Act 3. Scene I - Page 2

Why, this was known before.

BRUTUS
Not to them all.

CORIOLANUS
Have you inform'd them sithence?

BRUTUS
How! I inform them!

CORIOLANUS
You are like to do such business.

BRUTUS
Not unlike,
Each way, to better yours.

CORIOLANUS
Why then should I be consul? By yond clouds,
Let me deserve so ill as you, and make me
Your fellow tribune.

SICINIUS
You show too much of that
For which the people stir: if you will pass
To where you are bound, you must inquire your way,
Which you are out of, with a gentler spirit,
Or never be so noble as a consul,
Nor yoke with him for tribune.

MENENIUS
Let's be calm.

COMINIUS
The people are abused; set on. This paltering
Becomes not Rome, nor has Coriolanus
Deserved this so dishonour'd rub, laid falsely
I' the plain way of his merit.

CORIOLANUS
Tell me of corn!
This was my speech, and I will speak't again--

MENENIUS
Not now, not now.

First Senator
Not in this heat, sir, now.

CORIOLANUS
Now, as I live, I will. My nobler friends,
I crave their pardons:
For the mutable, rank-scented many, let them
Regard me as I do not flatter, and
Therein behold themselves: I say again,
In soothing them, we nourish 'gainst our senate
The cockle of rebellion, insolence, sedition,
Which we ourselves have plough'd for, sow'd,
and scatter'd,
By mingling them with us, the honour'd number,
Who lack not virtue, no, nor power, but that
Which they have given to beggars.

MENENIUS
Well, no more.

First Senator
No more words, we beseech you.

CORIOLANUS
How! no more!
As for my country I have shed my blood,
Not fearing outward force, so shall my lungs
Coin words till their decay against those measles,
Which we disdain should tatter us, yet sought
The very way to catch them.

BRUTUS
You speak o' the people,
As if you were a god to punish, not
A man of their infirmity.

SICINIUS
'Twere well
We let the people know't.

MENENIUS
What, what? his choler?

CORIOLANUS
Choler!
Were I as patient as the midnight sleep,
By Jove, 'twould be my mind!

SICINIUS
It is a mind
That shall remain a poison where it is,
Not poison any further.

CORIOLANUS
Shall remain!
Hear you this Triton of the minnows? mark you
His absolute 'shall'?

COMINIUS
'Twas from the canon.

CORIOLANUS
'Shall'!
O good but most unwise patricians! why,
You grave but reckless senators, have you thus
Given Hydra here to choose an officer,
That with his peremptory