Act 2. Scene I

SCENE I. Rome. A public place.

Enter MENENIUS with the two Tribunes of the people, SICINIUS and BRUTUS.
MENENIUS
The augurer tells me we shall have news to-night.

BRUTUS
Good or bad?

MENENIUS
Not according to the prayer of the people, for they
love not Marcius.

SICINIUS
Nature teaches beasts to know their friends.

MENENIUS
Pray you, who does the wolf love?

SICINIUS
The lamb.

MENENIUS
Ay, to devour him; as the hungry plebeians would the
noble Marcius.

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

MENENIUS
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.

MENENIUS
In what enormity is Marcius poor in, that you two
have not in abundance?

BRUTUS
He's poor in no one fault, but stored with all.

SICINIUS
Especially in pride.

BRUTUS
And topping all others in boasting.

MENENIUS
This is strange now: do you two know how you are
censured here in the city, I mean of us o' the
right-hand file? do you?

Both
Why, how are we censured?

MENENIUS
Because you talk of pride now,--will you not be angry?

Both
Well, well, sir, well.

MENENIUS
Why, 'tis no great matter; for a very little thief of
occasion will rob you of a great deal of patience:
give your dispositions the reins, and be angry at
your pleasures; at the least if you take it as a
pleasure to you in being so. You blame Marcius for
being proud?

BRUTUS
We do it not alone, sir.

MENENIUS
I know you can do very little alone; for your helps
are many, or else your actions would grow wondrous
single: your abilities are too infant-like for
doing much alone. You talk of pride: O that you
could turn your eyes toward the napes of your necks,
and make but an interior survey of your good selves!
O that you could!

BRUTUS
What then, sir?

MENENIUS
Why, then you should discover a brace of unmeriting,
proud, violent, testy magistrates, alias fools, as
any in Rome.

SICINIUS
Menenius, you are known well enough too.

MENENIUS
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; said to be something imperfect in
favouring the first complaint; hasty and tinder-like
upon too trivial motion; one that converses 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 such wealsmen as
you are--I cannot call you Lycurguses--if the drink