William Shakespeare: The Tragedy of Coriolanus

ACT IV. 5. SCENE V. Antium. A hall in AUFIDIUS'S house. (continued)

THIRD SERVANT.
Why, here's he that was wont to thwack our general,--Caius
Marcius.

FIRST SERVANT.
Why do you say, thwack our general?

THIRD SERVANT.
I do not say thwack our general; but he was always good enough
for him.

SECOND SERVANT.
Come, we are fellows and friends: he was ever too hard for him; I
have heard him say so himself.

FIRST SERVANT.
He was too hard for him directly, to say the troth on't; before
Corioli he scotched him and notched him like a carbonado.

SECOND SERVANT.
An he had been cannibally given, he might have broiled and eaten
him too.

FIRST SERVANT.
But more of thy news?

THIRD SERVANT.
Why, he is so made on here within as if he were son and heir to
Mars; set at upper end o' the table: no question asked him by any
of the senators but they stand bald before him: our general
himself makes a mistress of him, sanctifies himself with's hand,
and turns up the white o' the eye to his discourse. But the
bottom of the news is, our general is cut i' the middle, and but
one half of what he was yesterday; for the other has half, by the
entreaty and grant of the whole table. He'll go, he says, and
sowl the porter of Rome gates by the ears; he will mow all down
before him, and leave his passage polled.

SECOND SERVANT.
And he's as like to do't as any man I can imagine.

THIRD SERVANT.
Do't! he will do't; for look you, sir, he has as many friends as
enemies; which friends, sir, as it were, durst not, look you,
sir, show themselves, as we term it, his friends, whilst he's in
dejectitude.

FIRST SERVANT.
Dejectitude! what's that?

THIRD SERVANT.
But when they shall see, sir, his crest up again, and the man in
blood, they will out of their burrows, like conies after rain,
and revel all with him.