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. 50 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 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 wealsmen as you are-I cannot call you Lycurguses-if the 60 drink you give me touch my palate adversely, I make a crooked face at it. I can't 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 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 70 51. humorous, capricious. 64. the ass in compound, etc., an element of the fool in all you say. 68. According to the theory of the early Mystic philosophers, man was a microcosm or epitome of creation; and the universe a macrocosm, or man on a grand scale. Bacon (Ad. of Learning, bk. ii.) mentions 'the ancient opinion that man was microcosmus, an abstract or model of the world.' 70. bisson conspectuities, purblind eyes. 'Conspectuities' is a coinage of Menenius'. 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 three pence to a second day of 80 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. 90 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 100 estimation, is worth all your predecessors since Deucalion; though peradventure some of the best of 'em were hereditary hangmen. God-den to your worships: more of your conversation would 79. fosset-seller, seller of faucets or wine-taps. 102. Deucalion, the Noah of classical legend. infect my brain, being the herdsmen of the beastly plebeians: I will be bold to take my leave of you. [Brutus and Sicinius go aside. Enter VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA, and VALERIA. 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 110 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! Vol. Vir. Nay, 'tis 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 't. 120 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 horsedrench. Is he not wounded? he was wont to 130 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. 128. empiricutic, quackish; again Menenius' coinage. 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, 140 but Aufidius got off. Men. And 'twas 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. 150 Men. True! I'll be sworn they are true. Where is he wounded? [To the Tribunes] God save your good worships! Marcius is coming 160 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 show the people, when he shall stand for his place. He received in the repulse of Tarquin seven hurts i' the body. Men. One i' the neck, and two i' the thigh, -there's nine that I know. Vol. He had, before this last expedition, twenty-five wounds upon him. Men. Now it's twenty-seven: every gash was an enemy's grave. [A shout and flourish.] Hark! the trumpets. 170 Vol. These are the ushers of Marcius: before him he carries noise, and behind him he leaves tears: Death, that dark spirit, in 's nervy arm doth lie; Which, being advanced, declines, and then men die. A sennet. Trumpets sound. Enter COMINIUS the general, and TITUS LARTIUS; between them, CORIOLANUS, crowned with an oaken garland; with Captains and Soldiers, and a Herald. Her. Know, Rome, that all alone Marcius did fight Within Corioli gates: where he hath won, Welcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus ! [Flourish. All. Welcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus ! Cor. No more of this; it does offend my heart: Pray now, no more. Com. Cor. Look, sir, your mother! O, [Kneels. Nay, my good soldier, up; You have, I know, petition'd all the gods For my prosperity! Vol. My gentle Marcius, worthy Caius, and By deed-achieving honour newly named,- Cor. My gracious silence, hail! Wouldst thou have laugh'd had I come coffin'd home, That weep'st to see me triumph? Ah, my dear, VOL. X 177. nervy, sinewy. 49 E 180 190 |