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Citizens:
Down with him, down with him!
MENENIUS:
Go, get you to your house; be gone, away!
All will be naught else.
Second Senator:
Get you gone.
COMINIUS:
Stand fast;
We have as many friends as enemies.
MENENIUS:
Sham it be put to that?
First Senator:
The gods forbid!
I prithee, noble friend, home to thy house;
Leave us to cure this cause.
MENENIUS:
For 'tis a sore upon us,
You cannot tent yourself: be gone, beseech you.
COMINIUS:
Come, sir, along with us.
CORIOLANUS:
I would they were barbarians--as they are,
Though in Rome litter'd--not Romans--as they are not,
Though calved i' the porch o' the Capitol--
MENENIUS:
Be gone;
Put not your worthy rage into your tongue;
One time will owe another.
CORIOLANUS:
On fair ground
I could beat forty of them.
COMINIUS:
I could myself
Take up a brace o' the best of them; yea, the
two tribunes:
But now 'tis odds beyond arithmetic;
And manhood is call'd foolery, when it stands
Against a falling fabric. Will you hence,
Before the tag return? whose rage doth rend
Like interrupted waters and o'erbear
What they are used to bear.
MENENIUS:
Pray you, be gone:
I'll try whether my old wit be in request
With those that have but little: this must be patch'd
With cloth of any colour.
COMINIUS:
Nay, come away.
A Patrician:
This man has marr'd his fortune.
MENENIUS:
His nature is too noble for the world:
He would not flatter Neptune for his trident,
Or Jove for's power to thunder. His heart's his mouth:
What his breast forges, that his tongue must vent;
And, being angry, does forget that ever
He heard the name of death.
Here's goodly work!
Second Patrician:
I would they were abed!
MENENIUS:
I would they were in Tiber! What the vengeance!
Could he not speak 'em fair?
SICINIUS:
Where is this viper
That would depopulate the city and
Be every man himself?
MENENIUS:
You worthy tribunes,--
SICINIUS:
He shall be thrown down the Tarpeian rock
With rigorous hands: he hath resisted law,
And therefore law shall scorn him further trial
Than the severity of the public power
Which he so sets at nought.
First Citizen:
He shall well know