The Complete Tragedies of William Shakespeare - All 12 Books in One Edition. William Shakespeare

       Get you hence instantly; and tell those friends

       They have chose a consul that will from them take

       Their liberties, make them of no more voice

       Than dogs, that are as often beat for barking

       As therefore kept to do so.

       SICINIUS.

       Let them assemble;

       And, on a safer judgment, all revoke

       Your ignorant election: enforce his pride

       And his old hate unto you: besides, forget not

       With what contempt he wore the humble weed;

       How in his suit he scorn’d you: but your loves,

       Thinking upon his services, took from you

       Th’ apprehension of his present portance,

       Which, most gibingly, ungravely, he did fashion

       After the inveterate hate he bears you.

       BRUTUS.

       Lay

       A fault on us, your tribunes; that we labour’d,—

       No impediment between,—but that you must

       Cast your election on him.

       SICINIUS.

       Say you chose him

       More after our commandment than as guided

       By your own true affections; and that your minds,

       Pre-occupied with what you rather must do

       Than what you should, made you against the grain

       To voice him consul. Lay the fault on us.

       BRUTUS.

       Ay, spare us not. Say we read lectures to you,

       How youngly he began to serve his country,

       How long continued: and what stock he springs of—

       The noble house o’ the Marcians; from whence came

       That Ancus Marcius, Numa’s daughter’s son,

       Who, after great Hostilius, here was king;

       Of the same house Publius and Quintus were,

       That our best water brought by conduits hither;

       And Censorinus, darling of the people,

       And nobly nam’d so, twice being censor,

       Was his great ancestor.

       SICINIUS.

       One thus descended,

       That hath beside well in his person wrought

       To be set high in place, we did commend

       To your remembrances: but you have found,

       Scaling his present bearing with his past,

       That he’s your fixed enemy, and revoke

       Your sudden approbation.

       BRUTUS.

       Say you ne’er had done’t,—

       Harp on that still,—but by our putting on:

       And presently when you have drawn your number,

       Repair to the Capitol.

       CITIZENS.

       We will so; almost all

       Repent in their election.

       [Exeunt.]

       BRUTUS.

       Let them go on;

       This mutiny were better put in hazard

       Than stay, past doubt, for greater:

       If, as his nature is, he fall in rage

       With their refusal, both observe and answer

       The vantage of his anger.

       SICINIUS.

       To the Capitol,

       Come: we will be there before the stream o’ the people;

       And this shall seem, as partly ‘tis, their own,

       Which we have goaded onward.

       [Exeunt.]