Compelling passages, notable quotables, bon mots, disjecta, ephemera, and miscellany.

Via

MARTIUS [aka CORIOLANUS]

He that will give good words to thee will flatter

Beneath abhorring. What would you have, you curs

That like nor peace nor war? The one affrights you,

The other makes you proud. He that trusts to you,

Where he should find you lions finds hares,

Where foxes, geese. You are no surer, no,

Than is the coal of fire upon the ice,

Or hailstone in the sun. Your virtue is

To make him worthy whose offence subdues him,

And curse that justice did it. Who deserves greatness

Deserves your hate, and your affections are

A sick man’s appetite, who desires most that

Which would increase his evil. He that depends

Upon your favors swims with fins of lead,

And hews down oaks with rushes. Hang ye! Trust ye?

With every minute you change a mind,

And call him noble that was now your hate,

Him vile that was your garland. What’s the matter,

That in these several places of the city

You cry against the noble senate, who,

Under the gods, keep you in awe, which else

Would feed on one another?

[…]

MARTIUS

Five tribunes to defend their vulgar wisdoms,

Of their own choice. One’s Junius Brutus,

Sicinius Velutus, and I know not. ’Sdeath,

The rabble should have first unroofed the city

Ere so prevailed with me! It will in time

Win upon power and throw forth greater themes

For insurrection’s arguing.

MENENIUS

This is strange.

MARTIUS (to the Citizens)

Go get you home, you fragments.

– The Tragedy of Coriolanus (1608), by William Shakespeare