FIRST WATCH.
Stay! Whence are you?
SECOND WATCH.
Stand, and go back.
MENENIUS.
You guard like men; ’tis well. But by your leave,
I am an officer of state and come
To speak with Coriolanus.
FIRST WATCH.
From whence?
MENENIUS.
From Rome.
FIRST WATCH.
You may not pass; you must return. Our general
Will no more hear from thence.
SECOND WATCH.
You’ll see your Rome embraced with fire before
You’ll speak with Coriolanus.
MENENIUS.
Good my friends,
If you have heard your general talk of Rome
And of his friends there, it is lots to blanks
My name hath touched your ears. It is Menenius.
FIRST WATCH.
Be it so; go back. The virtue of your name
Is not here passable.
MENENIUS.
I tell thee, fellow,
Thy general is my lover. I have been
The book of his good acts, whence men have read
His fame unparalleled happily amplified;
For I have ever verified my friends—
Of whom he’s chief—with all the size that verity
Would without lapsing suffer. Nay, sometimes,
Like to a bowl upon a subtle ground,
I have tumbled past the throw, and in his praise
Have almost stamped the leasing. Therefore, fellow,
I must have leave to pass.