general is cut i'
the middle and but one half of what he was
yesterday; for the other has half, by the entreaty
and grant of the whole table. He'll go, he says,
and sowl the porter of Rome gates by the ears: he
will mow all down before him, and leave his passage polled.
And he's as like to do't as any man I can imagine.
Do't! he will do't; for, look you, sir, he has as
many friends as enemies; which friends, sir, as it
were, durst not, look you, sir, show themselves, as
we term it, his friends whilst he's in directitude.
Directitude! what's that?
But when they shall see, sir, his crest up again,
and the man in blood, they will out of their
burrows, like conies after rain, and revel all with
him.
But when goes this forward?
To-morrow; to-day; presently; you shall have the
drum struck up this afternoon: 'tis, as it were, a
parcel of their feast, and to be executed ere they
wipe their lips.
Why, then we shall have a stirring world again.
This peace is nothing, but to rust iron, increase
tailors, and breed ballad-makers.
Let me have war, say I; it exceeds peace as far as
day does night; it's spritely, waking, audible, and
full of vent. Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy;
mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible; a getter of more
bastard children than war's a destroyer of men.
'Tis so: and as war, in some sort, may be said to
be a ravisher, so it cannot be denied but peace is a
great maker of cuckolds.
Ay, and it makes men hate one another.
Reason; because they then less need one another.
The wars for my money. I hope to see Romans as cheap
as Volscians. They are rising, they are rising.
In, in, in, in!
We hear not of him, neither need we fear him;
His remedies are tame i' the present peace
And quietness of the people, which before
Were in wild hurry. Here do we make his friends
Blush that the world goes well, who rather had,
Though they themselves did suffer by't, behold
Dissentious numbers pestering streets than see
Our tradesmen with in their shops and going
About their functions friendly.
We stood to't in good time.
Is this Menenius?
'Tis he,'tis he: O, he is grown most kind of late.
Hail sir!
Hail to you both!
Your Coriolanus
Is not much miss'd, but with his friends:
The commonwealth doth stand, and so would