MENENIUS.
Do you hear?
COMINIUS.
Yet one time he did call me by my name.
I urged our old acquaintance, and the drops
That we have bled together. “Coriolanus”
He would not answer to, forbade all names.
He was a kind of nothing, titleless,
Till he had forged himself a name i’ th’ fire
Of burning Rome.
MENENIUS.
Why, so; you have made good work!
A pair of tribunes that have wracked Rome
To make coals cheap! A noble memory!
COMINIUS.
I minded him how royal ’twas to pardon
When it was less expected. He replied
It was a bare petition of a state
To one whom they had punished.
MENENIUS.
Very well.
Could he say less?
COMINIUS.
I offered to awaken his regard
For’s private friends. His answer to me was
He could not stay to pick them in a pile
Of noisome musty chaff. He said ’twas folly
For one poor grain or two to leave unburnt
And still to nose th’ offence.
MENENIUS.
For one poor grain or two!
I am one of those! His mother, wife, his child,
And this brave fellow too, we are the grains;
You are the musty chaff, and you are smelt
Above the moon. We must be burnt for you.
SICINIUS.
Nay, pray, be patient. If you refuse your aid
In this so-never-needed help, yet do not
Upbraid’s with our distress. But sure, if you
Would be your country’s pleader, your good tongue,
More than the instant army we can make,
Might stop our countryman.
MENENIUS.
No, I’ll not meddle.
SICINIUS.
Pray you, go to him.