Page 2846 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

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? [75]
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 tetter us, yet sought

The very way to catch them.

BRUTUS

You speak o’th’people [80]
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, [85]
By Jove, ’twould be my mind.

SICINIUS
It is a mind

That shall remain a poison where it is,