MARTIUS.
Within these three hours, Tullus,
Alone I fought in your Corioles’ walls,
And made what work I pleased. ’Tis not my blood
Wherein thou seest me masked. For thy revenge
Wrench up thy power to th’ highest.
AUFIDIUS.
Wert thou the Hector
That was the whip of your bragged progeny,
Thou shouldst not scape me here.
[Here they fight, and certain Volsces come to the aid of Aufidius.]
Officious and not valiant, you have shamed me
In your condemned seconds.
[Martius fights till they be driven in breathless. Aufidius and Martius exit, separately.]
SCENE IX. The Roman camp
Alarum. A retreat is sounded. Flourish. Enter, at one door, Cominius with the Romans; at another door, Martius, with his arm in a scarf.
COMINIUS.
If I should tell thee o’er this thy day’s work,
Thou’t not believe thy deeds. But I’ll report it
Where senators shall mingle tears with smiles;
Where great patricians shall attend and shrug,
I’ th’ end admire; where ladies shall be frighted
And, gladly quaked, hear more; where the dull tribunes,
That with the fusty plebeians hate thine honours,
Shall say against their hearts “We thank the gods
Our Rome hath such a soldier.”
Yet cam’st thou to a morsel of this feast,
Having fully dined before.
Enter Titus Lartius with his power, from the pursuit.
LARTIUS.
O general,
Here is the steed, we the caparison.
Hadst thou beheld—