plaint hasty and tinder-like upon too trivial motion: one that converses more with the buttock of the night than with the forehead of the morning. What I think I utter; and spend my malice in my breath. Meeting two such weals-men as you are (I cannot call you Lycurguses), if the drink you give me touch my palate adversely, I make a crooked face at it. I cannot say your worships have delivered the matter well, when I find the ass in compound with the major part of your syllables: and though I must be content to bear with those

that say you are reverend grave men, yet they lie deadly that tell you have good faces. If you see this in the map of my microcosm, follows it that I am known well enough too? What harm can your bisson conspectuities 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 anything. You are ambitious for poor knaves' caps and legs; you wear out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a cause between an orangewife and a fosset-seller; and then rejourn the

controversy of threepence to a second day of audience. When you are hearing a matter between party and party, if you chance to be pinched with the cholic, you make faces like mummers; set up the bloody flag against all patience; and, in roaring for a chamber-pot, dismiss the controversy bleeding, the more entangled by your hearing: all the peace you make in their cause is, calling both the parties knaves. You are a pair of strange ones!

Bru. Come, come, you are well understood to be a perfecter giber for the table than a necessary bencher in the Capitol.

Men. Our very priests must become mockers if they shall encounter such ridiculous subjects as you are. When you speak best unto the purpose, it is not worth the wagging of your beards; and your beards deserve not so honour

able a grave as to stuff a botcher's cushion, or to be entombed in an ass's packsaddle. Yet you must be saying, Marcius is proud; who, in a cheap estimation, is worth all your predecessors since Deucalion; though, peradventure, some of the best of them were hereditary hangmen. Good e'en to your worships: more of your conversation would infect my brain, being the herdsmen of the beastly plebeians. I will be bold to take my leave of you.

[BRUTUS and SICINIUS retire up the scene. Enter VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA, VALERIA, &c. How now, my as fair as noble ladies (and the moon, were she earthly, no nobler), whither do you follow your eyes so fast?

Vol. Honourable Menenius, my boy Marcius approaches: for the love of Juno, let's go.

Men. Ha! Marcius coming home? Vol. Ay, worthy Menenius; and with most prosperous approbation.

Men. Take my cap, Jupiter, and I thank thee:Hoo! Marcius coming home!

Two Ladies. Nay, 't is true.

Vol. Look, here's a letter from him: the state hath another, his wife another; and I think there's one at home for you.

Men. I will make my very house reel to-night: -A letter for me!

Vir. Yes, certain there's a letter for you: I saw it. Men. A letter for me! It gives me an estate of seven years' health; in which time I will make a lip at the physician: the most sovereign prescription in Galen is but empiricutic, and, to this preservative, of no better report than a horse-drench.-Is he not wounded? he was wont to come home wounded.

Vir. O, no, no, no.

Vol. O, he is wounded; I thank the gods for 't. Men. So do I too, if it be not too much :Brings 'a victory in his pocket?—The wounds become him.

Vol. On his brows, Menenius: he comes the third time home with the oaken garland.

Men. Has he disciplined Aufidius soundly? Vol. Titus Lartius writes, they fought together, but Aufidius got off.

Men. And 't was time for him too, I'll warrant him that: an he had stayed by him, I would not have been so fidiused for all the chests in Corioli, and the gold that's in them. Is the senate possessed of this?

Vol. Good ladies, let's go.-Yes, yes, yes: the senate has letters from the general, wherein he gives my son the whole name of the war: he hath in this action outdone his former deeds doubly. Val. In troth, there's wondrous things spoke

of him.

Men. Wondrous? Ay, I warrant you, and not without his true purchasing.

Vir. The gods grant them true!
Vol. True! pow, wow.

Men. True! I'll be sworn they are true.Where is he wounded?-God save your good worships! [To the Tribunes, who come forward.] Marcius is coming home: he has more cause to be proud. Where is he wounded?

Vol. I' the shoulder and i' the left arm: there will be large cicatrices to shew the people when he shall stand for his place. He received in the repulse of Tarquin seven hurts i' the body.

Men. One in the neck, and two in the thigh; -there's nine that I know.

Vol. He had, before this last expedition, twentyfive wounds upon him.

Vol. Nay, my good soldier, up! My gentle Marcius, worthy Caius, And, by deed-achieving honour newly named,What is it?-Coriolanus, must I call thee?But O, thy wife

Cor. My gracious silence, hail! Wouldst thou have laughed had I come coffined home,

That weep'st to see me triumph?—Ah, my dear,
Such eyes the widows in Corioli wear,
And mothers that lack sons.
Men.

Now the gods crown thee! Cor. And live you yet?-O my sweet lady, pardon. [TO VALERIA. Vol. I know not where to turn:-O welcome

[Flourish. Cornets. Exeunt in state, as before. The Tribunes remain.

Bru. All tongues speak of him, and the blearéd sights

Are spectacled to see him. Your prattling nurse Into a rapture lets her baby cry,

While she chats him: the kitchen malkin pins Her richest lockram 'bout her reechy neck, Clambering the walls to eye him. Stalls, bulks, windows,

Are smothered up, leads filled, and ridges horsed
With variable complexions, all agreeing

In earnestness to see him. Seld-shewn flamens
Do press among the popular throngs, and puff
To win a vulgar station: our veiled dames
Commit the war of white and damask in
Their nicely-gawded cheeks, to the wanton spoil
Of Phoebus' burning kisses. Such a pother,
As if that whatsoever god who leads him
Were slily crept into his human powers,
And gave him graceful posture.

This, as you say,-suggested At some time when his soaring insolence Shall teach the people (which time shall not want If he be put upon 't; and that's as easy As to set dogs on sheep),—will be his fire To kindle their dry stubble; and their blaze Shall darken him for ever.

Enter a Messenger.

Bru. What's the matter?

Mess. You are sent for to the Capitol. "Tis thought that Marcius shall be consul: I have seen the dumb men throng to see him, And the blind to hear him speak: matrons flung

gloves,

Ladies and maids their scarfs and handkerchiefs,
Upon him as he passed: the nobles bended
As to Jove's statue; and the commons made
A shower and thunder, with their caps and shouts!
I never saw the like.

And carry with us ears and eyes for the time, But hearts for the event.

Enter two Officers, to lay cushions.

1st Offi. Come, come, they are almost here. How many stand for consulships?

2nd Offi. Three, they say: but 't is thought of every one Coriolanus will carry it.

1st Offi. That's a brave fellow; but he's vengeance proud, and loves not the common people.

2nd Offi. 'Faith, there have been many great men that have flattered the people, who ne'er loved them; and there be many that they have loved they know not wherefore: so that if they love they know not why, they hate upon no better ground. Therefore, for Coriolanus neither to care whether they love or hate him, manifests the true knowledge he has in their disposition; and, out of his noble carelessness, lets them plainly see 't.

1st Offi. If he did not care whether he had their love or no, he waved indifferently 'twixt doing them neither good nor harm: but he seeks their hate with greater devotion than they can render it him, and leaves nothing undone that may fully discover him their opposite. Now, to seem to affect the malice and displeasure of the people, is as bad as that which he dislikes,—to flatter them for their love.

2nd Offi. He hath deserved worthily of his country and his ascent is not by such easy degrees as those who, having been supple and courteous to the people, bonneted without any further deed to have them at all into their estimation and report: but he hath so planted his honours in their eyes, and his actions in their hearts, that for their tongues to be silent and not confess so much were a kind of ingrateful injury to report otherwise were a malice that, giving itself the lie, would pluck reproof and rebuke from every ear that heard it.

1st Offi. No more of him: he is a worthy man. Make way; they are coming.

A Sennet. Enter, with lictors before them, COMINIUS the Consul, MENENIUS, CORIOLANUS, many other Senators, SICINIUS and BRUTUS. The Senators take their places; the Tribunes take theirs also by themselves.

Men. Having determined of the Volces, and To send for Titus Lartius, it remains, As the main point of this our after-meeting, To gratify his noble service that

Hath thus stood for his country. Therefore, please

He had rather venture all his limbs for honour Than one of his ears to hear it?-Proceed, Cominius.

Com. I shall lack voice: the deeds of Corio

lanus

Should not be uttered feebly.—It is held
That valour is the chiefest virtue, and
Most dignifies the haver: if it be,
The man I speak of cannot in the world
Be singly counterpoised. At sixteen years,
When Tarquin made a head for Rome, he fought
Beyond the mark of others: our then dictator,
Whom with all praise I point at, saw him fight,
When with his Amazonian chin he drove

The bristled lips before him: he bestrid
An o'erpressed Roman, and i'the consul's view
Slew three opposers: Tarquin's self he met,
And struck him on his knee. In that day's feats,
When he might act the woman in the scene,
He proved best man i' the field, and for his meed
Was brow-bound with the oak. His pupil age
Man-entered thus, he waxéd like a sea;
And, in the brunt of seventeen battles since,
He lurched all swords o' the garland.-For this
last,

Before and in Corioli, let me say,

I cannot speak him home. He stopped the fliers,
And by his rare example made the coward
Turn terror into sport: as weeds before
A vessel under sail, so men obeyed,

And fell below his stem. His sword (death's stamp),
Where it did mark, it took: from face to foot
He was a thing of blood, whose every motion
Was timed with dying cries. Alone he entered
The mortal gate o' the city, which he painted
With shunless destiny: aidless came off,
And with a sudden reinforcement struck
Corioli like a planet :—now all 's his :
When by-and-by the din of war 'gan pierce
His ready sense: then straight his doubled spirit
Requickened what in flesh was fatigate,
And to the battle came he; where he did
Run reeking o'er the lives of men, as if
"T were a perpetual spoil: and, till we called
Both field and city ours, he never stood
To ease his breast with panting.

Men.

Worthy man!

SCENE III.--The same. The Forum.

Enter several Citizens.

1st Cit. Once, if he do require our voices, we ought not to deny him.

2nd Cit. We may, sir, if we will.

3rd Cit. We have power in ourselves to do it, but it is a power that we have no power to do: for if he shew us his wounds and tell us his deeds, we are to put our tongues into those wounds, and speak for them: so, if he tell us his noble deeds, we must also tell him our noble acceptance of them. Ingratitude is monstrous: and for the multitude to be ingrateful, were to make a monster of the multitude; of the which we being members, should bring ourselves to be monstrous members.

1st Cit. And to make us no better thought of a little help will serve for once, when we stood up about the corn, he himself stuck not to call us the many-headed multitude.