ACT V.

SCENE I. Rome. A public Place.

Enter MENENIUS, COMINIUS, SICINIUS, BRUTUS, and others.

Men. No, I'll not go. You hear what he hath said, Which was sometime his general; who loved him In a most dear particular. He called me father; But what o' that? Go, you that banished him, A mile before his tent fall down, and kneel The way into his mercy. Nay, if he coyed1 To hear Cominius speak, I'll keep at home. Com. He would not seem to know me.

Men.
Do you hear?
Com. Yet one time he did call me by my name;
I urged our old acquaintance, and the drops
That we have bled together. Coriolanus
He would not answer to; forbad all names;
He was a kind of nothing, titleless,

Till he had forged himself a name i'the fire
Of burning Rome.

Men. Why, so; you have made good work;
A pair of tribunes that have racked for Rome,
To make coals cheap. A noble memory!3

3

Com. I minded him how royal 'twas to pardon When it was less expected. He replied,

It was a bare petition of a state

To one whom they had punished.
Men.

Could he say less?

Very well;

Com. I offered to awaken his regard

For his private friends.
He could not stay to pick
Of noisome, musty chaff.

1 i. e. condescended unwillingly.

2 Harassed by exactions.

His answer to me was,
them in a pile
He said 'twas folly,

3 Memorial.

4 Bare may mean palpable, evident; but perhaps we should read base.

For one poor grain or two, to leave unburnt,
And still to nose the offence.

Men.

For one poor grain

Or two? I am one of those; his mother, wife,
His child, and this brave fellow too, we are the grains.
Yon are the musty chaff; and you are smelt
Above the moon. We must be burnt for you.

Sic. Nay, pray, be patient. If you refuse your aid In this so never-heeded help, yet do not

Upbraid us with our distress. But, sure, if you Would be your country's pleader, your good tongue, More than the instant army we can make,

Might stop our countryman.

Men.

Sic. Pray you, go to him.

Men.

No; I'll not meddle.

What should I do?

Bru. Only make trial what your love can do

For Rome, towards Marcius.

Men.

Well, and say that Marcius

Return me, as Cominius is returned,
Unheard; what then?—

But as a discontented friend, grief-shot
With his unkindness? Say't be so?

Sic.

Yet your good will Must have that thanks from Rome, after the measure

As you intended well.

Men.

I think he'll hear me.

I'll undertake it:

Yet to bite his lip,

And hum at good Cominius, much unhearts me.

He was not taken well; he had not dined.
The veins unfilled, our blood is cold, and then
We pout upon the morning, are unapt

To give or to forgive; but when we have stuffed
These pipes and these conveyances of our blood
With wine and feeding, we have suppler souls

Than in our priestlike fasts; therefore I'll watch him
Till he be dieted to my request,

And then I'll set upon him.

Bru. You know the very road into his kindness, And cannot lose your way.

Men.

Good faith, I'll prove him,

Speed how it will. I shall ere long have knowledge

Com. I tell you he does sit in gold,1 his eye
Red as 'twould burn Rome; and his injury
The jailer to his pity. I kneeled before him;
'Twas very faintly he said, Rise; dismissed me
Thus, with his speechless hand. What he would do,
He sent in writing after me; what he would not,
Bound with an oath, to yield to his conditions: 2
So, that all hope is vain,

Unless his noble mother, and his wife;'
Who, as I hear, mean to solicit him

3

For mercy to his country. Therefore, let's hence,
And with our fair entreaties haste them on. [Exeunt.

SCENE II. An advanced post of the Volcian Camp before Rome. The Guard at their stations.

Enter to them, MENENIUS.

1 Guard. Stay; whence are you?

2 G.

Stand, and

go back. Men. You guard like men; 'tis well. But, by your

leave,

1 Pope was, perhaps, indebted to Shakspeare in the translation of the passage:

"Th' eternal Thunderer sat throned in gold."

2 Perhaps we might read, "To yield to no conditions." The sense of the passage would then be, "What he would do, he sent in writing after me; the things he would not do, he bound himself with an oath to yield to no conditions that might be proposed." It afterwards appears what these

were:

"The things I have forsworn to grant may never

Be held by you denials. Do not bid me

Dismiss my soldiers, or capitulate

Again with Rome's mechanics."

3 To satisfy modern notions of construction, this line must be read as if written

VOL. V.

"Unless in his noble mother and his wife."

70

I am an officer of state, and come

To speak with Coriolanus.

1 G.

Men.

From whence?

· From Rome.

1 G. You may not pass; you must return; our

general

Will no more hear from thence.

2 G. You'll see your Rome embraced with fire,

before

You'll speak with Coriolanus.

Men.
Good my friends,
If you have heard your general talk of Rome,
And of his friends there, it is lots to blanks,'
My name hath touched your ears; it is Menenius.
1 G. Be it so; go back; the virtue of your name
Is not here passable.

Men.
I tell thee, fellow,
Thy general is my lover. I have been

The book of his good acts, whence men have read
His fame unparalleled, haply, amplified;

For I have ever verified3 my friends,

(Of whom he's chief,) with all the size that verity Would without lapsing suffer; nay, sometimes, Like to a bowl upon a subtle ground,

4

I have tumbled past the throw; and in his praise
Have, almost, stamped the leasing. Therefore, fellow,

I must have leave to pass.

1 G. 'Faith, sir, if you had told as many lies in his behalf, as you have uttered words in your own, you should not pass here; no, though it were as virtuous to lie, as to live chastely. Therefore, go back.

Men. Pr'ythee, fellow, remember my name is Menenius, always factionary on the party of your general.

3 Verified must here be used for displayed or testified, if it be not a corruption of the text for notified, or some other word. Mr. Edwards proposed to read varnished, which was anciently written vernished.

4 Subtle here means smooth, level.

5 i. e. have almost given the lie such a sanction as to render it current. 6 Factionary is adherent, partisan.

2 G. Howsoever you have been his liar, (as you say, you have,) I am one that, telling true under him, must say you cannot pass. Therefore, go back.

Men. Has he dined, canst thou tell? for I would not speak with him till after dinner.

1 G. You are a Roman, are you?

Men. I am as thy general is.

1 G. Then you should hate Rome, as he does. Can you, when you have pushed out your gates the very defender of them, and, in a violent popular ignorance, given your enemy your shield, think to front his revenges with the easy groans of old women, the virginal palms of your daughters, or with the palsied intercession of such a decayed dotant as you seem to be? Can you think to blow out the intended fire your city is ready to flame in, with such weak breath as this? No, you are deceived; therefore, back to Rome, and prepare for your execution: you are condemned; our general has sworn you out of reprieve and pardon.

Men. Sirrah, if thy captain knew I were here, he would use me with estimation.

2 G. Come, my captain knows you not. Men. I mean thy general.

1 G. My general cares not for you. Back, I say; go, lest I let forth your half-pint of blood;-back,— that's the utmost of your having ;-back.

Men. Nay, but fellow, fellow,

Enter CORIOLANUS and AUFIDIUS.

Cor. What's the matter?

Men. Now, you companion, I'll say an errand for you; you shall know now that I am in estimation; you shall perceive that a Jack3 guardant cannot office me from my son Coriolanus; guess, but by my entertainment with him, if thou stand'st not i' the state of hanging, or of some death more long in spectatorship, and crueller in suffering. Behold now presently, and swoon

1 i. e. slight, inconsiderable.

2 Dotard. 3 Equivalent to Jack in office.