good of their adversaries. Have you an army ready, say you? ADR. A most royal one: the centurions, and their charges, distinctly billeted, already in the entertainment, and to be on foot at an hour's warning. Nic. I am joyful to hear of their readiness, and am the man, I think, that shall set them in present action. So, sir, heartily well met, and most glad of your company. ADR. You take my part from me, sir; I have the most cause to be glad of yours. NIC. Well, let us go together. [Exeunt. 1 SERV. What would you have, friend? whence are you? Here's no place for you: pray, go to the door. Re-enter second Servant. 2 SERV. Whence are you, sir? Has the porter his eyes in his head, that he gives entrance to such companions? Pray, get you out. COR. Away! 2 SERV. Away! Get you away. COR. Now thou 'rt troublesome. 2 SERV. Are you so brave? I'll have you talked with anon. Enter a third Servant. The first meets him. 3 SERV. What fellow's this? a In being Coriolanus.] In obtaining his surname from the sack of Corioli. 1 SERV. A strange one as ever I looked on: I cannot get him out o' the house: pr'ythee, call my master to him. 3 SERV. What have you to do here, fellow? Pray you, avoid the house. [hearth. COR. Let me but stand; I will not hurt your 3 SERV. What are you? COR. A gentleman. 3 SERV. A marvellous poor one. COR. True, so I am. 3 SERV. Pray you, poor gentleman, take up some other station: here's no place for you; pray you, avoid come. COR. Follow your function, go and batten on cold bits. [Pushes him away. 3 SERV. What, will you not? Pr'ythee, tell my master what a strange guest he has here. 2 SERV. And I shall. 3 SERV. Where dwellest thou? COR. Under the canopy. 3 SERV. Under the canopy? COR. Ay. 3 SERV. Where's that? COR. I' the city of kites and crows. [Exit. 3 SERV. I' the city of kites and crows !-What an ass it is!-then thou dwellest with daws too? COR. No, I serve not thy master. 3 SERV. How, sir! do you meddle with my master? COR. Ay; 't is an honester service than to meddle with thy mistress: Thou prat'st, and prat'st; serve with thy trencher, hence! [Beats him away. COR. Prepare thy brow to frown: know'st thou me yet? AUF. I know thee not:-thy name? COR. My name is Caius Marcius, who hath done I had fear'd death, of all the men i' the world b Stand I before thee here. Then if thou hast And make my misery serve thy turn; so use it, As benefits to thee; for I will fight Against my canker'd country with the spleen AUF. A root of ancient envy. If Jupiter As hotly and as nobly with thy love, I lov'd the maid I married; never man We have a power on foot; and I had Marcius, Worthy Had we no other quarrel else to Rome, but that The leading of thine own revenges, take ways; Whether to knock against the gates of Rome, [Exeunt CORIOLANUS and AUfidius. 1 SERV. [Advancing.] Here's a strange alteration! 2 SERV. By my hand, I had thought to have strucken him with a cudgel; and yet my mind gave me his clothes made a false report of him. 1 SERV. What an arm he has! He turned me about with his finger and his thumb, as one would set up a top. 2 SERV. Nay, I knew by his face that there was something in him: he had, sir, a kind of face, methought, I cannot tell how to term it. 1 SERV. He had so; looking, as it were, Would I were hanged, but I thought there was more in him than I could think. sowle-] The etymology of this word is uncertain, but it is still employed in many English counties for lugging and dragging. Steevens quotes a line from Heywood's comedy, called "Love's 2 SERV. So did I, I'll be sworn: he is simply the rarest man i' the world. 1 SERV. I think he is; but a greater soldier than he, you wot one. 2 SERV. Who? my master? 1 SERV. Nay, it's no matter for that. 2 SERV. Worth six on him. 1 SERV. Nay, not so neither; but I take him to be the greater soldier. 2 SERV. Faith, look you, one cannot tell how to say that for the defence of a town, our general is excellent. 1 SERV. Ay, and for an assault too. Re-enter third Servant. 3 SERV. O, slaves, I can tell you news! news, you rascals! 1 and 2 SERV. What, what, what? let's partake. 3 SERV. I would not be a Roman, of all nations; I had as lieve be a condemned man. 1 and 2 SERV. Wherefore? wherefore? 3 SERV. Why, here's he that was wont to thwack our general, Caius Marcius. 1 SERV. Why do you say, thwack our general? 3 SERV. I do not say, thwack our general; but he was always good enough for him. 2 SERV. Come, we are fellows and friends; he was ever too hard for him; I have heard him say so himself. 1 SERV. He was too hard for him directly, to say the truth on't before Corioli, he scotched him and notched him like a carbonado. 2 SERV. An he had been cannibally given, he might have broiled and eaten him too. 1 SERV. But more of thy news. 3 SERV. Why, he is so made on here within, as if he were son and heir to Mars; set at upper end o' the table; no question asked him by any of the senators but they stand bald before him: our general himself makes a mistress of him; sanctifies himself with 's hand, and turns up the white o' the eye to his discourse. But the bottom of the news is, our general is cut i' the middle, and but one half of what he was yesterday; for the other has half, by the entreaty and grant of the whole table. He'll go, he says, and sowle the porter of Rome gates by the ears: he will mow down all before him, and leave his passage polled." 2 SERV. And he's as like to do't as any man I can imagine. 3 SERV. Do't! he will do 't: for, look you, sir, he has as many friends as enemies which friends, sir, as it were, durst not, look you, sir, show them Mistress," 1636, where it occurs, "Venus will sowle me by the ears for this." b-polled.] Cleared. selves, as we term it, his friends, whilst he's in directitude." 1 SERV. Directitude! What's that? 3 SERV. But when they shall see, sir, his crest up again, and the man in blood, they will out of their burrows, like conies after rain, and revel all with him. 1 SERV. But when goes this forward? 3 SERV. To-morrow; to-day; presently: you shall have the drum struck up this afternoon: 'tis, as it were, a parcel of their feast, and to be executed ere they wipe their lips. 2 SERV. Why, then we shall have a stirring world again. This peace is nothing but to rust iron, increase tailors, and breed ballad-makers. 1 SERV. Let me have war, say I; it exceeds peace, as far as day does night; it's spritely walking, audible, and full of vent. Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy; mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible; a getter of more bastard children than wars a destroyer of men. 2 SERV. 'Tis so: and as war, in some sort, may be said to be a ravisher, so it cannot be denied but peace is a great maker of cuckolds. 1 SERV. Ay, and it makes men hate one another. 3 SERV. Reason; because they then less need one another. The wars for my money. I hope to see Romans as cheap as Volscians.-They are rising, they are rising. ALL. In, in, in, in ! [Exeunt. a-directitude.] Mr. Collier's annotator would read, dejectitude. bin blood,-] See note (c), p. 71, Vol. I. c-it's spritely walking,-] That is, quick moving, or marching. The modern editors all read, "it's spritely, waking," &c. d-full of vent.] Vent is voice, utterance. SCENE VI.-Rome. A Public Place. Enter SICINIUS and BRUTUS. SIC. We hear not of him, neither need we fear him; His remedies are tame i' the present peace BRU. We stood to't in good time. Is this SIC. "T is he, 'tis he: O he is grown most kind Of late. Hail, sir! Enter MENENIUS. MEN. Hail to you both! SIC. Your Coriolanus is not much missed but with his friends: the commonwealth doth stand; and so would do, were he more angry at it. MEN. All's well; and might have been much better, if he could have temporized. SIC. Where is he, hear you? MEN. Nay, I hear nothing; his mother and his wife hear nothing from him. e His remedies are tame i' the present peace-] A correction by Theobald, the old copies having,-" His remedies are tame, the present peace." Omission, however, is not, perhaps, the only defect in the line; the word "remedies" is very equivocal. |