Page 2912 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

SICINIUS

Pray you go to him.

MENENIUS
What should I do? [40]

BRUTUS
Only make trial what your love can do
For Rome towards Martius.

MENENIUS
Well, and say that Martius

Return me, as Cominius is returned,
Unheard − what then?
But as a discontented friend, grief-shot [45]
With his unkindness? Say’t be so?

SICINIUS
Yet your good will

Must have that thanks from Rome after the measure
As you intended well.

MENENIUS
I’ll undertake’t;
I think he’ll bear me. Yet to bite his lip

And hum at good Cominius much unhearts me. [50]
He was not taken well; he had not dined.
The veins unfilled, our blood is cold, and then
We pout upon the morning, are unapt

To give or to forgive, but when we have stuffed
These pipes and these conveyances of our blood [55]
With wine and feeding, we have suppler souls
Than in our priest-like fasts. Therefore I’ll watch him

Till he be dieted to my request,
And then I’ll set upon him.

BRUTUS