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To answer us. |
AUFIDIUS: |
Nor did you think it folly |
To keep your great pretences veil'd till when |
They needs must show themselves; which |
in the hatching, |
It seem'd, appear'd to Rome. By the discovery. |
We shall be shorten'd in our aim, which was |
To take in many towns ere almost Rome |
Should know we were afoot. |
Second Senator: |
Noble Aufidius, |
Take your commission; hie you to your bands: |
Let us alone to guard Corioli: |
If they set down before 's, for the remove |
Bring your army; but, I think, you'll find |
They've not prepared for us. |
AUFIDIUS: |
O, doubt not that; |
I speak from certainties. Nay, more, |
Some parcels of their power are forth already, |
And only hitherward. I leave your honours. |
If we and Caius Marcius chance to meet, |
'Tis sworn between us we shall ever strike |
Till one can do no more. |
All: |
The gods assist you! |
AUFIDIUS: |
And keep your honours safe! |
First Senator: |
Farewell. |
Second Senator: |
Farewell. |
All: |
Farewell. |
VOLUMNIA: |
I pray you, daughter, sing; or express yourself in a |
more comfortable sort: if my son were my husband, I |
should freelier rejoice in that absence wherein he |
won honour than in the embracements of his bed where |
he would show most love. When yet he was but |
tender-bodied and the only son of my womb, when |
youth with comeliness plucked all gaze his way, when |
for a day of kings' entreaties a mother should not |
sell him an hour from her beholding, I, considering |
how honour would become such a person. that it was |
no better than picture-like to hang by the wall, if |
renown made it not stir, was pleased to let him seek |
danger where he was like to find fame. To a cruel |
war I sent him; from whence he returned, his brows |
bound with oak. I tell thee, daughter, I sprang not |
more in joy at first hearing he was a man-child |
than now in first seeing he had proved himself a |
man. |
VIRGILIA: |
But had he died in the business, madam; how then? |
VOLUMNIA: |
Then his good report should have been my son; I |
therein would have found issue. Hear me profess |
sincerely: had I a dozen sons, each in my love |
alike and none less dear than thine and my good |
Marcius, I had rather had eleven die nobly for their |
country than one voluptuously surfeit out of action. |
Gentlewoman: |
Madam, the Lady Valeria is come to visit you. |
VIRGILIA: |
Beseech you, give me leave to retire myself. |
VOLUMNIA: |
Indeed, you shall not. |
Methinks I hear hither your husband's drum, |
See him pluck Aufidius down by the hair, |
As children from a bear, the Volsces shunning him: |
Methinks I see him stamp thus, and call thus: |
'Come on, you cowards! you were got in fear, |
Though you were born in Rome:' his bloody brow |
With his mail'd hand then wiping, forth he goes, |
Like to a harvest-man that's task'd to mow |
Or all or lose his hire. |
VIRGILIA: |
His bloody brow! O Jupiter, no blood! |
VOLUMNIA: |
Away, you fool! it more becomes a man |
Than gilt his trophy: the breasts of Hecuba, |
When she did suckle Hector, look'd not lovelier |