Rome. A public place.
[Enter MENENIUS and SICINIUS]
MENENIUS See you yond coign o’ the Capitol,
yond corner-stone?
SICINIUS Why, what of that?
MENENIUS If it be possible for you to displace it
with your little finger, there is some hope the ladies
of Rome, especially his mother, may prevail with him.
But I say there is no hope in’t: our throats are
sentenced and stay upon execution.
SICINIUS Is’t possible that so short a time can alter the
condition of a man!
MENENIUS There is differency between a grub and
a butterfly; yet your butterfly was a grub. This Marcius
is grown from man to dragon: he has wings; he’s more
than a creeping thing.
SICINIUS He loved his mother dearly.
MENENIUS So did he me: and he no more remembers
his mother now than an eight-year-old horse. The
tartness of his face sours ripe grapes: He sits in his state,
As a thing made for Alexander. What he bids be done
is finished with his bidding. He wants nothing of a god
but eternity and a heaven to throne in.
SICINIUS Yes, mercy, if you report him truly.
MENENIUS I paint him in the character. Mark what mercy
his mother shall bring from him: there is no more mercy
in him than there is milk in a male tiger; that
shall our poor city find: and all this is long of you.
SICINIUS The gods be good unto us!
MENENIUS No, in such a case the gods will not be good
unto us. When we banished him, we respected not them;
and, he returning to break our necks, they respect not us.
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