Act 3 - Scene 2

A room in CORIOLANUS'S house.

Enter CORIOLANUS with Patricians

CORIOLANUS

Let them puff all about mine ears, present me
Death on the wheel or at wild horses' heels,
Or pile ten hills on the Tarpeian rock,
That the precipitation might down stretch
Below the beam of sight, yet will I still
Be thus to them.

A Patrician

You do the nobler.

CORIOLANUS

I muse my mother
Does not approve me further, who was wont
To call them woollen vassals, things created
To buy and sell with groats, to show bare heads
In congregations, to yawn, be still and wonder,
When one but of my ordinance stood up
To speak of peace or war.

Enter VOLUMNIA

I talk of you:
Why did you wish me milder? would you have me
False to my nature? Rather say I play
The man I am.

VOLUMNIA

O, sir, sir, sir,
I would have had you put your power well on,
Before you had worn it out.

CORIOLANUS

Let go.

VOLUMNIA

You might have been enough the man you are,
With striving less to be so; lesser had been
The thwartings of your dispositions, if
You had not show'd them how ye were disposed
Ere they lack'd power to cross you.

CORIOLANUS

Let them hang.

A Patrician

Ay, and burn too.

Enter MENENIUS and Senators

MENENIUS

Come, come, you have been too rough, something
too rough;
You must return and mend it.

First Senator

There's no remedy;
Unless, by not so doing, our good city
Cleave in the midst, and perish.