Page 2903 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

What lay before them. [80]

Enter Cominius.

COMINIUS
O, you have made good work!

MENENIUS
What news? What news?

COMINIUS
You have holp to ravish your own daughters and
To melt the city leads upon your pates,

To see your wives dishonoured to your noses −

MENENIUS
What’s the news? What’s the news? [85]

COMINIUS
− Your temples burnèd in their cement, and
Your franchises, whereon you stood, confined
Into an auger’s bore.

MENENIUS
Pray now, your news? −

You have made fair work, I fear me. − Pray, your news? −
If Martius should be joined wi’th’Voiscians −

COMINIUS
If? [90]
He is their god. He leads them like a thing

Made by some other deity than Nature,
That shapes man better; and they follow him
Against us brats with no less confidence
Than boys pursuing summer butterflies, [95]

Or butchers killing flies.