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- $Unique_ID{SSP01519}
- $Title{Coriolanus: Act IV, Scene III}
- $Author{Shakespeare, William}
- $Subject{}
- $Log{Dramatis Personae*01500.txt}
-
- Portions copyright (c) CMC ReSearch, Inc., 1989
-
- The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
-
- CORIOLANUS
-
-
- ACT IV
- ................................................................................
-
-
- SCENE III: A highway between Rome and Antium.
- . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
-
- {Enter a Roman and a Volsce, meeting.}
-
- Roman: I know you well, sir, and you know
- me: your name, I think, is Adrian.
-
- Volsce: It is so, sir: truly, I have forgot you.
-
- Roman: I am a Roman; and my services are,
- as you are, against 'em: know you me yet?
-
- Volsce: Nicanor? no.
-
- Roman: The same, sir.
-
- Volsce: You had more beard when I last saw you; but your
- favor is well approved by your tongue. What's the
- news in Rome? I have a note from the Volscian state, 10
- to find you out there: you have well saved me a
- day's journey.
-
- Roman: There hath been in Rome strange insurrections; the
- people against the senators, patricians, and nobles.
-
- Volsce: Hath been! is it ended, then? Our state thinks not
- so: they are in a most warlike preparation, and
- hope to come upon them in the heat of their
- division.
-
- Roman: The main blaze of it is past, but a small thing
- would make it flame again: for the nobles receive 20
- so to heart the banishment of that worthy
- Coriolanus, that they are in a ripe aptness to take
- all power from the people and to pluck from them
- their tribunes for ever. This lies glowing, I can
- tell you, and is almost mature for the violent
- breaking out.
-
- Volsce: Coriolanus banished!
-
- Roman: Banished, sir.
-
- Volsce: You will be welcome with this intelligence,
- Nicanor. 30
-
- Roman: The day serves well for them now. I have heard it
- said, the fittest time to corrupt a man's wife is
- when she's fallen out with her husband. Your noble
- Tullus Aufidius will appear well in these wars, his
- great opposer, Coriolanus, being now in no request
- of his country.
-
- Volsce: He cannot choose. I am most fortunate, thus
- accidentally to encounter you: you have ended my
- business, and I will merrily accompany you home.
-
- Roman: I shall, between this and supper, tell you most 40
- strange things from Rome; all tending to the good of
- their adversaries. Have you an army ready, say you?
-
- Volsce: A most royal one; the centurions and their charges,
- distinctly billeted, already in the entertainment,
- and to be on foot at an hour's warning.
-
- Roman: I am joyful to hear of their readiness, and am the
- man, I think, that shall set them in present action.
- So, sir, heartily well met, and most glad of your
- company.
-
- Volsce: You take my part from me, sir; I have the most cause 50
- to be glad of yours.
-
- Roman: Well, let us go together.
-
- [Exeunt.]
-