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First Senator:
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You may not pass, you must return: our general
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Will no more hear from thence.
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Second Senator:
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You'll see your Rome embraced with fire before
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You'll speak with Coriolanus.
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MENENIUS:
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Good my friends,
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If you have heard your general talk of Rome,
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And of his friends there, it is lots to blanks,
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My name hath touch'd your ears it is Menenius.
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First Senator:
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Be it so; go back: the virtue of your name
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Is not here passable.
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MENENIUS:
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I tell thee, fellow,
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The general is my lover: I have been
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The book of his good acts, whence men have read
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His name unparallel'd, haply amplified;
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For I have ever verified my friends,
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Of whom he's chief, with all the size that verity
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Would without lapsing suffer: nay, sometimes,
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Like to a bowl upon a subtle ground,
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I have tumbled past the throw; and in his praise
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Have almost stamp'd the leasing: therefore, fellow,
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I must have leave to pass.
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First Senator:
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Faith, sir, if you had told as many lies in his
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behalf as you have uttered words in your own, you
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should not pass here; no, though it were as virtuous
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to lie as to live chastely. Therefore, go back.
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MENENIUS:
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Prithee, fellow, remember my name is Menenius,
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always factionary on the party of your general.
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Second Senator:
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Howsoever you have been his liar, as you say you
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have, I am one that, telling true under him, must
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say, you cannot pass. Therefore, go back.
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MENENIUS:
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Has he dined, canst thou tell? for I would not
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speak with him till after dinner.
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First Senator:
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You are a Roman, are you?
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MENENIUS:
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I am, as thy general is.
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First Senator:
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Then you should hate Rome, as he does. Can you,
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when you have pushed out your gates the very
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defender of them, and, in a violent popular
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ignorance, given your enemy your shield, think to
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front his revenges with the easy groans of old
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women, the virginal palms of your daughters, or with
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the palsied intercession of such a decayed dotant as
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you seem to be? Can you think to blow out the
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intended fire your city is ready to flame in, with
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such weak breath as this? No, you are deceived;
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therefore, back to Rome, and prepare for your
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execution: you are condemned, our general has sworn
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you out of reprieve and pardon.
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MENENIUS:
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Sirrah, if thy captain knew I were here, he would
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use me with estimation.
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Second Senator:
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Come, my captain knows you not.
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MENENIUS:
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I mean, thy general.
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First Senator:
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My general cares not for you. Back, I say, go; lest
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I let forth your half-pint of blood; back,--that's
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the utmost of your having: back.
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MENENIUS:
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Nay, but, fellow, fellow,--
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CORIOLANUS:
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What's the matter?
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MENENIUS:
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Now, you companion, I'll say an errand for you:
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You shall know now that I am in estimation; you shall
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perceive that a Jack guardant cannot office me from
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my son Coriolanus: guess, but by my entertainment
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with him, if thou standest not i' the state of
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hanging, or of some death more long in
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spectatorship, and crueller in suffering; behold now
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