to them?VOLUMNIA.
You are too absolute;
Though therein you can never be too noble
But when extremities speak. I have heard you say
Honour and policy, like unsever’d friends,
I’ the war do grow together: grant that, and tell me
In peace what each of them by th’ other lose
That they combine not there.
CORIOLANUS.
Tush, tush!
MENENIUS.
A good demand.
VOLUMNIA.
If it be honour in your wars to seem
The same you are not,—which for your best ends
You adopt your policy,—how is it less or worse
That it shall hold companionship in peace
With honour as in war; since that to both
It stands in like request?
CORIOLANUS.
Why force you this?
VOLUMNIA.
Because that now it lies you on to speak
To the people; not by your own instruction,
Nor by the matter which your heart prompts you,
But with such words that are but rooted in
Your tongue, though but bastards and syllables
Of no allowance, to your bosom’s truth.
Now, this no more dishonours you at all
Than to take in a town with gentle words,
Which else would put you to your fortune and
The hazard of much blood.
I would dissemble with my nature where
My fortunes and my friends at stake requir’d
I should do so in honour: I am in this
Your wife, your son, these senators, the nobles;
And you will rather show our general louts
How you can frown, than spend a fawn upon ‘em
For the inheritance of their loves and safeguard
Of what that want might ruin.
MENENIUS.
Noble lady!—
Come, go with us; speak fair: you may salve so,
Not what is dangerous present, but the loss
Of what is past.
VOLUMNIA.
I pr’ythee now, my son,
Go to them with this bonnet in thy hand;
And thus far having stretch’d it,—here be with them,—
Thy knee bussing the stones,—for in such busines
Action is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant
More learned than the ears,—waving thy head,
Which often, thus correcting thy stout heart,
Now humble as the ripest mulberry
That will not hold the handling: or say to them
Thou art their soldier, and, being bred in broils,
Hast not the soft way which, thou dost confess,
Were fit for thee to use, as they to claim,
In asking their good loves; but thou wilt frame
Thyself, forsooth, hereafter theirs, so far
As thou hast power and person.
MENENIUS.
This but done
Even as she speaks, why, their hearts were yours:
For they have pardons, being ask’d, as free
As words to little purpose.
VOLUMNIA.
Pr’ythee now,
Go, and be rul’d; although I know thou had’st rather
Follow thine enemy in a fiery gulf
Than flatter him in a bower.
[Enter COMINIUS.]
Here is Cominius.
COMINIUS.
I have been i’ the marketplace; and, sir, ‘tis fit
You make strong party, or defend yourself
By calmness or by absence: all’s in anger.
MENENIUS.
Only fair speech.
COMINIUS.
I think ‘twill serve, if he
Can thereto frame his spirit.
VOLUMNIA.
He must, and will.—
Pr’ythee now, say you will, and go about it.
CORIOLANUS.
Must I go show them my unbarb’d sconce? must I
With my base tongue, give to my noble heart
A lie, that it must bear? Well, I will do’t:
Yet, were there but this single plot to lose,
This mould of Marcius, they to dust should grind it,
And throw’t against the wind.—To the marketplace:—
You have put me now to such a part which never
I shall discharge to the life.
COMINIUS.
Come, come, we’ll prompt you.
VOLUMNIA.
I pr’ythee now, sweet son,—as
