As reek o’ the rotten fens, whose loves I prize
As the dead carcasses of unburied men
That do corrupt my air, I banish you.”
His eyes flashed, his form lifted to its loftiest altitude, and the words were driven home concentrated into hissing bolts. As the enraged mob pressed yelping at his heels, he turned, and with marvellous simplicity of purpose calmly looked them reeling backwards, his single sphere swallowing all theirs and swaying them helplessly at his magnetic will.
His farewell, when “the beast with many heads had butted him away,” was a noble example of manly tenderness and dignity, all the more pathetic from the self-control which masked his pain in a smiling aspect:
“Thou old and true Menenius,
Thy tears are salter than a younger man’s,
And venomous to thine eyes. I’ll do well yet.
Come, my sweet wife, my dearest mother, and
My friends of noble touch, when I am forth,