If I fly, Marcius,Halloo me like a hare.
MARCIUS.
Within these three hours, Tullus,
Alone I fought in your Corioli walls,
And made what work I pleas’d: ‘tis not my blood
Wherein thou seest me mask’d: for thy revenge
Wrench up thy power to the highest.
AUFIDIUS.
Wert thou the Hector
That was the whip of your bragg’d progeny,
Thou shouldst not scape me here.—
[They fight, and certain Volsces come to the aid of AUFIDIUS.]
Officious, and not valiant,—you have sham’d me
In your condemned seconds.
[Exeunt fighting, driven in by MAR.]
SCENE IX. The Roman camp.
[Alarum. A retreat is sounded. Flourish. Enter, at one side, COMINIUS and Romans; at the other side, MARCIUS, with his arm in a scarf, and other Romans.]
COMINIUS.
If I should tell thee o’er this thy day’s work,
Thou’t not believe thy deeds: but I’ll report it
Where senators shall mingle tears with smiles;
Where great patricians shall attend, and shrug,
I’ the end admire; where ladies shall be frighted
And, gladly quak’d, hear more; where the dull tribunes,
That, with the fusty plebeians, hate thine honours,
Shall say, against their hearts ‘We thank the gods
Our Rome hath such a soldier.’
Yet cam’st thou to a morsel of this feast,
Having fully dined before.
[Enter TITUS LARTIUS, with his power, from the pursuit.]
LARTIUS.
O general,
Here is the steed, we the caparison:
Hadst thou beheld,—
MARCIUS.
Pray now, no more: my mother,
Who has a charter to extol her blood,
When she does praise me grieves me. I have done
As you have done,—that’s what I can; induced
As you have been,—that’s for my country:
He that has but effected his good will
Hath overta’en mine act.
COMINIUS.
You shall not be
The grave of your deserving; Rome must know
The value of her own: ‘twere a concealment
Worse than a theft, no less than a traducement,
To hide your doings; and to silence that
Which, to the spire and top of praises vouch’d,
Would seem but modest: therefore, I beseech you,—
In sign of what you are, not to reward
What you have done,—before our army hear me.
MARCIUS.
I have some wounds upon me, and they smart
To hear themselves remember’d.
COMINIUS.
Should they not,
Well might they fester ‘gainst ingratitude,
And tent themselves with death. Of all the horses,—
Whereof we have ta’en good, and good store,—of all
The treasure in this field achiev’d and city,
We render you the tenth; to be ta’en forth
Before the common distribution at
Your only choice.
MARCIUS.
I thank you, general,
But cannot make my heart consent to take
A bribe to pay my sword: I do refuse it;
And stand upon my common part with those
That have beheld the doing.
[A long flourish. They all cry ‘Marcius, Marcius!’, cast up their
caps and lances. COMINIUS and LARTIUS stand bare.]
May these same instruments which you profane
Never sound more! When drums and trumpets shall
I’ the field prove flatterers, let courts and cities be
Made all of false-fac’d soothing.
When steel grows soft as the parasite’s silk,
Let him be made a coverture for the wars.
No more, I say! for that I have not wash’d
My nose that bled, or foil’d some debile wretch,—
Which, without note, here’s many else have done,—
You shout me forth in acclamations hyperbolical;
As if I loved my little should be dieted
In praises sauc’d with lies.
COMINIUS.
Too modest are you;
More cruel to your good report than grateful
To us that give you truly; by your patience,
If ‘gainst yourself you be incens’d, we’ll put you,—
Like one that means his proper harm,—in manacles,
Then reason safely with you.—Therefore be it known,
As to us, to all the world, that Caius Marcius
