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.
FIRST WATCH.
Faith, sir, if you had told as many lies in his behalf as you have uttered words in your own, you should not pass here, no, though it were as virtuous to lie as to live chastely. Therefore, go back.
MENENIUS.
Prithee, fellow, remember my name is Menenius, always factionary on the party of your general.
SECOND WATCH.
Howsoever you have been his liar, as you say you have, I am one that, telling true under him, must say you cannot pass. Therefore go back.
MENENIUS.
Has he dined, can’st thou tell? For I would not speak with him till after dinner.
FIRST WATCH.
You are a Roman, are you?
MENENIUS.
I am, as thy general is.