Volc. It is so, sir: truly, I have forgot you. Rom. I am a Roman; and my services are, as you are, against them. Know you me yet? Volc. Nicanor?-No. Rom. The same, sir.

Volc. 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 Volcian state to find you out there you have well saved me a day's jour

ney.

Rom. There hath been in Rome strange insurrection: the people against the senators, patricians, and nobles.

Volc. 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.

Rom. 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.

Volc. Coriolanus banished?

Rom. Banished, sir.

Volc. You will be welcome with this intelligence, Nicanor.

Rom. 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.

Volc. He cannot choose. I am most fortunate thus accidentally to encounter you: you have ended my business, and I will merrily accompany you home.

Rom. I shall, between this and supper, tell you most strange things from Rome; all tending to the good of their adversaries. Have you an army ready, say you?

Volc. 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.

Rom. 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.

Vole. You take my part from me, sir: I have the most cause to be glad of yours.

Rom. Well, let us go together.

[Exeunt.

Enter a third Servant. The first meets him. 3rd Serv. What fellow 's this?

1st Serv. A strange one as ever I looked on: I cannot get him out o' the house. Pr'y thee call my master to him.

3rd Serv. What have you to do here, fellow? Pray you avoid the house,

Cor. Let me but stand: I will not hurt your hearth.

3rd Serv. What are you?

Cor. A gentleman.

3rd Serv. A marvellous poor one.

Cor. True, so I am.

Thou hast a grim appearance, and thy face Bears a command in 't: though thy tackle's torn, Thou shew'st a noble vessel. What's thy name? 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
To thee particularly, and to all the Volces,
Great hurt and mischief: thereto witness may
My surname, Coriolanus. The painful service,
The extreme dangers, and the drops of blood
Shed for my thankless country, are requited
But with that surname : a good memory,
And witness of the malice and displeasure
Which thou shouldst bear me !-Only that name
remains :

The cruelty and envy of the people,
Permitted by our dastard nobles, who
Have all forsook me, hath devoured the rest;
And suffered me, by the voice of slaves, to be
Whooped out of Rome. Now, this extremity
Hath brought me to thy hearth. Not out of hope
(Mistake me not) to save my life; for if

I had feared death, of all the men i' the world
I would have 'voided thee: but in mere spite,
To be full quit of those my banishers,

Stand I before thee here. Then if thou hast
A heart of wreak in thee, that will revenge
Thine own particular wrongs, and stop those
maims

Of shame seen through thy country, speed thee straight,

And make my misery serve thy turn: so use it
That my revengeful services may prove
As benefits to thee: for I will fight
Against my cankered country with the spleen
Of all the under fiends. But if so be
Thou dar'st not this, and that to prove more
fortunes

Thou art tired, then, in a word, I also am
Longer to live most weary, and present
My throat to thee and to thy ancient malice:
Which not to cut would shew thee but a fool:
Since I have ever followed thee with hate,

Let me commend thee first to those that shall
Say "Yea" to thy desires. A thousand welcomes!
And more a friend than e'er an enemy:
Yet, Marcius, that was much. Your hand: most
welcome!

[Exeunt CORIOLANUS and AUFIDIus. 1st Serv. [advancing]. Here's a strange alteration!

2nd 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.

1st Serv. What an arm he has! He turned me about with his finger and his thumb as one would set up a top.

2nd 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.

he was ever too hard for him: I have heard him say so himself.

1st 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.

2nd Serv. An he had been cannibally given, he might have broiled and eaten him too. 1st Serv. But more of thy news?

3rd 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.

2nd Serv. And he 's as like to do 't as any man I can imagine.

3rd 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) shew themselves (as we term it) his friends whilst he's in directitude.

1st Serv. Directitude! what's that?

3rd 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.

1st Serv. But when goes this forward? 3rd Serv. To-morrow: to-day: presently. You shall have the drum struck up this afternoon : 't is, as it were, a parcel of their feast, and to be executed ere they wipe their lips.

2nd Serv. Why, then we shall have a stirring world again. This peace is nothing but to rust iron, increase tailors, and breed ballad-makers.

1st Serv. Let me have war, say I: it exceeds peace as far as day does night: it's sprightly, waking, 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.

2nd Serv. "Tis so: and as wars, in some sort, may be said to be a ravisher, so it cannot be denied but peace is a great maker of cuckolds.

1st Serv. Ay, and it makes men hate one another.

3rd Serv. Reason; because they then less need one another. The wars for my money: I hope to see Romans as cheap as, Volcians.-They are rising, they are rising.

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
And quietness o' the people, which before
Were in wild hurry. Here do we make his friends
Blush that the world goes well: who rather had
(Though they themselves did suffer by 't) behold
Dissentious numbers pestering streets, than see
Our tradesmen singing in their shops, and going
About their functions friendly.

Bru. We stood to 't in good time.-Is this Menenius?