| ACT V SCENE I. Rome. A public place. |
| [
Enter MENENIUS, COMINIUS, SICINIUS, BRUTUS,
and others
] |
| MENENIUS | No, I'll not go: you hear what he hath said |
| Which was sometime his general; who loved him |
| In a most dear particular. He call'd me father: |
| But what o' that? Go, you that banish'd him; |
| A mile before his tent fall down, and knee | 5 |
| The way into his mercy: nay, if he coy'd |
| To hear Cominius speak, I'll keep at home. |
| COMINIUS | He would not seem to know me. |
| MENENIUS | Do you hear? |
| COMINIUS | Yet one time he did call me by my name: | 10 |
| I urged our old acquaintance, and the drops |
| That we have bled together. Coriolanus |
| He would not answer to: forbad all names; |
| He was a kind of nothing, titleless, |
| Till he had forged himself a name o' the fire | 15 |
| Of burning Rome. |
| MENENIUS | Why, so: you have made good work! |
| A pair of tribunes that have rack'd for Rome, |
| To make coals cheap,--a noble memory! |
| COMINIUS | I minded him how royal 'twas to pardon | 20 |
| When it was less expected: he replied, |
| It was a bare petition of a state |
| To one whom they had punish'd. |
| MENENIUS | Very well: |
| Could he say less? | 25 |
| COMINIUS | I offer'd to awaken his regard |
| For's private friends: his answer to me was, |
| He could not stay to pick them in a pile |
| Of noisome musty chaff: he said 'twas folly, |
| For one poor grain or two, to leave unburnt, | 30 |
| And still to nose the offence. |
| MENENIUS | For one poor grain or two! |
| I am one of those; his mother, wife, his child, |
| And this brave fellow too, we are the grains: |
| You are the musty chaff; and you are smelt | 35 |
| Above the moon: we must be burnt for you. |
| SICINIUS | Nay, pray, be patient: if you refuse your aid |
| In this so never-needed help, yet do not |
| Upbraid's with our distress. But, sure, if you |
| Would be your country's pleader, your good tongue, | 40 |
| More than the instant army we can make, |
| Might stop our countryman. |
| MENENIUS | No, I'll not meddle. |
| SICINIUS | Pray you, go to him. |
| MENENIUS | What should I do? | 45 |
| BRUTUS | Only make trial what your love can do |
| For Rome, towards Marcius. |
| MENENIUS | Well, and say that Marcius |
| Return me, as Cominius is return'd, |
| Unheard; what then? | 50 |
| But as a discontented friend, grief-shot |
| With his unkindness? say't be so? |
| SICINIUS | Yet your good will |
| must have that thanks from Rome, after the measure |
| As you intended well. | 55 |
| MENENIUS | I'll undertake 't: |
| I think he'll hear me. Yet, to bite his lip |
| And hum at good Cominius, much unhearts me. |
| He was not taken well; he had not dined: |
| The veins unfill'd, our blood is cold, and then | 60 |
| We pout upon the morning, are unapt |
| To give or to forgive; but when we have stuff'd |
| These and these conveyances of our blood |
| With wine and feeding, we have suppler souls |
| Than in our priest-like fasts: therefore I'll watch him | 65 |
| Till he be dieted to my request, |
| And then I'll set upon him. |
| BRUTUS | You know the very road into his kindness, |
| And cannot lose your way. |
| MENENIUS | Good faith, I'll prove him, | 70 |
| Speed how it will. I shall ere long have knowledge |
| Of my success. |
| [Exit] |
| COMINIUS | He'll never hear him. |
| SICINIUS | Not? |
| COMINIUS | I tell you, he does sit in gold, his eye | 75 |
| Red as 'twould burn Rome; and his injury |
| The gaoler to his pity. I kneel'd before him; |
| 'Twas very faintly he said 'Rise;' dismiss'd me |
| Thus, with his speechless hand: what he would do, |
| He sent in writing after me; what he would not, | 80 |
| Bound with an oath to yield to his conditions: |
| So that all hope is vain. |
| Unless his noble mother, and his wife; |
| Who, as I hear, mean to solicit him |
| For mercy to his country. Therefore, let's hence, | 85 |
| And with our fair entreaties haste them on. |
| [Exeunt] |
Shakespeare's Sources for Coriolanus