SCENE III.
A Highway between Rome and Antium.
Enter a Roman and a Volce, meeting.
Rom.
I know you well, sir, and you know me:
your name, I think, is Adrian.
Vol.
It is so, sir: truly, I have forgot you.
Rom.
I am a Roman; and my services are, as
you are, against them: Know you me yet?
Vol.
Nicanor? No.
Rom.
The same, sir.
Vol.
You had more beard, when I last saw you;
but your favour is well appeared by your tongue2 note
.
-- 158 --
What's the news in Rome? I have a note from the
Volcian state, to find you out there: you have well
saved me a day's journey.
Rom.
There hath been in Rome strange insurrection:
the people against the senators, patricians,
and nobles.
Vol.
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.
Rom.
The main blaze of it is past, but a small
thing would make it flame again. For the nobles
receive 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.
Vol.
Coriolanus banished?
-- 159 --
Rom.
Banished, sir.
Vol.
You will be welcome with this intelligence,
Nicanor.
Rom.
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.
Vol.
He cannot choose. I am most fortunate,
thus accidentally to encounter you: You have ended
my business, and I will merrily accompany you
home.
Rom.
I shall, between this and supper, tell you
most strange things from Rome; all tending to the
good of their adversaries. Have you an army ready,
say you?
Vol.
A most royal one: the centurions, and
their charges, distinctly billeted, already in the entertainment3 note
,
and to be on foot at an hour's warning.
Rom.
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.
Vol.
You take my part from me, sir; I have the
most cause to be glad of yours.
Rom.
Well, let us go together.
[Exeunt.
-- 160 --
James Boswell [1821], The plays and poems of William Shakspeare, with the corrections and illustrations of various commentators: comprehending A Life of the Poet, and an enlarged history of the stage, by the late Edmond Malone. With a new glossarial index (J. Deighton and Sons, Cambridge) [word count] [S10201].
