Act VScene I
Rome. A public place
Enter Menenius, Cominius, Sicinius, Brutus (the two Tribunes), with others.
Menenius
No, I’ll not go. You hear what he hath saidWhich was sometime his general, who loved himIn 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 kneeThe way into his mercy. Nay, if he coyedTo hear Cominius speak, I’ll keep at home.
Cominius
He would not seem to know me.
Menenius
Do you hear?
Cominius
Yet one time he did call me by my name.I urged our old acquaintance, and the dropsThat we have bled together. “Coriolanus”He would not answer to, forbade all names.He was a kind of nothing, titleless,Till he had forged himself a name i’ th’ fireOf burning Rome.
Menenius
Why, so; you have made good work!A pair of tribunes that have wracked RomeTo make coals cheap! A noble memory!
Cominius
I minded him how royal ’twas to pardonWhen it was less expected. He repliedIt was a bare petition of a stateTo one whom they had punished.
Menenius
Very well.Could he say less?
Cominius
I offered to awaken his regardFor’s private friends. His answer to me wasHe could not stay to pick them in a pileOf noisome musty chaff. He said ’twas follyFor one poor grain or two to leave unburntAnd still to nose th’ offence.
Menenius
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;You are the musty chaff, and you are smeltAbove the moon. We must be burnt for you.
Sicinius
Nay, pray, be patient. If you refuse your aidIn this so-never-needed help, yet do notUpbraid’s with our distress. But sure, if youWould be your country’s pleader, your good tongue,More than the instant army we can make,Might stop our countryman.
Menenius
No, I’ll not meddle.
Sicinius
Pray you, go to him.
Menenius
What should I do?
Brutus
Only make trial what your love can doFor Rome, towards Martius.
Menenius
Well, and say that MartiusReturn me, as Cominius is returned, unheard,What then? But as a discontented friend,Grief-shot with his unkindness? Say’t be so?
Sicinius
Yet your good willMust have that thanks from Rome after the measureAs you intended well.
Menenius
I’ll undertake’t.I think he’ll hear me. Yet to bite his lipAnd hum at good Cominius much unhearts me.He was not taken well; he had not dined.The veins unfilled, our blood is cold, and thenWe pout upon the morning, are unaptTo give or to forgive; but when we have stuffedThese pipes and these conveyances of our bloodWith wine and feeding, we have suppler soulsThan in our priestlike fasts. Therefore I’ll watch himTill he be dieted to my request,And then I’ll set upon him.
Brutus
You know the very road into his kindnessAnd cannot lose your way.
Menenius
Good faith, I’ll prove him,Speed how it will. I shall ere long have knowledgeOf my success.
Exit.
Cominius
He’ll never hear him.
Sicinius
Not?
Cominius
I tell you, he does sit in gold, his eyeRed as ’twould burn Rome; and his injuryThe jailer to his pity. I kneeled before him;’Twas very faintly he said “Rise”; dismissed meThus with his speechless hand. What he would doHe sent in writing after me; what heWould not, bound with an oath to yield to hisConditions. So that all hope is vainUnless his noble mother and his wife,Who, as I hear, mean to solicit himFor mercy to his country. Therefore let’s henceAnd with our fair entreaties haste them on.
Exeunt.