Coriolanus
Act V, Scene 1
Rome. A public place.
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Enter Menenius, Cominius, Sicinius and Brutus, with others.
Menenius
1 - 7
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No, I’ll not go. You hear what he hath said
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Which was sometime his general, who loved him
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In a most dear particular. He call’d me father;
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But what o’ that? Go you that banish’d him
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A mile before his tent, fall down, and knee
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The way into his mercy. Nay, if he coy’d
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To hear Cominius speak, I’ll keep at home.
Cominius
8
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He would not seem to know me.
Cominius
10 - 16
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Yet one time he did call me by my name.
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I urg’d our old acquaintance, and the drops
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That we have bled together. Coriolanus
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He would not answer to; forbade all names;
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He was a kind of nothing, titleless,
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Till he had forg’d himself a name a’ th’ fire
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Of burning Rome.
Menenius
17 - 19
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Why, so; you have made good work!
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A pair of tribunes that have wrack’d for Rome
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To make coals cheap! A noble memory!
Cominius
20 - 23
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I minded him how royal ’twas to pardon
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When it was less expected. He replied,
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It was a bare petition of a state
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To one whom they had punish’d.
Menenius
24 - 25
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Very well.
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Could he say less?
Cominius
26 - 31
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I offered to awaken his regard
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For ’s private friends. His answer to me was,
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He could not stay to pick them in a pile
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Of noisome musty chaff. He said ’twas folly,
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For one poor grain or two, to leave unburnt
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And still to nose th’ offense.
Menenius
32 - 36
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For one poor grain or two?
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I am one of those; his mother, wife, his child,
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And this brave fellow too: we are the grains,
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You are the musty chaff, and you are smelt
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Above the moon. We must be burnt for you.
Sicinius Velutus
37 - 42
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Nay, pray be patient. If you refuse your aid
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In this so never-needed help, yet do not
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Upbraid ’s with our distress. But sure if you
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Would be your country’s pleader, your good tongue,
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More than the instant army we can make,
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Might stop our countryman.
Menenius
43
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No; I’ll not meddle.
Sicinius Velutus
44
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Pray you go to him.
Menenius
45
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What should I do?
Brutus
46 - 47
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Only make trial what your love can do
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For Rome, towards Martius.
Menenius
48 - 52
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Well, and say that Martius
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Return me, as Cominius is return’d,
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Unheard—what then?
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But as a discontented friend, grief-shot
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With his unkindness? Say’t be so?
Sicinius Velutus
53 - 55
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Yet your good will
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Must have that thanks from Rome, after the measure
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As you intended well.
Menenius
56 - 67
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I’ll undertake’t.
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I think he’ll hear me. Yet, to bite his lip
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And hum at good Cominius much unhearts me.
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He was not taken well, he had not din’d:
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The veins unfill’d, our blood is cold, and then
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We pout upon the morning, are unapt
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To give or to forgive; but when we have stuff’d
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These pipes and these conveyances of our blood
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With wine and feeding, we have suppler souls
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Than in our priest-like fasts: therefore I’ll watch him
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Till he be dieted to my request,
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And then I’ll set upon him.
Brutus
68 - 69
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You know the very road into his kindness,
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And cannot lose your way.
Menenius
70 - 72
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Good faith, I’ll prove him,
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Speed how it will. I shall ere long have knowledge
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Of my success.
Cominius
73
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He’ll never hear him.
Cominius
75 - 86
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I tell you, he does sit in gold, his eye
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Red as ’twould burn Rome; and his injury
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The jailer to his pity. I kneel’d before him;
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’Twas very faintly he said, “Rise”; dismiss’d me
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Thus, with his speechless hand. What he would do
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He sent in writing after me; what he would not,
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Bound with an oath to yield to his conditions;
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So that all hope is vain,
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Unless his noble mother and his wife,
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Who, as I hear, mean to solicit him
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For mercy to his country. Therefore let’s hence,
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And with our fair entreaties haste them on.
