VOLUMNIA.
You might have been enough the man you are
With striving less to be so. Lesser had been
The thwartings of your dispositions if
You had not showed them how ye were disposed
Ere they lacked power to cross you.
CORIOLANUS.
Let them hang!
VOLUMNIA.
Ay, and burn too.
Enter Menenius with the Senators.
MENENIUS.
Come, come, you have been too rough, something too rough.
You must return and mend it.
FIRST SENATOR.
There’s no remedy,
Unless, by not so doing, our good city
Cleave in the midst and perish.
VOLUMNIA.
Pray be counselled.
I have a heart as little apt as yours,
But yet a brain that leads my use of anger
To better vantage.
MENENIUS.
Well said, noble woman.
Before he should thus stoop to th’ herd—but that
The violent fit o’ th’ time craves it as physic
For the whole state—I would put mine armour on,
Which I can scarcely bear.
CORIOLANUS.
What must I do?
MENENIUS.
Return to th’ Tribunes.