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But yet a brain that leads my use of anger
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To better vantage.
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MENENIUS:
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Well said, noble woman?
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Before he should thus stoop to the herd, but that
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The violent fit o' the time craves it as physic
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For the whole state, I would put mine armour on,
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Which I can scarcely bear.
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CORIOLANUS:
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What must I do?
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MENENIUS:
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Return to the tribunes.
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CORIOLANUS:
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Well, what then? what then?
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MENENIUS:
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Repent what you have spoke.
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CORIOLANUS:
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For them! I cannot do it to the gods;
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Must I then do't to them?
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VOLUMNIA:
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You are too absolute;
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Though therein you can never be too noble,
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But when extremities speak. I have heard you say,
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Honour and policy, like unsever'd friends,
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I' the war do grow together: grant that, and tell me,
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In peace what each of them by the other lose,
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That they combine not there.
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CORIOLANUS:
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Tush, tush!
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MENENIUS:
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A good demand.
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VOLUMNIA:
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If it be honour in your wars to seem
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The same you are not, which, for your best ends,
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You adopt your policy, how is it less or worse,
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That it shall hold companionship in peace
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With honour, as in war, since that to both
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It stands in like request?
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CORIOLANUS:
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Why force you this?
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VOLUMNIA:
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Because that now it lies you on to speak
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To the people; not by your own instruction,
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Nor by the matter which your heart prompts you,
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But with such words that are but rooted in
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Your tongue, though but bastards and syllables
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Of no allowance to your bosom's truth.
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Now, this no more dishonours you at all
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Than to take in a town with gentle words,
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Which else would put you to your fortune and
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The hazard of much blood.
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I would dissemble with my nature where
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My fortunes and my friends at stake required
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I should do so in honour: I am in this,
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Your wife, your son, these senators, the nobles;
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And you will rather show our general louts
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How you can frown than spend a fawn upon 'em,
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For the inheritance of their loves and safeguard
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Of what that want might ruin.
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MENENIUS:
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Noble lady!
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Come, go with us; speak fair: you may salve so,
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Not what is dangerous present, but the loss
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Of what is past.
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VOLUMNIA:
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I prithee now, my son,
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Go to them, with this bonnet in thy hand;
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And thus far having stretch'd it--here be with them--
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Thy knee bussing the stones--for in such business
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Action is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant
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More learned than the ears--waving thy head,
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Which often, thus, correcting thy stout heart,
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Now humble as the ripest mulberry
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That will not hold the handling: or say to them,
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Thou art their soldier, and being bred in broils
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Hast not the soft way which, thou dost confess,
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Were fit for thee to use as they to claim,
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In asking their good loves, but thou wilt frame
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Thyself, forsooth, hereafter theirs, so far
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As thou hast power and person.
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MENENIUS:
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This but done,
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Even as she speaks, why, their hearts were yours;
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For they have pardons, being ask'd, as free
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As words to little purpose.
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