Rome. A Public Place.
 Enter MENENIUS, COMINIUS, the two Tribunes SICINIUS and BRUTUS,
 with OTHERS.

Menenius	No, I'll not go: you hear what he hath said
	Which was sometime his general, who loved him
	In a most dear particular. He called me father:
	But what o'that? Go you that banished him;
	A mile before his tent fall down, and knee
	The way into his mercy. Nay, if he coyed
	To hear Cominius speak, I'll keep at home.

Cominius	He would not seem to know me.

Menenius										Do you hear?

Cominius	Yet one time he did call me by my name.
	I urged our old acquaintance, and the drops
	That we have bled together. 'Coriolanus'
	He would not answer to; forbad all names:
	He was a kind of nothing, titleless,
	Till he had forged himself a name o'th' fire
	Of burning Rome.

Menenius					Why, so! You have made good work.
	A pair of Tribunes that have wracked for Rome
	To make coals cheap - a noble memory!

Cominius	I minded him how royal 'twas to pardon
	When it was less expected. He replied
	It was a bare petition of a state
	To one whom they had punished.

Menenius	Very well. Could he say less?

Cominius	I offered to awaken his regard
	For's private friends: his answer to me was,
	He could not stay to pick them in a pile
	Of noisome musty chaff. He said 'twas folly,
	For one poor grain or two to leave unburnt,
	And still to nose th' offence.

Menenius	For one poor grain or two?
	I am one of those; his mother, wife, his child,
	And this brave fellow too: we are the grains,
	You are the musty chaff, and you are smelt
	Above the moon. We must be burnt for you.

Sicinius	Nay, pray be patient. If you refuse your aid
	In this so-never-needed help, yet do not
	Upbraid's with our distress. But sure, if you
	Would be your country's pleader, your good tongue
	More than the instant army we can make,
	Might stop our countryman.

Menenius								No, I'll not meddle.

Sicinius	Pray you go to him.

Menenius						What should I do?

Brutus	Only make trial what your love can do
	For Rome, towards Martius.

Menenius							Well, and say that Martius
	Return me, as Cominius is returned,
	Unheard - what then?
	But as a discontented friend, grief-shot
	With his unkindness? Say't be so?

Sicinius										Yet your good will
	Must have that thanks from Rome after the measure
	As you intended well.

Menenius							I'll undertake't;
	I think he'll hear me. Yet to bite his lip
	And hum at good Cominius, much unhearts me.
	He was not taken well; he had not dined:
	The veins unfilled, our blood is cold, and then
	We pout upon the morning, are unapt
	To give or to forgive; but when we have stuffed
	These pipes and these conveyances of our blood
	With wine and feeding, we have suppler souls
	Than in our priest-like fasts. Therefore, I'll watch him
	Till he be dieted to my request,
	And then I'll set upon him.

Brutus	You know the very road into his kindness,
	And cannot lose your way.

Menenius								Good faith, I'll prove him,
	Speed how it will. I shall ere long have knowledge
	Of my success.
												[Exit.
Cominius				He'll never hear him.

Sicinius										Not?

Cominius	I tell you, he does sit in gold, his eye
	Red as 'twould burn Rome, and his injury
	The gaoler to his pity. I kneeled before him:
	'Twas very faintly he said 'Rise', dismissed me
	Thus, with his speechless hand. What he would do
	He sent in writing after me: what he would not,
	Bound with an oath to yield to his conditions:
	So that all hope is vain,
	Unless his noble mother and his wife,
	Who, as I hear, mean to solicit him
	For mercy to his country.
	Therefore let's hence,
	And with our fair entreaties haste them on.
												[Exeunt.
