SCENE I. Rome. A public place

Enter Menenius, Cominius, Sicinius, Brutus (the two Tribunes), with others.

MENENIUS. No, I’ll not go. You hear what he hath said Which was sometime his general, who loved him In a most dear particular. He called me father, But what o’ that? Go you that banished him; A mile before his tent, fall down, and knee The way into his mercy. Nay, if he coyed To hear Cominius speak, I’ll keep at home.

COMINIUS. He would not seem to know me.

MENENIUS. Do you hear?

COMINIUS. Yet one time he did call me by my name. I urged our old acquaintance, and the drops That we have bled together. “Coriolanus” He would not answer to, forbade all names. He was a kind of nothing, titleless, Till he had forged himself a name i’ th’ fire Of burning Rome.

MENENIUS. Why, so; you have made good work! A pair of tribunes that have wracked Rome To make coals cheap! A noble memory!

COMINIUS. I minded him how royal ’twas to pardon When it was less expected. He replied It was a bare petition of a state To one whom they had punished.

MENENIUS. Very well. Could he say less?

COMINIUS. I offered to awaken his regard For’s private friends. His answer to me was He could not stay to pick them in a pile Of noisome musty chaff. He said ’twas folly For one poor grain or two to leave unburnt And still to nose th’ offence.

MENENIUS. For one poor grain or two! I am one of those! His mother, wife, his child, And this brave fellow too, we are the grains; You are the musty chaff, and you are smelt Above the moon. We must be burnt for you.

SICINIUS. Nay, pray, be patient. If you refuse your aid In this so-never-needed help, yet do not Upbraid’s with our distress. But sure, if you Would be your country’s pleader, your good tongue, More than the instant army we can make, Might stop our countryman.

MENENIUS. No, I’ll not meddle.

SICINIUS. Pray you, go to him.

MENENIUS. What should I do?

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 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 hear me. Yet to bite his lip And hum at good Cominius much unhearts me. 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 With wine and feeding, we have suppler souls Than in our priestlike fasts. Therefore I’ll watch him Till he be dieted to my request, And then I’ll set upon him.

BRUTUS. You know the very road into his kindness And cannot lose your way.

MENENIUS. Good faith, I’ll prove him, Speed how it will. I shall ere long have knowledge Of my success.

[ Exit. ]

COMINIUS. He’ll never hear him.

SICINIUS. Not?

COMINIUS. I tell you, he does sit in gold, his eye Red as ’twould burn Rome; and his injury The jailer to his pity. I kneeled before him; ’Twas very faintly he said “Rise”; dismissed me Thus with his speechless hand. What he would do He sent in writing after me; what he Would not, bound with an oath to yield to his Conditions. So that all hope is vain Unless his noble mother and his wife, Who, as I hear, mean to solicit him For mercy to his country. Therefore let’s hence And with our fair entreaties haste them on.

[ Exeunt. ]