Men. Why, 'tis no great matter; for a very little thief of
occasion will rob you of a great deal of patience: give your
dispositions the reins, and be angry at your pleasures; at[2793]
the least, if you take it as a pleasure to you in being so.
You blame Marcius for being proud?[2794] 30
Bru. We do it not alone, sir.
Men. I know you can do very little alone; for your helps
are many, or else your actions would grow wondrous single:
your abilities are too infant-like for doing much alone. You
talk of pride: O that you could turn your eyes toward the[2795] 35
napes of your necks, and make but an interior survey of
your good selves! O that you could!
Both. What then, sir?[2796]
Men. Why, then you should discover a brace of unmeriting,[2797]
proud, violent, testy magistrates, alias fools, as 40
any in Rome.
Sic. Menenius, you are known well enough too.
Men. I am known to be a humorous patrician, and one
that loves a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying Tiber[2798]
in't; said to be something imperfect in favouring the first[2799][2800] 45
complaint, hasty and tinder-like upon too trivial motion;[2799][2801]
one that converses more with the buttock of the night than
with the forehead of the morning: what I think I utter, and
spend my malice in my breath. Meeting two such wealsmen
as you are,—I cannot call you Lycurguses—if the drink[2802] 50
you give me touch my palate adversely, I make a crooked
face at it. I can't say your worships have delivered the[2803]
matter well, when I find the ass in compound with the major
part of your syllables: and though I must be content to bear
with those that say you are reverend grave men, yet they[2804] 55
lie deadly that tell you you have good faces. If you see this[2805]
in the map of my microcosm, follows it that I am known
well enough too? what harm can your bisson conspectuities[2806]
glean out of this character, if I be known well enough too?
Bru. Come, sir, come, we know you well enough. 60
Men. You know neither me, yourselves, nor any thing.
You are ambitious for poor knaves' caps and legs: you wear
out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a cause between
an orange-wife and a fosset-seller, and then rejourn the controversy[2807]
of three-pence to a second day of audience. When 65
you are hearing a matter between party and party, if you[2808]
chance to be pinched with the colic, you make faces like
mummers; set up the bloody flag against all patience; and,
in roaring for a chamber-pot, dismiss the controversy bleeding,[2809]
the more entangled by your hearing: all the peace you 70
make in their cause is, calling both the parties knaves. You
are a pair of strange ones.
Bru. Come, come, you are well understood to be a perfecter
giber for the table than a necessary bencher in the
Capitol. 75