Refus'd most princely gifts, am bound to beg

Of my lord general.

Com.

Take it: 't is yours.

What is 't?

Cor. I sometime lay, here in Corioli,

At a poor man's house; he us'd me kindly :
He cried to me; I saw him prisoner;

But then Aufidius was within my view,

And wrath o'erwhelm'd my pity. I request you
To give my poor host 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?
Cor.

By Jupiter, forgot:

The blood upon your visage dries; 't is time

1 Sol. 'T will be deliver'd back on good condition.
Auf. Condition! -

I would I were a Roman; for I cannot,

Being a Volsce, be that I am. Condition!

What good condition can a treaty find

I' the part that is at mercy?

Five times, Marcius,

I have fought with thee: so often hast thou beat me;
And would'st do so, I think, should we encounter
As often as we eat. By the elements,
If e'er again I meet him beard to beard,

He is 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 some way,

Or wrath, or craft, may get him.

1 Sol.

He's the devil.

Auf. Bolder, though not so subtle. My valour's poison'd,

With only suffering stain by him; for him

Shall fly out of itself. Nor sleep, nor sanctuary,

Being naked, sick; nor fane, nor Capitol,
The prayers of priests, nor times of sacrifice,
Embarquements all of fury, shall lift up
Their rotten privilege and custom 'gainst
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 the city:
Learn, how 't is held; and what they are, that must
Be hostages for Rome.

1 Sol.

Will not you go?

Auf. I am attended at the cypress grove: I pray you, ('T is south the city mills,) bring me word thither How the world goes, that to the pace of it

Enter MENENIUS, SICINIUS, and BRUTUS.

Men. The augurer 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.

are old men: tell me one thing that I shall ask you. Both Trib. Well, Sir.

You two

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

Bru. He's poor in no one fault, but stored with all.

Sic. Especially, in pride.

Bru. And topping all others in boasting.

Men. This is strange now. Do you two know how you are censured here in the city, I mean of us o' the right-hand file? Do you?

Both Trib. Why, how are we censured?
Men. Because you talk of pride now,

angry?

Both Trib. Well, well, Sir; well.

Will you not be

Men. Why, 't is no great matter; for a very little thief of occasion 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 so. 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: O! that you could turn your eyes toward the napes of your necks, and make but an interior survey of your good selves! O, that you could!

Bru. What then, Sir?

Men. Why, then you should discover a brace of unmeriting, proud, violent, testy magistrates, (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 Tyber in 't: said to be something imperfect, in favouring the first complaint;

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 any thing. 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 colic, 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 honourable a grave as to stuff a botcher's cushion, or to be entombed in an ass's pack-saddle. 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 'em were hereditary hangmen. Good den to your worships: more of your conversation would in

fect my brain, being the herdsman of the beastly plebeians. I will be bold to take my leave of you.

[BRUTUS and SICINIUS retire to the back of the Scene.

Enter VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA, and 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.

cius coming home?

Two Ladies. Nay, 't is true.

Ho! Mar

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. 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.

Is he not

So do I too, if it be not too much. - Brings 'a victory in his pocket? - The wounds become him.

Vol. On's 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 stay'd by him, I would not have been so fidiused for all the