Whether I blush or no.

Howbeit, I thank you.

I mean to ftride your fteed, and at all times
To undercreft your good addition,
To th' fairness of my power.

Com. So, to our tent:

Where, ere we do repofe us, we will write

To Rome of our fuccefs: you, Titus Lartius,
Muft to Corioli back; fend us to Rome
The beft, with whom we may articulate,

For their own good, and ours.

Lar. I fhall, my Lord.

Mar. The Gods begin to mock me: I that but now Refus'd moft princely gifts, am bound to beg

Of my Lord-General.

Com. Take't, 'tis yours: what is't?
Mar. I fometime lay here in Corioli,

And at a poor man's houfe: he us'd me kindly.
He cry'd to me: I faw him prifoner :
But then Aufidius was within my view,

And wrath o'er-whelm'd my pity: I requeft you
To give my poor hoft freedom.

Com. O well begg'd!

Were he the butcher of my fon, he should
Be free as is the wind: deliver him, Titus.
Lar. Martius, his name?
Mar. By Jupiter, forgot:

I'm weary; yea, my memory is tir'd:
Have we no wine here?

Com. Go we to our tent;

The blood upon your vifage dries; 'tis time

It fhould be look'd too: come.

[Exeun!.

SCENE XII. The Camp of the Volici. A flourish. Cornets. Enter Tullus Aufidius bloody, with two or three Soldiers.

Auf. The town is ta'en.

Sol. 'Twill be deliver'd back on good condition.
Auf. Condition!

I would I were a Roman, for I cannot,

Being a Volfcian, be that I am.

Condition?

What good condition can a treaty find

Fth'

part that is at mercy? Five times, Martius,
I have fought with thee, so often haft thou beat me:
And would't do fo, I think, fhould we encounter
As often as we eat. By th' elements,

If e'er again I meet him beard to beard,
He's mine, or I am his mine emulation

:

Hath not that honour in't it had; for where
I thought to crush him in an equal force,

True fword to fword, i'll potch at him some way;
Or wrath, or craft may get him.

Sol. He's the devil.

Auf. Bolder, tho' not fo fubtle: my valour (poison'd

With only fuffering ftain by him) for him

Shall flie out of it felf: not fleep, nor fanctuary,
Being naked, fick, nor fane, nor Capitol,
The prayers of priests, nor times of facrifice,
Embankments all of fury, fhall lift up
Their rotten privilege and cuftom 'gainst
My hate to Martius, Where I find him, were it
At home, upon my brother's guard, even there,
Against the hofpitable canon, would I

Wath my fierce hand in's heart. Go you to th' city,
Learn how 'tis held, and what they are that must
Be hoftages for Rome.

Sol. Will not you go?

Auf. I am attended at the cypress grove. I pray you, ('Tis South the city mills) bring me word thither How the world goes, that to the pace of it

I may spur on my journey.

Sol. I fhall, Sir.

Men.

[Exeunt

Enter Menenius with Sicinius and Brutus.

HE Augur tells me, we shall have news to

Tnight.

Bru. Good or bad?

Men. Not according to the prayer of the people, for they love not Martius.

Sie. Nature teaches beafts to know their friends,

Men

Men. Pray you, whom does the wolf love?

Sic. The lamb.

Men. Ay, to devour him, as the hungry Plebeians would

the noble Martius.

Bru. He's a lamb indeed, that baes like a bear,

Men. He's a bear indeed, that lives like a lamb.

You two are old men, tell me one thing that I shall ask you. Both. Well, Sir.

Men. In what enormity is Martius poor, that

have not in abundance ?

you two

Bru. He's poor in no one fault, but ftor'd with all.
Sic. Efpecially in pride.

Bru. And topping all others in boast.

Men. This is ftrange now! do you two know how you are cenfur'd here in the city, I mean of us o'th' right-hand file, do you?

Bru. Why how are we cenfur'd?

Men. Because you talk of pride now, will you not be angry?

Both. Well, well, Sir, well.

Men. Why, 'tis no great matter; for a very little thief of occafion will rob you of a great deal of patience give your difpofitions the reins, and be angry at your pleasures; at the leaft if you take it as a pleasure to you in being foyou blame Martius for being proud.

Bru. We do it not alone, Sir.

Men. I know you can do very little alone, for your helps are many, or else your actions would grow wondrous fingle; your abilities are too infant-like, for doing much alone. You talk of pride oh that you could turn your eyes towards the napes of your necks, and make but an interior furvey of your good felves! Oh that you could!

Bru. What then, Sir?

Men. Why then you should difcover a brace of as unmeriting, proud, violent, tefty magiftrates, alias fools, as any in Rome.

Sic. Menenius, you are known well enough too.

Men. I am known to be a humorous Patrician, and one that loves a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying Tiber in't: faid to be fomething imperfect in favouring the

first complaint, hafty and tinder-like, upon too trivial motion: one that converfes more with the buttock of the night, than with the forehead of the morning. What I think I utter, and spend my malice in my breath. Meeting two fuch weals-men as you are (I cannot call you Lycurgues) if the drink you give me touch my palate adverfely, I make a crooked face at it. I can't fay, your Worships have deliver'd the matter well, when I find the afs in compound with the major part of your fyllables; and tho' I must be content to bear with those that say you are reverend grave men, yet they lie deadly that tell you, you have good faces; if you fee this in the map of my microcofm, follows it that I am known well enough too? what harm can your biffon conspectuities glean out of this character, if I be known well enough too?

Bru. Come, Sir, come, we know you well enough.

Men. You know neither me, your felves, nor any thing; you are ambitious for poor knaves caps and legs: you wear out a good wholefome forenoon, in hearing a cause between an orange-wife and a foffet-feller, and then adjourn a controversy of three-pence to a fecond day of audience.

When you are hearing a matter between party and party, if you chance to be pinch'd with the cholick, you make faces like mummers, fet up the bloody flag against all patience, and in roaring for a chamber-pot, difmifs the controverfy bleeding, the more intangled by your hearing: all the peace you make in their caufe, is calling both the parties knaves. You are a pair of strange

ones.

Bru. Come, come, you are well understood to be a perfecter gyber for the table, than a neceffary bencher in the Capitol.

Men. Our very priests muft become mockers, if they fhall encounter fuch ridiculous fubjects as you are; when you speak beft unto the purpose, it is not worth the wagging of your beards, and your beards deferve not fo honourable a grave as to ftuff a botcher's cushion, or to be intomb'd in an afs's pack-faddle. Yet you must be faying, Martius is proud; who in a cheap eftimation, is worth all your predeceffors fince Deucalion, though peradventure fome VOL. VII. I

of

of the beft of them were hereditary hangmen. Good-e'en to your Worships; more of your converfation would infect my brain, being the herdsmen of the beaftly Plebeians. will be bold to take my leave of you.

I

[Exeunt Brutus and Sicinius.

SCENE II.

Enter Volumnia, Virgilia, and Valeria.

How now, my as fair as noble Ladies, and the moon, were fhe earthly, no nobler; whither do you follow your eyes fo faft?

Vol. Honourable Menenius, my boy Martius approaches ; for the love of Juno let's go.

Men. Ha! Martius coming home?

Vol. Ay, worthy Menenius, and with most profperous approbation.

Men. Take my cap, Jupiter, and I thank thee Martius coming home!

Both. Nay, 'tis true.

hoo,

Vol. Look, here's a letter from him, the State hath another, his wife another, and I think there's one at home

for you.

Men. I will make my very houfe reel to-night: A letter for me!

Vir. Yes, certain, there's a letter for you, I faw't.

Men. A letter for me! it gives me an eftate of seven years health; in which time I will make a lip at the phyfician: the moft fovereign prescription in Galen is but Emperic, and to this prefervative of no better report than a horfe-drench. Is he not wounded? he was wont to come home wounded.

l'ir. Oh no, no, no.

Vol. Oh, he is wounded, I thank the Gods for't.

Men. So do I too, if he be not too much; brings he a victory in his pocket, the wounds become him.

Vol. On's brows, Menenius; he comes the third time home with the oaken garland.

Men. Hath he difciplin'd Aufidius foundly?

Vol. Titus Lartius writes, they fought together, but Azfidius got off.

Men. And 'twas time for him too, I'll warrant him that: