MENENIUS.
Not now, not now.
FIRST SENATOR.
Not in this heat, sir, now.
CORIOLANUS.
Now, as I live, I will.
My nobler friends, I crave their pardons. For
The mutable, rank-scented many, let them
Regard me, as I do not flatter, and
Therein behold themselves. I say again,
In soothing them we nourish ’gainst our senate
The cockle of rebellion, insolence, sedition,
Which we ourselves have ploughed for, sowed, and scattered
By mingling them with us, the honoured number,
Who lack not virtue, no, nor power, but that
Which they have given to beggars.
MENENIUS.
Well, no more.
FIRST SENATOR.
No more words, we beseech you.
CORIOLANUS.
How? No more?
As for my country I have shed my blood,
Not fearing outward force, so shall my lungs
Coin words till their decay against those measles
Which we disdain should tetter us, yet sought
The very way to catch them.
BRUTUS.
You speak o’ th’ people
As if you were a god to punish, not
A man of their infirmity.
SICINIUS.
’Twere well
We let the people know’t.
MENENIUS.
What, what? His choler?
CORIOLANUS.
Choler?
Were I as patient as the midnight sleep,
By Jove, ’twould be my mind.