Page 2905 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

MENENIUS

’Tis true.
If he were putting to my house the brand
That should consume it, I have not the face

To say ‘Beseech you, cease.’ You have made fair hands,
You and your crafts! You have crafted fair!

COMINIUS
You have brought [120]
A trembling upon Rome, such as was never
S’incapable of help.

TRIBUNES
Say not we brought it.

MENENIUS

How? Was’t we? We loved him, but, like beasts
And cowardly nobles, gave way unto your clusters,
Who did hoot him out o’th’city.

COMINIUS
But I fear [125]

They’ll roar him in again. Tullus Aufidius,
The second name of men, obeys his points
As if he were his officer. Desperation
Is all the policy, strength, and defence
That Rome can make against them.

Enter a troop of Citizens.

MENENIUS
Here come the clusters. [130]
And is Aufidius with him? You are they
That made the air unwholesome when you cast
Your stinking greasy caps in hooting

At Coriolanus’ exile. Now he’s coming,
And not a hair upon a soldier’s head [135]
Which will not prove a whip. As many coxcombs