Page 2845 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

SICINIUS

You show too much of that
For which the people stir. If you will pass
To where you are bound, you must enquire your way,

Which you are out of, with a gentler spirit, [55]
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 dishonoured rub, laid falsely [60]
I’th’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 [65]
The mutable, rank-scented meiny, 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, [70]

Which we ourselves have ploughed for, sowed, and scattered
By mingling them with us, the honoured number,