(If I should tell thee o'er this thy day's work, thou'ldst not believe thy deeds.But I'll report it where senators shall mingle tears with smiles. And where the dull tribunes, that hate thine honours, shall say against their hearts: We thank the gods our Rome hath such a soldier!)
Pray now, no more!
My mother, who has a charter to extol her blood, when she dose praise me grieves me.
I have done as you have done. That's what I can, induced as you have been, that's for my country.
He that has but effected his good will hath overtaken mine act.
(You shall not be the grave of your deserving. Rome must know the value of her own.)
I do beseech you, before our army hear me. I have some wounds upon me, and they smart to hear themselves remembered.
(Should they not, well might they fester 'gainst ingratitude, and cure themselves with death. Of all the horses, whereof we have taken good, and good store. Of all the treasure in this field achieved and city, we render you the tenth. )
I thank you, general, but I cannot make my heart consent to take a bribe to pay my sword. I do refuse it, and stand upon my common part with those that have beheld the doing.
May these same instruments, which you profane, never sound more. No more, I say!
For that I have washed my nose that bled, nor foiled some feeble wretch which without note here's many else have done, you shout me forth in acclamations hyperbolical.
(If against youself you be incensed we'll put you, like one that means to harm himself, in manacles, then reason safely with you. Therefore be it known, as to us, to all the world, that Caius Martius wears this war's garland. And from this time forth, for what he did before Corioles, call him, with all the applause and clamour od the host:
Caius Martius Coriolanus! )
I will go wash. And when my face is fair, you shall perceive whether I blush or no.
Howbeit, I thank you.
(So, to our tent.)
Now the gods begin to mock me. I, that now refused most princely gifts, am bound to beg of my lord general.
(Take it, 'tis yours. What is it?)
I sometime lay here in Corioles at a poor man's house. He used me kindly. He cried to me, I saw him taken prisoner. But then Aufidius was within my view, and wrath overwhelmed my pity. I request you to give my poor host freedom.
(O, well begged. Were he the butcher of my son, he should be free as is the wind.)
(Martius, his name?)
By Jupiter, forgot.
I am weary. Yea, my memory is tired. Have we no wine here?
(Go we to our tent.
The blood upon your visage dries,
'tis time it should be looked to.
Come.)