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Or fol'd fome debile wretch, which, without note
Here's many else have done; you shout me forth
In acclamations hyperbolical;

As if I lov'd, my little should be dieted
In praises, sauc'd with lies.

Com. Too modest are you :
More cruel to your good report, than grateful
To us, that give you truly: by your patience,
If 'gainst yourself you be incens'd, we'll put you
(Like one, that means his proper harm) in manacles;
Then reason safely with you: therefore be it known,
As to us, to all the world, that Caius Marcius
Wears this war's garland: in token of the which,
My noble steed, known to the camp, I give him,
With all his trim belonging; and from this time,
For what he did before Corioli, call him,

With all th' applause and clamour of the host,
Caius Marcius Coriolanus. Bear th' addition nobly ever.
[Flourish. Trumpets found and drums.

Omnes. Caius Marcius Coriolanus !

Mar. I will go wash :

And when my face is fair, you shall perceive
Whether I blush, or no. Howbeit, I thank you.
I mean to stride your steed, and at all time
To undercreft your good addition,
To th' fairness of my power.

Com, So, to our tent:

Where, ere we do repose us, we will write
To Rome of our success: you, Titus Lartius
Must to Corioli back; send us to Rome
The best, with whom we may articulate,
For their own good, and ours.
Lart. I shall, my Lord,

Mar. The gods begin to mock me:
I, that but now refus'd most princely gifts,
Am bound to beg of my Lord General.
Com. Take't, 'tis yours: what is't?
Mar. I sometime lay here in Corioli,
At a poor man's house: he us'd me kindly.
He cry'd to me: I saw him prisoner:

But

But then Aufidius was within my view,
And wrath o'erwhelm'd my pity: I request you
To give my poor hoft freedom.

Com. O, well begg'd!

Were he the butcher of my son, he should
Be free as is the wind: deliver him, Titus.
Lart. Marcius, his name?

Mar. By Jupiter, forgot:-
I am weary; yea, my memory is tir'd:
Have we no wine here?

Com. Go we to our tent;

The blood upon your visage dries; 'tis time
It should be look'd to: come.

[Exeunt.

SCENE changes to the Camp of the Volfci.

A flourish. Cornets. Enter Tullus Aufidius bloody, with

two or three Soldiers.

Sol. 'Twill be deliver'd back on

Auf.

Auf. Condition!

good condition.

Condition?

I would, I were a Roman; for I cannot,
Being a Volfcian, be that I am.
What good condition can a treaty find
I' th' part that is at mercy Five times, Marcius,
I have fought with thee, so often haft thou beat me:
And would'st do so, I think, should we encounter
As often as we eat. By th' elements,
If e'er again I meet him beard to beard,
He's mine, or I am his: mine emulation
Hath not that honour in't, it had; for where
I thought to crush him in an equal force,
True sword to sword; I'll potch at him fome way,
Or wrath, or craft may get him.

Sol. He's the devil.

Auf. Bolder, tho' not so subtle: my valour (poifon'd,

With only fuffering stain by him) for him

Shall fly out of itself: not sleep, nor fanctuary,

Being naked, sick, nor fane, nor capitol,

The prayers of priests, nor times of facrifice,

Embark.

Embarkments all of fury, shall lift up
Their rotten privilege and custom 'gainft
My hate to Marcius. Where I find him, were it
At home, upon my brother's guard, even there,
Against the hospitable canon, would I

Wash my fierce hand in's heart. Go you to th' city, Learn, how 'tis held; and what they are, that must Be hostages for Rome.

Sol. Will not you go?

Auf. I am attended at the cypress grove. I pray you,

('Tis fouth the city mills) bring me word thither

How the world goes, that to the pace of it

I may spur on my journey.

Sol. I shall, Sir.

[Exeunt.

T

ACT II.
SCENE, Rome.

Enter Menenius, with Sicinius and Brutus.

MENENIUS.

HE augur tells me, we shall have news to-night.
Bru. Good or bad?

Men. Not according to the prayer of the people, for

they love not Marcius.

Sic. Nature teaches beasts to know their friends.

Men. Pray you, whom does the wolf love?

Sic. The lamb.

Men. Ay, to devour him, as the hungry Plebeians would the noble Marcius.

Bru. He's a lamb, indeed, that baes like a bear.

Men. He's a bear, indeed, that lives like a lamb. You two are old men, tell me one thing that I shall ask

you.

Both. Well, Sir;

Men. In what enormity is Marcius poor, that you two have not in abundance ?

Bru

Bru. He's poor in no one fault, but stor'd with all. Sic. Especially, in pride.

Bru. And topping all others in boafting.

Men. This is strange now; do you two know how you are cenfur'd here in the city, I mean of us o'th' right hand file, do you ?

Bru. Why, how are we cenfur'd?

Men. Because you talk of pride now, will you not be angry?

Both. Well, well, Sir, well.

Men. Why, 'tis no great matter; for a very little thief of occafion will rob you of a great deal of patience : -give your dispositions the reins, and be angry at your pleasures; at the least, if you take it as a pleasure to you, in being fo:-you blame Marcius for being proud.

Bru. We do it not alone, Sir.

Men. I know, you can do very little alone; for your helps are many, or else your actions would grow wondrous single; your abilities are too infant-like, for doing much alone. You talk of pride-oh, that you could turn your eyes towards the napes of your necks, and make but an interior survey of your good selves! Oh that you could !

Bru. What then, Sir?

Men. Why, then you should discover a brace of as unmeriting, proud, violent, testy magiftrates, alias fools, as any in Rome.

Sic. Menenius, you are known well enough too. Men. I am known to be a humorous patrician, and one that loves a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying Tiber in't: said to be something imperfect, in favouring the first complaint; hasty and tinderlike, upon too trivial motion: one that converses more with the buttock of the night, than with the fore-head of the morning. What I think, I utter; and spend my malice in my breath. Meeting two fuch weals-men as you are, (I cannot call you Lycurgusses) if the drink you give me touch my palate adverfly, I make a crooked face at it. I can't say, your worships have deliver'd

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the matter well, when I find the ass in compound with the major part of your syllables; and tho I must be content to bear with those, that say, you are reverend grave men; yet they lie deadly, that tell you, you have good faces; if you see this in the map of my microcofm, follows it, that I am known well enough too? (11) what harm can your biffon confpectuities glean out of this character, if I be known well enough

too?

Bru. Come, Sir, come, we know you well enough. Men. You know neither me, yourselves, nor any thing; you are ambitious for poor knaves caps and legs: you wear out a good wholesome forenoon, in hearing a cause between an orange-wife and a fossetfeller, and then adjourn a controversy of three-pence to a second day of audience. When you are hearing a matter between party and party, if you chance to be pinch'd with the cholick, you make faces like mummers, set up the bloody flag against all patience, and, in roaring for a chamber-pot, dismiss the controverfy bleeding, the more intangled by your hearing: all the peace you make in their cause, is calling both the par-. ties knaves. You are a pair of strange ones.

Bru. Come, come, you are well understood to be a

(II) What barm can your besom confpectuities glean out of this character, &c.] If the editors have form'd any construction to themselves, of this epithet befom, that can be a propos to the sense of the context;-Davus fum, non Oedipus: it is too hard a riddle for me to expound. Menenius, 'tis plain, is abusing the tribunes, and bantering them ironically. By confpectuities he must mean, their fagacity, clearsightedness; and that they may not think he's complimenting them, he tacks an epithet to it, which quite undoes that character; i. e. bisson, blind, bleer-ey'd. Skinner, in his Etymologicon, explains this word, cacus; vox agro lincoln. ufitatissima. Ray concurs, in his north and fouth country words. And our author gives us this term again in his Hamlet, where the sense exactly corresponds with this interpretation.

Run barefoot up and down, threatning the flames,
With bisson rheum.

i. e. blinding. It is spoken of Hecuba, whose eyes o'erflow and are
blinded, both with tears, and the rheums of age.

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