Cor.

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 called your vanquisher.

Cor.

Lart. At Antium.

At Antium lives he?

Cor. I wish I had a cause to seek him there, Το oppose his hatred fully.-Welcome home.

[TO LARTIUS.

Enter SICINIUS and BRUTUS.

Behold! these are the tribunes of the people,
The tongues o' the common mouth. I do despise

them;

For they do prank them in authority,

Against all noble sufferance.

1 Sen. Tribunes, give way; he shall to the market

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.

VOL. V.

64

Be calm, be calm.

Cor. It is a purposed 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 ruled.

Bru.

Call't not a plot.

The people cry, you mocked them; and, of late,
When corn was given them gratis, you repined;
Scandaled the suppliants for the people; called them
Time-pleasers, flatterers, foes to nobleness.
Cor. Why, this was known before.

Bru.

Not to them all.

Cor. Have you informed them since?
Bru.

How! I inform them!

Cor. You are like to do such business.
Bru.

Each way to better yours.1

Not unlike,

Cor. Why then should I be consul? By yon clouds, Let me deserve so ill as you, and make me

Your fellow tribune.

Sic.

You show too much of that,

For which the people stir. If

you will pass

To where you are bound, you must inquire your way, Which you are out of, with a gentler spirit;

Or never be so noble as a consul,

Nor yoke with him for tribune.

Men.

Let's be calm.

Com. The people are abused;-Set on.-This

paltering

Becomes not Rome; nor has Coriolanus

Deserved this so dishonored rub, laid falsely 3

I'the plain way of his merit.

Cor.

Tell me of corn!

This was my speech, and I will speak't again ;

Men. Not now, not now.

1 Sen.

Not in this heat, sir, now.

Cor. Now, as I live, I will.-My nobler friends,

1 i. e. likely to provide better for the security of the commonwealth than you (whose business it is) will do.

2 Paltering is shuffling.

3 i. e. treacherously. The metaphor is from a rub at bowls.

I crave their pardons :

For the mutable, rank-scented many, let them
Regard me as I do not flatter, and

Therein behold themselves. I say again,

In soothing them, we nourish 'gainst our senate
The cockle of rebellion, insolence, sedition,

Which we ourselves have ploughed for, sowed, and scattered,

By mingling them with us, the honored number;
Who lack not virtue, no, nor power, but that
Which they have given to beggars.

Men. Well, no more.

1 Sen. No more words, we beseech you. Cor.

How! no more?

As for my country I have shed my blood,
Not fearing outward force, so shall my lungs

Coin words till their decay, against those meazels,2
Which we disdain should tetter us, yet sought

The very way to catch them.

Bru.

As if you were a god to punish, not
A man of their infirmity.

Sic.

We let the people know't.

Men.

Cor. Choler!

You speak o'the people,

'Twere well

What, what? his choler?

Were I as patient as the midnight sleep,

By Jove, 'twould be my mind.

Sic.

It is a mind

That shall remain a poison where it is,

Not poison any further.

Cor.

Shall remain !—

Hear you this Triton of the minnows? mark you

His absolute shall?

Com.

Cor.

'Twas from the canon.

Shall!

O good, but most unwise patricians, why,

1 Cockle is a weed which grows up with and chokes the corn.

2 Meazel, or mesell, is the old term for a leper, from the Fr. meselle.

3 The old copy has, " O God, but," &c. The emendation was made by Theobald.

You grave, but reckless senators, have you thus
Given Hydra here to choose an officer,

That with his peremptory shall, being but

The horn and noise o' the monsters, wants not spirit
To say, he'll turn your current in a ditch,
And make your channel his? If he have power,
Then vail your ignorance; if none, awake
Your dangerous lenity. If you are learned,
Be not as common fools; if you are not,

Let them have cushions by you. You are plebeians,
If they be senators; and they are no less,
When both your voices blended, the greatest taste
Most palates theirs.3 They choose their magistrate;
And such a one as he, who puts his shall,
His popular shall, against a graver bench
Than ever frowned in Greece! By Jove himself,
It makes the consuls base; and my soul aches,
To know, when two authorities are up,
Neither supreme, how soon confusion

May enter 'twixt the gap of both, and take
The one by the other.

Com.
Cor. Whoever gave that counsel, to give forth
The corn o'the storehouse gratis, as 'twas used
Sometime in Greece,-

Well-on to the market place.

Men.

Well, well, no more of that.

Cor. (Though there the people had more absolute

power,)

I say they nourished disobedience, fed

The ruin of the state.

1 "The horn and noise," alluding to his having called him Triton of the minnows before.

2 "If this man has power, let the ignorance that gave it him vail or bow down before him."

3 "The plebeians are no less than senators, when the voices of the senate and the people being blended, the predominant taste of the compound smacks more of the populace than the senate."

Was not our recompense; resting well assured

They ne'er did service for't. Being pressed to the war,
Even when the navel of the state was touched,

They would not thread1 the gates; this kind of service
Did not deserve corn gratis; being i' the war,
Their mutinies and revolts, wherein they showed
Most valor, spoke not for them. The accusation
Which they have often made against the senate,
All cause unborn, could never be the native?
Of our so frank donation. Well, what then?
How shall this bosom multiplied3 digest
The senate's courtesy? Let deeds express
What's like to be their words :-We did request it;
We are the greater poll, and in true fear
They gave us our demands.-Thus we debase
The nature of our seats, and make the rabble
Call our cares, fears; which will in time break ope
The locks o' the senate, and bring in the crows
To peck the eagles.-

Men.

No, take more.

Come, enough. Bru. Enough, with over-measure. Cor. What may be sworn by, both divine and human, Seal what I end withal! This double worship,Where one part does disdain with cause, the other Insult without all reason; where gentry, title, wisdom Cannot conclude, but by the yea and no

Of general ignorance,-it must omit

Real necessities, and give way the while

To unstable slightness; purpose so barred, it follows,
Nothing is done to purpose. Therefore, beseech you,—
You that will be less fearful than discreet;
That love the fundamental part of state,

1 To thread the gates is to pass through them. So in King Lear:— "Threading dark-eyed night."

2 Native, if it be not a corruption of the text, must be put for native cause, the producer or bringer forth.

3 "This bosom multiplied," is, the bosom of the people.

4 "No, let me add this further, and may every thing divine and human that can give force to an oath, bear witness to the truth of what I shall conclude with."