Com. Take't, 'tis yours: what is't?

Mar. I fometime lay here in Corioli,

9'And at a poor man's houfe: he us'd me kindly. He cry'd to me: I faw him prisoner:

But then Aufidius was within my view,

And wrath o'er-whelm'd my pity: I requeft you
To give my poor hoft freedom.

Com. O well begg'd!

Were he the butcher of my fon, he should
Be free as is the wind: deliver him, Titus.
Lar. Martius, his name?

Mar. By Jupiter, forgot:

I'm weary; yea, my memory is tir'd:
Have we no wine here?

Com. Go we to our tent;

The blood upon your vifage dries; 'tis time

It fhould be look'd to: come.

SCENE

[Exeunt.

XII.

The Camp of the Volfci.

A flourish. Cornets. Enter Tullus Aufidius bloody, with two or three Soldiers.

Auf.

HE town is ta'en.

Sol.'Twill be deliver'd back on good condition.

Auf. Condition?

I would I were a Roman, for I cannot,

Being a Volfcian, be that I am. Condition?
What good condition can a treaty find

I' th' part that is at mercy? Five times, Martius,
I have fought with thee, fo often haft thou beat me:
And would't do fo, I think, fhould we encounter
As often as we eat. By th' elements,

If e'er again I meet him beard to beard,
He's mine, or I am his: mine emulation

Hath

Hath not that honour in't it had; for where
I thought to crush him in an equal force,

True fword to fword, I'll potch at him fome way;
Or wrath, or craft may get him.

Sol. He's the devil.

Auf. Bolder, though not fo fubtle: my valour (poifon'd With only fuffering ftain by him) for him

Shall flie out of it felf: not fleep, nor fanctuary,
Being naked, fick, nor fane, nor Capitol,
The prayers of priefts, nor times of facrifice,
''Embankments all of fury, fhall lift up
Their rotten privilege and cuftom 'gainst
My hate to Martius. Where I find him, were it
At home, upon my brother's guard, even there,
Against the hofpitable canon, would I

Wash my fierce hand in's heart. Go you to th' city,
Learn how 'tis held, and what they are that must
Be hoftages for Rome.

Sol. Will not you go?

Auf. I am attended at the cyprefs grove. I 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.

Sol. I fhall, Sir.

[Exeunt.

ACT II.

SCENE I.

ROM E.

Enter Menenius with Sicinius and Brutus.

THE

MENENI U S.

HE Augur tells me, we fhall have news to-night.
Bru. Good or bad?.

Men. Not according to the prayer of the people, for they love not Martius.

1 Embarkments

Sic

Sic. Nature teaches beafts to know their friends.
Men. Pray you, whom does the wolf love?
Sic. The lamb.

Men. Ay, to devour him, as the hungry Plebeians would the noble Martius.

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 fhall ask you. Both. Well, Sir.

Men. In what enormity is Martius poor, that you two have not in abundance?

Bru. He's poor in no one fault, but ftor'd with all.
Sic. Efpecially in pride.

Bru. And topping all others in boaft.

Men. This is ftrange now! do you two know how you are cenfur'd here in the city, I mean of us o'th' righthand file, do you?

Bru. Why-how are we cenfur'd?

Men. Because you talk of pride now, will you not be angry?

Both. Well, well, Sir, well.

Men. Why, 'tis no great matter; for a very little thief of occafion will rob you of a great deal of patience give your difpofitions the reins, and be angry at your pleafures; at the leaft if you take it as a pleasure to you in being fo-you blame Martius 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 elfe your actions would grow wondrous fingle; your abilities are too infant-like, for doing much alone. You talk of pride-oh that you could turn your eyes towards the napes of your necks, and make but an interior furvey of your good felves! Oh that you could!

Bru. What then, Sir?

Men. Why then you should difcover a brace of as unmeriting, proud, violent, tefty magiftrates, alias fools, as any in Rome,

Sic.

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: faid to be fomething imperfect in favouring the first complaint, hafty and tinder-like, upon too trivial motion: one that converfes 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 fuch weals-men as you are (I cannot call you Lycurgues) if the drink you give me touch my palate adverfely, I make a crooked face at it. I can't fay, your Worfhips have deliver'd the matter well, when I find the afs in compound with the major part of your fyllables; and tho' I must be content to bear with thofe that fay you are reverend grave men, yet they lie deadly that tell you, you have good faces; if you fee this in the map of my microcofm, follows it that I am known well enough too? what harm can your biffon confpectuities glean out of this character, if I be known well enough too?

Bru. Come, Sir, come, we know you well enough. Men. You know neither me, your felves, nor any thing; you are ambitious for poor poor knaves caps and legs: you wear out a good wholefome forenoon, in hearing a caufe between an orange-wife and a foffet-feller, and then adjourn a controverfy of three-pence to a fecond 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, fet up the bloody flag against all patience, and in roaring for a chamber-pot, difmifs the controverfie bleeding, the more intangled by your hearing: all the peace you make in their caufe, is calling both the parties knaves. You are a pair of ftrange

ones.

Bru. Come, come, you are well understood to be a perfecter gyber for the table, than a neceffary bencher in the Capitol.

Men. Our very priests must become mockers, if they

2 befom... old edit. Warb. emend.

fhail

fhall encounter fuch ridiculous fubjects as you are; when you speak beft unto the purpose, it is not worth the wagging of your beards, and your beards deferve not fo honourable a grave as to stuff a botcher's cushion, or to be intomb'd in an afs's pack-faddle. Yet you must be saying, Martius is proud; who in a cheap estimation, is worth all your predeceffors fince Deucalion, though peradventure fome of the best of them were hereditary hangGood-e'en to your Worships; more of your converfation would infect my brain, being the herdsmen of the beaftly Plebeians. I will be bold to take my leave of [Exeunt Brutus and Sicinius.

you.

Enter Volumnia, Virgilia, and Valeria.

How now, my as fair as noble Ladies, and the moon, were the earthly, no nobler; whither do you follow your eyes fo faft?

Vol. Honourable Menenius, my boy Martius approaches; for the love of Juno let's go.

Men. Ha! Martius coming home?

Vol. Ay, worthy Menenius, and with most profperous approbation.

Men. Take my cap, Jupiter, and I thank thee-hoo, Martius coming home!

Both. Nay, 'tis true.

Vol. Look, here's a letter from him, the State hath another, his wife another, and I think there's one at home

for you.

Men. I will make my very houfe reel to-night: A letter for me!

Vir. Yes, certain, there's a letter for you, I faw't.

Men. A letter for me! it gives me an eftate of feven years health; in which time I will make a lip at the phyfician: the moft fovereign prefcription in Galen is but Emperic, and to this prefervative of no better report than

a