Your most sweet voices:-now you have left your voices, I have no further with you:Was not this mockery? Sic. Why, either, you were ignorant to see't? Or, seeing it, of such childish friendliness To yield your voices? Bru. Could you not have told him, As you were lesson'd,-When he had no power, He was your enemy; ever spake against you bear Sic. Thus to have said, Tying him to aught; so, putting him to rage, Bru. Did you perceive, He did solicit you in free contempt, When he did need your loves; and do you think, That his contempt shall not be bruising to you, When he hath power to crush? Why, had your bodies * Plebeians, common people. No heart among you? Or had you tongues, to cry Against the rectorship of judgement? Sic. Have you, Ere now, deny'd the asker? and now again, 3 Cit. He's not confirm'd, we may deny him yet. 2 Cit. And will deny him: I'll have five hundred voices of that sound. 1 Cit. I twice five hundred, and their friends to piece 'em. Bru. Get you hence instantly; and tell those friends; They have chose a consul, that will from them take Than dogs, that are as often beat for barking, Sic. Your ignorant election: Enforce* his pride, Bru. Sic. Say, you chose him More after our commandment, than as guided By your own true affections: and that, your minds Pre-occupy'd with what you rather must do Than what you should, made you against the grain To voice him consul: Lay the fault on us. Bru. Ay, spare us not. Say, we read lectures to you, How youngly he began to serve his country, How long continued: and what stock he springs of, And nobly nam'd so, being censor twice, Sic. One thus descended, That hath beside well in his person wrought Bru. Say, you ne'er had done't, (Harp on that still), but by our putting on t: And presently, when you have drawn your number, Repair to the Capitol. Cit. We will so almost all [Severul speak. [Exeunt Citizens. Let them go on; Repent in their election. This mutiny were better put in hazard, If, as his nature is, he fall in rage With their refusal, both observe and answer Sic. To the Capitol: Come; we'll be there before the stream o' the people; And this shall seem, as partly 'tis, their own, Which we have goaded onward. [Exeunt. ACT III. SCENE I. The same. A street. Cornets. Enter Coriolanus, Menenius, Cominius, Titus Lartius, Senators, and Patricians. Cor. Tullus Aufidius then had made new head? Lart. He had, my lord; and that it was, which caus'd Our swifter composition. Cor. So then the Volces stand but as at first; Ready, when time shall prompt them, to make road Upon us again. Com. That we shall hardly in our ages see They are worn, lord consul, so, Saw you Aufidius? Their banners wave again. Cor. Lart. On safe-guard* he came to me; and did curse Against the Volces, for they had so vilely Yielded the town: he is retir'd to Antium. Cor. Spoke he of me? Lart. Cor. He did, my lord. How? what? Lart. How often he had met you, sword to sword: That, of all things upon the earth, he hated Your person most: that he would pawn his fortunes To hopeless restitution, so he might Be call'd your vanquisher. Cor. Lart. At Antium. At Antium lives he? With a guard. Cor. I wish, I had a cause to seek him there, To oppose his hatred fully.-Welcome home. Enter Sicinius and Brutus. [To Lartius Behold! these are the tribunes of the people, them; For they do prank* them in authority, Against all noble sufferance. Com. Hath he not pass'd the nobles, and the commons? Bru. Cominius, no. Cor. Have I had children's voices? 1 Sen. Tribunes, give way; he shall to the mar Are these your herd? Must these have voices, that can yield them now, And straight disclaim their tongues?-What are your offices? You being their mouths, why rule you not their teeth? Have you not set them on? Men. Be calm, be calm. Cor. It is a purpos'd thing, and grows by plot, To curb the will of the nobility:— Suffer it, and live with such as cannot rule, Nor ever will be rul'd. Bru. Call't not a plot: Plume, deck. |