But then Aufidius was within my view, And wrath o'erwhelm'd my pity: I request you Com. O, well begg'd! Were he the butcher of my son, he should Cor. By Jupiter, forgot:-- I am weary; yea, my memory is tir’d.— Have we no wine here? Com. Go we to our tent: [Exeunt The blood upon your visage dries: 'tis time SCENE X. The Camp of the Volces. A flourish. Cornets. Enter TULLUS AUFIDIUS bloody, with two or three soldiers. Auf. The town is ta'en! 1 Sol. Twill be deliver'd back on good condition. Auf. Condition? I would, I were a Roman; for I cannot, Being a Volce 18, be that I am.-Condition! I the part that is at mercy? Five times, Marcius, I have fought with thee; so often hast thou beat me; If e'er again I meet him beard to beard, Hath not that honour in't, it had; for where (True sword to sword,) I'll potch at him some way; Or wrath, or craft, may get him. 1 Sol. He's the devil. Auf. Bolder, though not so subtle: My valour's poison'd, With only suffering stain by him; for him Wash my fierce hand in his heart. Go you to the city; Learn, how 'tis held; and what they are, that must Be hostages for Rome. I 1 Sol. Will not you go? Auf. I am attended at the cypress grove: pray you, ('Tis south the city mills,) bring me word thither How the world goes; that to the pace of it I may spur on my journey. ACT II. SCENE I. Rome. A publick Place. Enter MENENIUS, SICINIUS, and BRUTUS. Men. The augurer tells me, we shall have news to-night. Bru. Good, or bad? Men. Not according to the prayer of the people, for they love not Marcius. Sic. Nature teaches beasts to know their friends. Men. Pray you, who does the wolf love? Sic. The lamb. Men. Ay, to devour him; as the hungry plebeians would the noble Marcius. Bru. He's a lamb indeed, that baes like a bear. Men. He's a bear, indeed, that lives like a lamb. You two are old men; tell me one thing that I shall ask you. Both Trib. Well, sir. Men. In what enormity is Marcius two have not in abundance? poor, that you Bru. He's poor in no one fault, but stor'd with all. Sic. Especially, in pride. Bru. And topping all others in boasting. Men. This is strange now: Do you two know how you are censured here in the city, I mean of us o' the right-hand file? Do you? Both Trib. Why, how are we censured? --Men. Because you talk of pride now,-Will you not be angry? r Both Trib. Well, well, sir, well. pa Men. Why, 'tis no great matter; for a very little thief of occasion will rob you of a great deal of tience: give your disposition the reins, and be angry at your pleasures; at the least, if you take it as a pleasure to you, in being so. You blame Marcius for being proud? Bru. We do it not alone, sir. Men. I know, you can do very little alone; for your helps are many; or else your actions would grow wondrous single: your abilities are too infantlike, for doing much alone. You talk of pride: 0, that you could turn your eyes towards the napes of your necks, and make but an interior survey of your good selves! O, that you could! Bru. What then, sir. Men. Why, then you should discover a brace of unmeriting, proud, violent, testy magistrates, (alias, fools,) as any in Rome. Sic. Menenius, you are known well enough too. Men. I am known to be a humorous patrician, and one that loves a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying Tiber in't; said to be something imperfect, in favouring the first complaint; hasty, and tinderlike, upon too trivial motion: one that converses more with the buttock of the night, than with the forehead of the morning. What I think, I utter; and spend my malice in my breath: Meeting two such weals-men as you are, (I cannot call you Lycurguses) if the drink you give me, touch my palate ad◄ versely, I make a crooked face at it. I cannot say, your worships have deliver'd the matter well, when I find the ass in compound with the major part of your syllables: and though I must be content to bear with those that say you are reverend grave men; yet they lie deadly, that tell, you have good faces. If you see this in the map of my mycrocosm, follows it, that I am known well enough too? What harm can your bisson 20 conspectuities glean out of this character, if I be known well enough too? 21 Bru. Come, sir, come, we know you well enough. Men. You know neither me, yourselves, nor any thing. You are ambitious for poor knaves' caps and legs; you wear out a good wholesome forenoon, in hearing a cause between an orange-wife and a fosset-seller; and then rejourn the controversy of three-pence to a second day of audience. When you are hearing a matter between party and party, if you chance to be pinch'd with the cholick, you make faces like mummers; set up the bloody flag against all patience; and, in roaring for a chamberpot, dismiss the controversy bleeding, the more entangled by your hearing all the peace you make in their cause, is, calling both the parties knaves: You are a pair of strange ones. Bru. Come, come, you are well understood to be a perfecter giber for the table, than a necessary bencher in the Capitol. |