"O! let me clip ye
In arms as sound as when I woo'd, in heart
As merry as when our nuptial day was done."[682]
For the battle is a real holiday to him. Such senses, such a strong frame, need the outcry, the din of battle, the excitement of death and wounds. This haughty and indomitable heart needs the joy of victory and destruction. Mark the display of his patrician arrogance and his soldier's bearing, when he is offered the tenth of the spoils:
"I thank you, general;
But cannot make my heart consent to take
A bribe to pay my sword."[683]
The soldiers cry, Marcius! Marcius! and the trumpets sound. He gets into a passion: rates the brawlers:
"No more, I say! For that I have not wash'd
My nose that bled, or foil'd some debile wretch—
... You shout me forth
In acclamations hyperbolical;
As if I loved my little should be dieted
In praises sauced with lies."[684]
They are reduced to loading him with honors: Cominius gives him a war-horse; decrees him the cognomen of Coriolanus; the people shout Caius Marcius Coriolanus! He replies:
"I will go wash;
And when my face is fair, you shall perceive
Whether I blush or no: howbeit, I thank you.
I mean to stride your steed."[685]
This loud voice, loud laughter, blunt acknowledgment, of a man who can act and shout better than speak, foretell the mode in which he will treat the plebeians. He loads them with insults; he cannot find abuse enough for the cobblers, tailors, envious cowards, down on their knees for a coin. "To beg of Hob and Dick! Bid them wash their faces and keep their teeth clean." But he must beg, if he would be consul; his friends constrain him. It is then that the passionate soul, incapable of self-restraint, such as Shakespeare knew how to paint, breaks forth without hinderance. He is there in his candidate's gown, gnashing his teeth, and getting up his lesson in this style:
"What must I say?
'I pray, sir'—Plague upon't! I cannot bring
My tongue to such a pace:—'Look, sir, my wounds!
I got them in my country's service, when
Some certain of your brethren roar'd and ran
From the noise of our own drums.'"[686]
The tribunes have no difficulty in stopping the election of a candidate who begs in this fashion. They taunt him in full Senate, reproach him with his speech about the corn. He repeats it, with aggravations. Once roused, neither danger nor prayer restrains him: