Page 2874 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

BRUTUS

I talk of that that know it.

CORIOLANUS
You! [85]

MENENIUS
Is this the promise that you made your mother?

COMINIUS
Know, I pray you −

CORIOLANUS
I’ll know no further.

Let them pronounce the steep Tarpeian death,
Vagabond exile, flaying, pent to linger
But with a grain a day, I would not buy [90]
Their mercy at the price of one fair word,
Nor check my courage for what they can give,

To have’t with saying ‘Good morrow’.

SICINIUS
For that he has −
As much as in him lies − from time to time
Envied against the people, seeking means [95]

To pluck away their power, as now at last
Given hostile strokes, and that not in the presence
Of dreaded justice, but on the ministers
That doth distribute it − in the name o’th’people

And in the power of us the Tribunes, we, [100]
Even from this instant, banish him our city,
In peril of precipitation
From off the rock Tarpeian, never more

To enter our Rome gates. I’th’people’s name,
I say it shall be so. [105]

PLEBEIANS