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Yet I wish, sir,-- |
I mean for your particular,--you had not |
Join'd in commission with him; but either |
Had borne the action of yourself, or else |
To him had left it solely. |
AUFIDIUS: |
I understand thee well; and be thou sure, |
when he shall come to his account, he knows not |
What I can urge against him. Although it seems, |
And so he thinks, and is no less apparent |
To the vulgar eye, that he bears all things fairly. |
And shows good husbandry for the Volscian state, |
Fights dragon-like, and does achieve as soon |
As draw his sword; yet he hath left undone |
That which shall break his neck or hazard mine, |
Whene'er we come to our account. |
Lieutenant: |
Sir, I beseech you, think you he'll carry Rome? |
AUFIDIUS: |
All places yield to him ere he sits down; |
And the nobility of Rome are his: |
The senators and patricians love him too: |
The tribunes are no soldiers; and their people |
Will be as rash in the repeal, as hasty |
To expel him thence. I think he'll be to Rome |
As is the osprey to the fish, who takes it |
By sovereignty of nature. First he was |
A noble servant to them; but he could not |
Carry his honours even: whether 'twas pride, |
Which out of daily fortune ever taints |
The happy man; whether defect of judgment, |
To fail in the disposing of those chances |
Which he was lord of; or whether nature, |
Not to be other than one thing, not moving |
From the casque to the cushion, but commanding peace |
Even with the same austerity and garb |
As he controll'd the war; but one of these-- |
As he hath spices of them all, not all, |
For I dare so far free him--made him fear'd, |
So hated, and so banish'd: but he has a merit, |
To choke it in the utterance. So our virtues |
Lie in the interpretation of the time: |
And power, unto itself most commendable, |
Hath not a tomb so evident as a chair |
To extol what it hath done. |
One fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail; |
Rights by rights falter, strengths by strengths do fail. |
Come, let's away. When, Caius, Rome is thine, |
Thou art poor'st of all; then shortly art thou mine. |
MENENIUS: |
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 call'd me father: |
But what o' that? Go, you that banish'd him; |
A mile before his tent fall down, and knee |
The way into his mercy: nay, if he coy'd |
To 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 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 o' the fire |
Of burning Rome. |
MENENIUS: |
Why, so: you have made good work! |
A pair of tribunes that have rack'd for Rome, |
To make coals cheap,--a noble memory! |
COMINIUS: |
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 punish'd. |
MENENIUS: |
Very well: |
Could he say less? |
COMINIUS: |
I offer'd to awaken his regard |
For's private friends: his answer to me was, |
He could not stay to pick them in a pile |
Of noisome musty chaff: he said 'twas folly, |
For one poor grain or two, to leave unburnt, |
And still to nose the offence. |
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